Politics
1588 to 1679, England
The Leviathan and the case for absolute sovereignty.
Start learning Thomas →Hobbes’s thought experiment: strip away government entirely, and human life becomes a terror of every man against every man.
Hobbes’s solution to the war of all against all: a covenant in which everyone surrenders their natural freedom to a common power, in exchange for peace.
Why Hobbes insisted the sovereign’s power must be absolute and undivided - a Leviathan strong enough that no one dares break the peace.
At the root of Hobbes’s whole system lies one inalienable right - to defend your own life - which even the absolute sovereign cannot take away.
Hobbes’s radical foundation: that everything - bodies, thoughts, desires, the state itself - is just matter in motion, to be studied with the rigour of geometry.
More in Politics
John LockeJean Jacques RousseauJohn Stuart MillNiccolo MachiavelliCiceroMahatma GandhiSun TzuMontesquieuepoché — a humanities education that remembers you.