Hobbes

[BattleOfTheCowshed]

So I am currently reading 'Leviathan' by Thomas Hobbes. I was wondering what everyone's opinion on this book and on Hobbes' philosophy in general was. Any good sources for a Marxist analysis of Hobbes?

[James]

Read most of it last year.
I thought his idea that people submit to a state for protection/self preservation credible. Especially when you consider the context. He was, after all, writing during the civil war.

I think the idea applies in general to situations of danger: people will often ally themselves with those with power if they feel it will help preserve their life. This does not nesecarily mean the state though. It may for example be simply those who have power. A local strong man/group.
I would suggest that an example of this would be the state of the English Scotish border during the middleages, up untill the reign of James VI(scot)/I(eng).


Why people submit to government was the general idea that we were playing around with. I know he makes far more arguments (i do remember reading about why and how he thinks the state needs to be a leviathan), but my reading was restricted basically to the "why".

[Solace]

What is central in Hobbes' analysis is that individuals came together to translate their fear of each otehr into a common fear of the state by their own accord.

The resulting state makes the laws, which are the direct manifestation of its power. For Hobbes, men is free where they are no laws and there are no laws where the STate made none.

I tend to think of the "manifestation" of power as much more subtle and in the everyday life. The state would then be the dynamic outcome of the relations of power that are diffused across society. I don't know if this makes much sense.

Regardless, I think that Hobbesian analysis of the State and Power no longer descrbie how both works.

[dopediana]

hobbes is basically awful. did you ever have to play that little game in high school where the teacher asked you if you and someone else committed a crime and were arrested, placed in separate cells, and offered a deal (often known as the prisoners' dilemma) where if you rat, you get off scot free as long as your partner keeps quiet and would get 10 years and vice versa, if you both ratted on eachother you'd each get 8 and if you both kept quiet you'd each get 2 years? that's hobbesian. his idea of ethical egoism basically says that rational people living together in the state of nature cannot coexist because ethical egoism entails doing only what's right by you because anyone else with the same philosophy will try to take advantage of you.
hobbes' idea of the state of nature entails that humans are solitary and lonely and prone to being vicious. he lived during the english civil war and wrote the leviathan while in france cos folks in england wanted to kill him (and rightfully so). he was very fearful of the chaos and decided that there ought to be one absolute power to regulate a group of people. power can be delegated but not distributed. according to hobbes, nobody can be trusted. the leviathan is a whole bunch of pages of nothing.

[Monty Cantsin]

Personally I like Hobbs because he was one of the first major philosophers to give a naturalistic explanation of society and politics since the invention of divine right and the hegemony of judo-Christian ideas, notable exception being Machiavelli.

Not that I agree with him on his actually content his methodology was progressive for the time.

[Guerrilla22]

His ideas are pretty dangerous, he states that religion should be used a tool by the sovereign to control the masses, as well as that power should rest within one person and not to question the authority of your ruler.

Also his concept of what the state of nature is bullshit.

[Vanguard1917]

Any good sources for a Marxist analysis of Hobbes?

Check out CB Macpherson. He's written a lot about Hobbes.

This is a very good book by Macpherson: The political theory of possessive individualism: Hobbes to Locke.

He's also written a good introduction for the Penguin Classics edition of Leviathan.

[Hegemonicretribution]

I am not a fan of Hobbes. In an A Level politics class (eventually I left) Hobbes' quote regarding the state of nature was all that was allowed to be discussed on anarchy. The discussion being the 5 or so other members of the class nodding or looking glazed over, and me having objections ignored.

In terms of agreement with his conclusions, I don't think I do. Although I see him as important in a philosophical sense, as Monty explained.

I would recommend reading the "Social Contract" by Rousseau if you found anything in that. Although there is much intermittent philosophy that developed in various ways in between.

[Guerrilla22]

I am not a fan of contract theory in general, but I think its important to read the likes of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau to see where different types of modern philosphical and political thought came from.

[BattleOfTheCowshed]

I'm writing up a paper and have a question. Does Hobbes ever state the reasons for which the rule of a Sovereign might become illegitimate? I know in Chapter 21 he states four reasons for which a subject no longer must obey the Sovereign, but is this really illegitimacy? DOES the sovereign ever become illegitimate?

http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext02/lvthn10.txt

Any help would be more than welcome!