Book Description

Book Description
The scandal that first attracted attention when Leviathan first appeared in 1651 was the book's advocacy of an unequivocal materialism with its implication of atheism. Another controversy surrounded its total rejection of the traditional justification for the exercise of political power, namely, the authority of kingship ordained by a deity. Third, in its apparently self-centered hedonism, it was seen as rejecting all traditional ethical codes. In this collection of contemporary responses to Leviathan, attention is focused on its critics - Hobbes had virtually no defenders - who attacked his moral, political, and religious ideas in a blistering series of pamphlets and short books and, in their criticisms, bring out powerfully the importance and originality of Hobbes's theory. ... Read more

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Edited by William Molesworth. This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1841 edition by John Bohn, London. ... Read more

Book Description
Alfred Edward Taylor (1869-1945), an international authority on Plato, here gives a useful introductory sketch of the life and thought of Hobbes. Constructed from the original texts of Hobbes and his contemporary biographers, as well as the later studies of Croom Robertson, Tönnies and Leslie Stephen, this accessible book also includes a brief account of Hobbes's life. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

POLITHICAL THEORY IS MENTIONED.
WOULD YOU SEND ME SOME INFORMATION ABOUT THIS BOOK

POLITHICAL THEORY IS MENTIONED.
WOULD YOU SEND ME SOME INFORMATION ABOUT THIS BOOK ... Read more

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The English civil wars of the mid-seventeenth century produced two political thinkers of genius: Thomas Hobbes and James Harrington. They are known today as spokesmen of opposite positions, Hobbes of absolutism, Harrington of republicanism. Yet behind their disagreements, argues Arihiro Fukuda, there lay a common perspective. For both writers, the primary aim was the restoration of peace and order to a divided land. Both men saw the conventional thinking of the time as unequal to that task. Their greatest works -- Hobbes's Leviathan of 1651, Harrington's Oceana of 1656 -- proposed the reconstruction of the English polity on novel bases. It was not over the principle of sovereignty that the two men differed. Fukuda shows Harrington to have been, no less than Hobbes, a theorist of absolute sovereignty. But where Hobbes repudiated the mixed governments of classical antiquity, Harrington's study of them convinced him that mixed government, far from being the enemy of absolute sovereignty, was its essential foundation. ... Read more

Product Description
Edited by William Molesworth.This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1839 edition by John Bohn, London. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

Provocative Essay on Language, Conscience, Individuality and Being
This is a short book--three short chapters--that looks at the texts on conscience in Hobbes's Leviathan, Hegel's Phenomenology and Heidegger's Being in Time.In each case, Feldman is interested in the relationship between the textuality of the text and the phenomenon of conscience there invoked/evoked.Her claim is that, in each case, language--and metaphorical language in particular--is essential to the realization of conscience.In Hobbes, the word "conscience," when applied to individual certainty, is seen as a metaphorical misuse of its true sense of "shared witnessing."Feldman looks at Hobbes's critique of this metaphorical use, but also at the ways in which Hobbes himself exploits the power of metaphor in his own writing.In Hegel, the conscientious agent must announce her conscientiousness in order to accomplish her reconciliation with the community, but the very language that brings her into community also slips out of her control and has effects she cannot control.Feldman argues that Hegel here shows the way that language is simultaneously performative and rhetorical, both realizing what it announces, but also setting in motion something the effects of which cannot be controlled.In Heidegger, conscience, like being itself, is a matter of possibility, and thus no actuality can be adequate to it.This means, Feldman argues, that no word or deed can ever be other than a metaphor for concience; Heidegger's own text is an attempt to own up to this necessary non-coincidence between language and that of which it speaks. Feldman's treatments of the three texts are compelling in each case, and her work is provocative and exciting in its suggestions about the interpretation of these texts, about the nature of conscience in general, and about language.I recommend this book to students and scholars of contemporary Continental Philosophy in general, and of Hegel and Heidegger in particular. ... Read more

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The Allegiance of Thomas Hobbes offers a revisionist interpretation of Thomas Hobbes's evolving response to the English Revolution. It rejects the prevailing understanding ofHobbes as a consistent, if idiosyncratic, royalist, and vindicates the contemporaneous view that the publication of Leviathan marked Hobbes's accommodation with England's revolutionary regime. In sustaining these conclusions, Professor Collins foregrounds the religious features of Hobbes's writings, and maintains a contextual focus on the broader religious dynamics of the English Revolution itself.Hobbes and the Revolution are both placed within the tumultuous historical process that saw the emerging English state coercively secure jurisdictional control over national religion and the corporate church.Seen in the light of this history, Thomas Hobbes emerges as a theorist who moved with, rather than against, the revolutionary currents of his age. The strongest claim of the book is that Hobbes was motivated by his deep detestation of clerical power to break with the Stuart cause and to justify the religious policies of England's post-regicidal masters, including Oliver Cromwell. Methodologically, Professor Collins supplements intellectual or linguistic contextual analysis with original research into Hobbes's biography, the prosopography of his associates, the reception of Hobbes's published works, and the nature of the English Revolution as a religious conflict. This multi-dimensional contextual approach produces, among other fruits: a new understanding of the political implications of Leviathan; an original interpretation of Hobbes's civil war history, Behemoth; a clearer picture of Hobbes's career during the neglected period of the 1650s; and a revisionist interpretation of Hobbes's reaction to the emergence of English republicanism. By presenting Thomas Hobbes as a political actor within a precisely defined political context, Professor Collins has recovered the significance of Hobbes's writings as artefacts of the English Revolution. ... Read more

