Rating: 
Summary: The essential problem of cooperation
Review: The basic question of the social sciences is how humans manage to get along. Without cooperation, there would be no such thing as society (and so no social sciences, philosophy, history, etc.). Hobbes was the first political theorist to tackle this question.
While Hobbes is long-winded in parts, and his spelling and grammar not consistent with modern standards, this book is still worth reading. Alfred North Whitehead quipped that the entire history of western political philosophy consists of footnotes to Plato. I respectfully differ, as I believe Plato is now studied purely for historical interest (nobody takes seriously his ideal of a 3 class society led by philosopher kings). Hobbes, however, is the root from which all subsequent western political philosophy has sprung. Locke's Treatises were a direct response to Hobbes, and helped solidify the social contract tradition. Nowadays, nearly all western political theorists either accept social contract theory, or at least have to discuss it in-depth in order to show why they reject it.
Hobbes examines the fundamental issue of "how do humans manage to get along peacefully?" In an age of terrorism, serial killers and vicious divorce battles, it's still a good question. Obviously humans do get along together most of the time, but that doesn't make it obvious why or how we do.
You don't have to accept Hobbes's ideas to get a lot out of this book. His stark contrast in describing the alternatives available to humans is unparalleled. While evolutionary theory has gone a long way toward scientifically explaining some types of cooperation, it still hasn't fully explained how strangers in a large society manage to cooperate when, in strictly rational terms, it would be advantageous to screw each other over. So if Hobbes didn't satisfactorily answer the question either, he at least made a very compelling argument.
Rating: 
Summary: Leviathan: The Umbrella Against Fear
Review: To understand Hobbes' LEVIATHAN, the reader must first focus on 'fear.' His contemporaries were terrified of chaos and anarchy and would move heaven and earth to preserve the continuity of the state. Nowhere does he mention the word 'fear' but his real, if underlying purpose becomes clear enough as the reader plows through his dense tract that has as its purported goal to explain the origin of political institutions and to define their powers and proper limits. Hobbes sets up this thesis by first insisting that all of men's ideas originate from sense impressions, which take their cue from the external universe infringing on these sense organs. This emphasis on sense impression led Hobbes next to consider how the external universe manages this neat trick. Motion, according to Hobbes, is the key. Motion naturally leads man, for good or ill, to impact on other men. This impacting may be beneficial, as in man agreeing to help one another respect their respective rights, or it may be harmful, as in man being in a state or war. It was this fear that humanity might start to question the wisdom of the ruling nobility that caused Hobbes to write the longest defense of the royal right of kings ever written. Hobbes cleverly compared man to a wind-up clock: 'That great Leviathan is but an artificial man with an artificial soul.' As the reader follows this geometric logic, he is pressured to accept Hobbes' true premise: that it is better for the common man to put up with the occasional despot than to risk what he terms the horror of 'that condition which is called Warre, and such a warre as is of every man, against every man.'
Even if that regime becomes so thuggish that its citizens wish to break it, Hobbes says 'No way.' If these citizens do break this covenant, then Hobbes warns that their lives will be 'solitary, nasty, brutish, and short.' Clearly Hobbes was a man of his times, one who was a paid shill of the crowned heads of Europe. Such a man today we would label as a fearful toady who desperately needs to maintain his own precarious hold on power. So why is LEVIATHAN still read today? Perhaps Hobbes points out the road that humanity might have once chosen to travel. We, like Robert Frost, have thankfully chosen the other less travelled by.
Rating:
Summary: Leviathan: The Umbrella Against Fear
Review: To understand Hobbes' LEVIATHAN, the reader must first focus on 'fear.' His contemporaries were terrified of chaos and anarchy and would move heaven and earth to preserve the continuity of the state. Nowhere does he mention the word 'fear' but his real, if underlying purpose becomes clear enough as the reader plows through his dense tract that has as its purported goal to explain the origin of political institutions and to define their powers and proper limits. Hobbes sets up this thesis by first insisting that all of men's ideas originate from sense impressions, which take their cue from the external universe infringing on these sense organs. This emphasis on sense impression led Hobbes next to consider how the external universe manages this neat trick. Motion, according to Hobbes, is the key. Motion naturally leads man, for good or ill, to impact on other men. This impacting may be beneficial, as in man agreeing to help one another respect their respective rights, or it may be harmful, as in man being in a state or war. It was this fear that humanity might start to question the wisdom of the ruling nobility that caused Hobbes to write the longest defense of the royal right of kings ever written. Hobbes cleverly compared man to a wind-up clock: 'That great Leviathan is but an artificial man with an artificial soul.' As the reader follows this geometric logic, he is pressured to accept Hobbes' true premise: that it is better for the common man to put up with the occasional despot than to risk what he terms the horror of 'that condition which is called Warre, and such a warre as is of every man, against every man.'
Even if that regime becomes so thuggish that its citizens wish to break it, Hobbes says 'No way.' If these citizens do break this covenant, then Hobbes warns that their lives will be 'solitary, nasty, brutish, and short.' Clearly Hobbes was a man of his times, one who was a paid shill of the crowned heads of Europe. Such a man today we would label as a fearful toady who desperately needs to maintain his own precarious hold on power. So why is LEVIATHAN still read today? Perhaps Hobbes points out the road that humanity might have once chosen to travel. We, like Robert Frost, have thankfully chosen the other less travelled by.
