Thomas Hobbes (April 5th 1588 with Westport, England - December 4th 1679 with Hardwick Hall in the Derbyshire in England) is a Philosophe materialist - nominalist English. Its major work, the Léviathan , had a considerable influence on modern political philosophy from its conceptualization of the anarchistic State of nature and of the social Contract which founds the bases of the civil society. Paradoxically, the Léviathan had a considerable influence on the emergence of the Libéralisme and the liberal economic thinking of the XXe century - in particular the Game theory, the concept of the Dilemme of the prisoner being often allotted to Hobbes on a purely posthumous basis. The range of the work of Hobbes and its conceptualization of the State d' Anarchie also had an influence on the study of the International relations and its rationalist current dominating: the realism.

Biography

First years

Thomas Hobbes tells that his/her mother was confined before term under the shock of the news of the equipment of the Invincible Armada. His/her father was Vicaire of Charlton and Westport; it was forced to leave the city, giving up his three children with the care of an older brother, Francis.

Hobbes receives the teaching of the church of Westport as of the four years age and enters then to the school of Malmesbury, then in a private school held by an young man, Robert Latimer. Hobbes shows a remarkable intellectual precocity: at the six years age, he learns the Latin and the Greek , and into fourteen years, he translates into Latin Médée of Euripide. He enters in Magdalen Hall (Oxford) in 1605, where he takes the university life in aversion. The main thing of Magdalen is then John Wilkinson, a puritan aggressive which will have a certain influence on Hobbes.

Years of training

With the University, Hobbes seems to have followed its personal program of studies; it “was attracted little by the study Scolastique”. He concludes his studies and obtains the degree of Bachelor off Arts in 1608. Then, he becomes tutor of the oldest son of William Cavendish, baron de Hardwick and future Count de Devonshire. It is charged to travel on the continent with its pupil; he traverses thus the France, the Italy, the Germany in 1610, year of the assassination of Henri IV of France. Of return in England, it studies beautiful letters, reading and translating Thucydide, its preferred historian. Its translation appears in 1628, year when dies its pupil and friend.

It becomes shortly after again dolly tutor (which one can translate into French by “itinerant tutor”) of the son of the count de Clifton and turns over on the continent. It spends eighteen months to Paris, and goes to Venice. Of return in England in 1631, it is seen entrusting the young count de Cavendish. It is about this time (1629 - 1631) that he discovers Euclide and is caught passion for the Géométrie. Three years later, Hobbes and its pupil visit France and Italy and remain eight month in Paris, until the autumn 1637.

It is then put in connection with the father Mersenne, who opens to him the doors of the learned society of Paris and incites it to publish its works of Psychologie and Physique. It describes in an autobiography its state of ceaseless meditation, “in boat, the car, with horse”, and it is indeed at this time of its life that it conceives the principle of its physics, the movement, only generating reality of the natural things. This principle appears soon able to him to found the Psychologie, the Morale and the Politique.

Disorders and falls of Charles 1st

From 1640, England knows an increasingly violent opposition between the King and the Parliament. Hobbes takes party for the King, it leaves London in 1640 for Paris and it remains there in exile during 11 years. Towards 1642, it writes a small treaty, Éléments of the natural law and political , in reaction to the events which disturb the political life, treaty written in English where it endeavors to show that “the power and the right are related to Sovereignty by an inseparable connection. ” The book is not published, but copies circulate and make known Hobbes.

Towards this time, Rene Descartes, then in Holland, load Mersenne to communicate the Meditations on philosophy first to collect comments of the best spirits. Learning the presence from Hobbes to Paris, Mersenne is addressed to him, and Hobbes writes the Third Objections , which are an invaluable testimony for the study of its Philosophie first. Its objections are transmitted anonymously to Descartes in January 1641. After other objections of Hobbes, against the Dioptric this time, transmitted by signed letters, Descartes ends up refusing to have still business with “this English”.

After this episode, Hobbes resumes its work and publishes in 1642 De Cive , where he explains why the solution with the civil wars which shake England consists in making religious capacity a function of the Gouvernement. It will publish an increased edition of this work in 1647, at the moment when it finishes its treaty need and liberté'.

In 1647, whereas it envisages to be withdrawn in the South of France, it is named professor of mathematics of the young prince de Galles (the future Charles II ) which is taken refuge in France. He exerts these functions until the departure of the prince for Holland, in 1648. In 1650, are published against its liking and separately, the two parts of the “Elements off law natural and politic”: Human nature or Basic elements of the policy , and the Of corpore politico . The following year, it regains finally England and makes appear in London its philosopher's stone: Léviathan , which causes the scandal. He is shown of Athéisme and disloyalty and meets many adversaries (theologists and academics of Oxford, all members of Royal Society) which league against him. He supports several arguments thus, for example with the bishop John Bramhall, or with the academics of Oxford (defendants extremely wrongfully of ignorance by Hobbes) from which for example the Relative questions will leave to freedom, with the need and randomly (1666). During more than one quarter century, there were thus attacks, counterparts, in Physique with Robert Boyle on the vacuum, in the field of the Mathématiques, with John Wallis on the arithmetic one and the infinite one, where it appears that Hobbes over-estimated much its discoveries. These mathematical hugenesses are thus considered to be laughable or pitiful. Nevertheless, it does not give up, publishes in 1655 the De Corpore , first part of the “Elements of Philosophy” which contain its philosophy first, its logic, its very discussed physics and demonstration of the quadrature of the circle. In 1658 the Of homine , third part of its trilogy, where optics occupies a certain place, and it persists in the publication of its mathematical discoveries ( Quadrature of the circle, cubature of the sphere, duplication of the cube , 1669) which are refuted by its adversaries, in particular by John Wallis. It must be also defended against the rumors according to which it would have written the Léviathan to gain the favor of Cromwell.

Restoration

After the recall of Charles II, Hobbes is accommodated at the court and becomes the familiar one of the king. It receives a pension of one hundred books. But this favorable fortune is not long life. In the entourage of the king, Hobbes counts many enemies, and among them of the bishops who undertake to refute the corrupter of the Morale.

The January 31st 1667, little time after the fire of London, a Loi is voted with the House of Commons, making it possible to take measures against the atheists and the sacrileges; it is mentioned there the Léviathan . The slowness of the procedures saves Hobbes, which prepares a plea, published with the Latin translation of the Léviathan in 1668. But it has especially powerful guards, and the king supports it in the condition which it does not publish any more books of Politique or of Religion.

He composes Béhémoth in 1670, then a dialog and a ecclesiastical Histoire , and, in 1672, an autobiography in Latin distiches. As from 1675, it spends its last days out of London, in his family friends Devonshire. In August 1679, it still prepares a work for the impression; but, in October, the paralysis prevents some, and the December 4th, it dies in Hardwick.

On a black marble plate, one can read:

“to vir probus and fama eruditionis domi forisque bucket cognitus. ”

According to an anecdote, Hobbes itself would have proposed to engrave on its tomb:

“Here genuine philosopher stone. ”

The controversy with Descartes

The controversy with Descartes carries on the Méditations on philosophy first . Thomas Hobbes sends to Descartes his objections via Mersenne which by prudence preserves its anonymity and is satisfied to mention " philosopher anglais". Descartes is not easily deceived and will explicitly require of Mersenne not to have any more a contact with Hobbes which he suspects of plagiarism.

Fundamental concepts of Hobbes

In the second section of the Of corpore , Hobbes makes the assumption that the Univers is destroyed, but that the Homme remains; on what this man will be able to philosophize?

“I say that with this man there will remain world and of all the bodies which its eyes had considered before or which had perceived its other directions, the ideas, i.e. the memory and the imagination of their sizes, movements, sounds, colors, etc all things which, although being only ideas and phantoms, internal accidents in that one which imagines, will not seem less external about it and like independent of the capacity of the spirit. ”

Thus, all qualities of the things which are offered to our direction are emotional states inherent in the prone . There would be nothing absurdity, according to Hobbes, so that a man once tests these affections the world disappeared, after his destruction by God. In this Fiction, the spirit acts only on Image S, and it is with them that it gives names. But, notices Hobbes, it is as well what occurs when the world exists:

“That we calculate the sizes of the sky or the ground, or their movements, we do not go up in the sky, in order to divide it into parts and to measure its movements; that, we make it quite quiet in our cabinet or the darkness. ”

These images which form the exclusive Objet our Pensée S, can be considered from two points of view: they are internal accidents of the Esprit or they are the species of the external things as them appear to exist. The first point of view relates to the Psychologie and faculties of the heart; second is objective, since these images of our Imagination compose the world.

Psychology

For Hobbes, psychology is the study of the propagation of material movements which act on the nervous physiological devices and produce the reactions and the attitudes.

Morals

“The interest and fear are the principles of the company and all morals consists in living according to our good pleasure.” Thomas Hobbes the Treaty of the citizen

Policy

Author of the Léviathan and the Citoyen ( De Cive ), it is one of the first philosophers contractualists who tries refonder the legitimacy of the capacity of the leaders on another thing that the religion or the tradition. According to the theory of the Léviathan , the men are, by nature and in the absence of any coercive capacity, inclined with a " war of each one against chacun". Intolerable character of this " state of nature" , that Hobbes also indicates like a " state of guerre" , pushes the men to draw up between them a civil contract. Under the terms of this last, the force which is common to the men is transferred to a " to be able souverain" whose task is to found and to maintain costs that civil peace costs. From his power, the Sovereign is thus the guarantee that the men will not fall down in the anarchy of the state of nature.