Rating:
Summary: historical perspective
Review: today it seems hard to appreciate Leviathan, except for the scope of its subject and its meticulous and daring prose.democracy as an unquestionable ideal is deeply ingrained in the minds of most readers of the twentieth century.Because of the genocide conducted by the nazis and the excesses of the soviet empire, Hobbes' determined support for absolute and arbitrary authority has lots its appeal. Yet, we owe much to Hobbes in historical perspective.Before his head was severed from his body, Charles Stuart in his last prayer said: "Though my destroyers forget their duty to Thee and me, yet do not Thou, O Lord, forget to be merciful to them." Until Leviathan, political authority came from god.Divine right engendered the authority of kings. Although Hobbes favored absolute authority, he took the right to decide who rules from god and gave it to men.The study of politics, through him, separated from theology.Leviathan was the manifestation of an epochal transformation in thought that opened new horizons for later theoreticians.
Rating:
Summary: Political Geometry from Bacon's favorite secretary
Review: Tommy Hobbes was Francis Bacon's favorite secretary, and it shows in the math-like precision with which he attempts to build a model of human political interaction -- one that justifies the need for a strong state to hold human "appetites" in check. Hobbes' argument reads like a geometrical proof, which goes something like: We take it as a given that people, like Galilean celestial bodies, are in perpetual motion, moved by appetites for power. The power of a person is his or her present means to obtain some future good. Every person's power resists and hinders the effects of other people's power. Thus, if all people are created equal in a hypothetical state of nature, then: 1. From equality proceeds mutual fear.
2. From mutual fear proceeds warfare.
3. In such warfare, nothing is unjust.
4. But reason suggests a better way to self-preservation (to peace): the right and laws of nature.
5. The right of nature is the liberty we have to use our power for self-preservation.
6. The 1st law of nature is that we ought to strive for peace, but when we cannot obtain it then it's war.
7. The 2nd law of nature is that in the interests of peace we will lay down our natural right to give us as much liberty as we would allow others to have against us (the golden rule).
8. This mutual laying down of our natural right is a social contract.
9. There must be a coercive power (the commonwealth) to enforce this contract.
10. The commonwealth is ruled by a sovereign who embodies the will of the people and is granted certain inalienable rights to enforce the social contract. In short, those who fear authority (anarchists, libertarians, etc.) will revile Hobbes, because of power's potential for abuse, but Hobbes would argue that a true Leviathan could never abuse its subjects because it is actually made up of those same subjects (in other words, a roundabout defense of liberal democracy).
Rating:
Summary: Hobbes was the Maciavelli of his time
Review: When this book was first published in England, it is said, it was being burned in the streets. What inflamed peoples passion so, in this seventeenth century book? It was governement and religion, of course. Hobbes, who was a private tutor for a wealthy family for most of his career (until he fled the country, that is), picks apart both the why-to of government and its use of manipulations, and the nature of humanity and the mechanisms, he proponents, whereby it operates. And that is just the first hundred pages in this volume. It seems Hobbes intent was to refute the conscience, and instead say that everything was an opinion of the person wishing to act ever which way. This would be false however, because Hobbes himself is an exception to his rule for he has set himself up in the role of The Great Observer, or God. In any which way, it was an interesting read and I recommend it for those who are looking for Order within the chaos. I also recommmend in relation to this book is Joseph Butler's book Five Sermons, edited by Stephen Darwall, which stands as a refutation of some of Hobbes ideas and was written in the very ealry 1700s.
Rating:
Summary: A true pioneer
Review: While most readers pay a great deal of attention to Hobbes' political theory in this work, they fail to realize that the early half contains some of the most ground breaking and revolutionizing treatment of philosophy ever written. In a philosophical atmosphere dominated by Cartesian metaphysics and epistemology, Hobbes' emphasis on the way we use language, rather than "clear and distinct ideas" is simply mind blowing. Hobbes, like Descartes, was interested in laying some "extra-scientific" foundation for the new sciences of Newton and Gallileo. Whereas Descartes seems to have found such a foundation in his relation to God, Hobbes saw it in language. In this sense, it anticipated "The Elimination of Metaphysics through the Logical Analysis of Language" by 4 long centuries. Hobbes' fascinating account of what constitutes "truth" and answers to traditional philosophical problems that apply his theories on language are astounding. While Hobbes' political theory is wrought with the very ambiguities he sought to destroy in philosophical and scientific discourse (e.g. what concretely constitutes the "leviathan" and the "soveriegn"), the ties between language and political theory stayed unexamined for a number of decades, if not centuries. Hobbes' highly original and innovative thought are an inspiration to us all.
Rating: 
Summary: Foolish
Review: While to many this book may seem strange and lacking optimism it is possibly a foundation for the more mob oriented governments, such as communism and democracy (in the sense that it provides equality for all save the ruler, who gets ultimate power). However, as with other books such as Plato's Republic, we are ultimately dealing with undercrediting human beings for their complexity. It seems that Hobbes is only able to see humans capable of being evil, brutish, and short, while not considering many, many, many other qualities a human can take on. I cannot blame Hobbes for being appaled at the sight of the war he fought, but this is only one face of human kind- a violent expression of the will to power if you will. Besides, if humans are so corrupt what guarantees that the people under the supreme ruler will not ultimately destroy the ruler with their brutishness? Above all, if all men are evil brutish and short how is it ever possible to find a ruler that may take over the people?
I cannot however discredit Hobbes for his influence on the more correct philosphers, such as Nietzsche (remember the Ubermensch?) and fortification against anarchists. We could have, however, done with out his obvious influence on nihilism, though it is not his fault forbeing misread.
A note on the edition: as always I was satisfied with the quality of Penguin Classics in introducing the text and the annotations. I give the edition 5 stars; but the content of Hobbes's philosphy deserved just 1.
|