Hobbes is one of the first philosophers to introduce the idea of a state of nature. Hobbes, which lengthily meditated on the Policy of Aristote, is opposed to the tradition aristotelician according to which the man is a naturally social animal. For Hobbes, the man is sociable not by nature, but by accident. The state of nature should not be included/understood like the description of a historical reality, but like a theoretical fiction. There of course never existed, but it is a fertile philosophical assumption, a construction of the spirit which aims at including/understanding what brings to us the social existence. This state represents what would be the man, abstraction made of all political power, and consequently of any law. In this state, the men are controlled by the only instinct of self-preservation - that Hobbes calls " conatus " or desire. However, with the state of nature, the men are equal, which wants to say that they have the same desires, the same rights on all things, and the same means - by trick or alliance - of reaching that point. Each one wishes legitimately what is good for him. Each one tries to be made good and each one is only judge of the means necessary to reach that point. This is why very often the men tend to enter in conflict the ones with the others to obtain what they judge good for them.

The state of nature, it is the state of the " war of all against tous". Hobbes will say (taking again Plaute) that " the man is a wolf for the homme". He works out his political theory and his ethics on a naturalist basis. With the state of nature, the man is stripped of any kindness, like the animals delivered to the " law of the jungle". He reigns there the anarchistic power of the multitude (potentia, in Latin). Endowed with reason, i.e. of faculty to calculate and anticipate, the man envisages the danger, and attacks before being attacked. The weakest man could with trick override most extremely. Each one is thus persuaded to be able to carry it on others and does not hesitate to attack it to take its goods to him. Transitory alliances are tied to override an individual. But hardly the victory it is acquired that the winners league the ones against the others to only profit from the spoils.

This war is so atrocious that humanity is even likely to disappear. With those which would think that this vision of humanity is pessimistic, rétorque Hobbes that even with the social state where however exist laws, a police force, judges, nevertheless we close with key our trunks and our houses of fear of being détroussés. However the state of nature is without law, judge and police force… It is the anguish of died which, resulting from the natural equality, is responsible for the state of war and makes weigh on the life of a whole a permanent threat. This condition, basically bad, does not allow prosperity, the trade, science, arts, the company.

A humanity delivered to itself, without the social order would have ended up disappearing. What will save the man it is its fear of dying and its instinct of self-preservation. The man understands that to remain, there is not an other solution to only leave the state of nature. However, for Hobbes, that does not mean that there did not exist natural right former to the formation of the company. On the contrary, there exists a natural law which is dictated with our conscience: the line reason. The first fundamental choice of nature is that it is necessary to seek peace and to seek the help of the war only if first is impossible to obtain. To arrive there, known as Hobbes, it is necessary to give up some of its rights. It is there that the theory of the contract intervenes. What will make it possible to pass from nature to the company, of the war to peace, it is a contract signed between the subjects and a sovereign.

The expression " the man is a wolf for the homme" is hobbesienne, but does not summarize its thought, the man who can be also God for the man. In addition, the man cannot be an animal in this design, since the man produces the social one. The man and the animal oppose in their report/ratio time (memory and lasted for the man; immediacy for the animal).

Hobbes is still very present today. One can even oppose it to Rousseau in the political conflicts related to the application of democratic sovereignty. He is recognized as being the thinker of an enlightened middle-class of being able; since brought to summarize sometimes the political constraints as follows: to sometimes make the good of the civil society in spite of it. If the man encased in the constraints of the common destinies has suddenly protested against those which order them; it will be necessary to consider admissibility of its imperative objections to the glance having them to lead to the development of the company each day renewed.

Works

1. Complete works

Thomas Hobbes Opera philosophica quae Latin scripsit , 5. Vol., edition. Molesworth, London, 1939-1845, reprinting, Aalen, 1966.

The English Works off Thomas Hobbes , 11 vol., edition W. Molesworth, London, 1939-1945, Aalen reprinting, 1966.

2. Texts and translations

  • has shorts leaflet one First Principles , (1630), British Museum, Harleian ms 6796, FF. 297-308

    • Short treaty of the first principles , texts, translation and comment by J. Bernhardt, Paris, PUF, 1988.
  • Of principiis , (1638-1639), National Library off Wales, Aberystwyth, ms 5297; published by J. Jacquot and H.W. Jones in Appendix II of the Critic of “Mundo” from Thomas White, 449-460; “Of principiis. Notes of Herbert de Cherbury on an old version of Corpore”, translation, introduction and notes per L. Borot, in Philosophy, n°23, be 1989,3-21.
  • The Elements off Law Natural and Politic . (1640), EW IV 1-228
    • Elements of law , translation of Arnaud Milanese, Paris, Combined, 2006,345 p., with bibliographical notes, bibliography and glossary (published with On the life and the history of Thucydide , Court treaty of the first principles and De Corpore at the time of the Elements off law ).
  • Tractatus opticus I, (1640, published in 1644 by Mersenne in its physico-mathematica Cogita), OL V, 217-248.
  • Objectiones AD Cartesii meditationes, Objectiones tertiae , (1641), in Works of Descartes , AT, IX-1, 133-152 and OL V, 249-274.
  • De Cive (1642-1647), edition criticizes per H. Warrender, Latin original and English translation, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1983.
  • Critique of “Mundo” of Thomas White , (1643, introduction, critical text and notes by J. Jacquot and H.W. Jones, Paris, Vrin-CNRS, 1973.
  • Logica, Ex H.T. and Philosophia preceded. Ex T.H . (1644-1645), Chatsworth ms A. 10 , published by J. Jacquot and H.W. Jones in Appendix III of the Critical of “Mundo” of Thomas White , 461-513.
  • Off Liberty and Necessity , (1645, published without the agreement of Hobbes in 1654), EW IV, 229-278; Of freedom and the need, translation and notes by F. Lessay, in Open translated, T. XI-1, Paris, Vrin, 1993,29-118.
  • Natural Human, gold the Fundamental Elements off Policy. Being has off discovery the faculties, acts and passions off the drunk off man, from to their original causes, according to such philosophical principles ace are not commonly known gold asserted (1650)
    • Of the Human nature, or Exposure of faculties, the actions & passions of the heart, & their causes deduced according to philosophical principles which neither are commonly received nor known. (1772) London, translated by the Baron d' Holbach. (1971) Paris, Vrin.
  • De Corpore Politico gold the Elements off Moral Law and Politick, with discouses upon several Heads ace: off the law off natural, off oaths and covenants; off several kinds off government, with the exchanges and revolutions off them. (1650)
  • Léviathan (1651, in English), edition of C.B. Macpherson, Classics Pelican, Penguin Books, 1968,1981; (1668 in Latin), OL III; Leviathan , introduction, translation and notes by F. Tricaud, Paris, Sirey, 1971 or translation of Mr. Pécharman on the basis of that of F. Tricaud to the Vrin editions, “Library of the Philosophical Texts”. 560 p., 13,5 × 21,5 cm. ISBN: 978-2-7116-1744-9
  • De Corpore , (1655), OL I We quote this text according to our translation.
  • The questions concerning Liverty, Necessity and Chance , (1656), EW V 1-455.
  • Six Let us injure to the Professors off the Mathematics (1656), EW VII, 181-356.
  • De Homine (1658), OL II, 1-32; Treaty of the man, translation and comment by TOKEN ENTRY Maurin, Paris, Blanchard, 1974.
  • Examinatio and emendatio mathematicae hodiernae , (1660), OL IV, 1-232.
  • Belemoth, gold the Long Parliament , (1660-1668 published on a purely posthumous basis in 1682), ED. T. Tönnies, re-examined by M.M. Goldsmith, London, F. Case, 1969
    • Béhémoth or the long Parliament , introduction, translation and notes by L. Borot, Works translated, T. IX, Paris, Vrin, 1990.
  • Historia ecclesiastica dyes with carmine elegiaco concinnata (1660, published on a purely posthumous basis in 1688), OL V, 341-408.
  • Dialogus physicus of will natura aeris , (1661), OL V, 341-408.
  • has Dialog between has Philosopher and has Student off the Common Laws off England (1666), critical edition by J. Cropsey, Chicago and London, University off Chicago Press, 1971
    • Dialog between a philosopher and a legist of the common-laws of England , introduction, translation and notes by L. and P. Carrive, translated Œuvres, T.X. Paris, Vrin, 1990.
  • Year Historical Narration concerning Heresy, and the Punishment thereof , (1666), historical EW IV 385-408
    • Relation concerning the heresy and its punishment , introduction, translation and notes by F. Lessay, in translated Heresy and history , Works. T. XII-1, Paris, Vrin, 1993,17-55.
  • An Answer to has Book Published by Dr. Bramhall, late Bishop off Derryn Called the “Catching off the Leviathan” , (1667/8, published on a purely posthumous basis in 1682), EW IV, 279-384.
    • Answer to a book published by Doctor Bramhall, fire bishop of Derry, heading “the capture of Léviathan” , introduction, translation and notes by F. Lessay, in Of freedom and of the need, Works translated, T. XI-1, Paris, Vrin, 1993,121-261.

See too

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