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Leviathan is a vigorous defense of a strong central government that was originally published in 1651, just after the English wars of 1642-49. This presentation explores the social and political turmoil during which Leviathan was written, including an examination of the radical political philosophies spawned by opposition to Stuart monarchy in England. It explains the materialistic foundation of Hobbes’s philosophy and how this influenced his theory of man, society, and government. Special attention is paid to Hobbes’s theory of the “state of nature,” the social contract, and the governmental sovereignty. The right of resistance against unjust laws and the right to liberty of conscience also are discussed.

A comprehensive work, Leviathan discusses many areas of philosophy and religion and is widely acknowledged as a masterpiece of political thought. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Misadvertised Product
This product is misadvertised. When I purchased this audio book, I thought I was purchasing an audio presentation of Leviathan. The product turned out to be a person reading and offering historical commentary with bits of lines from the text thrown in. This audio presentation is misleading and people should be aware that they are not buying an audio reproduction of Leviathan. This product is good to listen to as a supplemental piece to reading Leviathan. Shame on the company for misrepresentating this product. Amazon should clarify its contents. ... Read more

Book Description

Book Description
Thomas Hobbes is widely acknowledged to be the most important political philosopher to have written in English. Taming the Leviathan is a wide-ranging study of the English reception of Hobbes's political and religious ideas. In the first book-length treatment of the topic for over forty years, Jon Parkin follows the fate of Hobbes's texts (particularly Leviathan) and the development of his controversial reputation during the seventeenth century, revealing the stakes in the critical discussion of the philosopher and his ideas. Revising the traditional view that Hobbes was simply rejected by his contemporaries, Parkin demonstrates that Hobbes's work was too useful for them to ignore, but too radical to leave unchallenged. His texts therefore had to be controlled, their lessons absorbed and their author discredited. In other words the Leviathan had to be tamed. Taming the Leviathan significantly revises our understanding of the role of Hobbes and Hobbism in seventeenth-century England. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The First Modern Political Philosopher
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) wrote "Leviathan" in 1651, it was his most important philosophical work.I think you should know something of Hobbes to understand how his thinking was influenced by his experiences.He was born 2 months prematurely on the day the Spanish Armada approaches the English coast.His mother's fear of invasion caused the premature birth.Hobbes remarked late in life, "his mother brought forth twins-myself and fear."Fear seems to be Hobbes life long companion and the key passion in his political system, which uses human passions as its foundation.He was a child prodigy reading Latin and Greek at the age of six years old.At fifteen, he entered Oxford University and hated his educational experience there.He thought the curriculum was too immersed in the ancient Greek philosophers like Aristotle.He called them "erroneous doctrines," and throughout his life he railed against English universities for there stodgy curriculum.

At the age of 22, he graduates and takes a job to tutor the son of the Earl of Devonshire.It gives him the opportunity to travel throughout Europe where he meets with Galileo in Florence and Descartes in Paris.Descartes calls Hobbes the greatest political philosopher of his day.During the British civil war, Hobbes flees to Paris because he is a well-known monarchist sympathizer.In 1651, he publishes his monumental work "Leviathan."He returns to England, submits to Cromwell's government, and withdraws from politics.He is on friendly terms with Charles II when the Stuart's are restored to the throne.

Hobbes philosophy is "materialistic"; he is greatly influenced by Galileo's mechanistic approach to science, and Euclidian geometry.His ambition was to explain all phenomena, man, and government with mathematical precision.In "Leviathan," he explains human conduct is a product of human passions.The most dominant passions are fear of violent death and desire for power, both are manifestations of man's most basic impulse, "self preservation."Hobbes asserts that the basic impulse is the right of the individual; he calls it a "natural right."All men process this natural right equally.This theory leads Hobbes to believe man's natural state to be one of constant conflict with each other.This leads him to write the following quote he is most known for: "men's lives are solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."So as not to have to live in constant state of fear or conflict, men make a contract for protection with the state.Hobbes believes that the best state is one led by a single sovereign whose power must be unrestricted with all three branches of government devolving to him.A single sovereign who has absolute power and cannot be replaced by the people.

His political writing had immediate influence in the world and influences other philosophers like Spinoza, Hutcheson, Locke, and Hume.Hobbes is the first man to write about political philosophy in such methodical terms.He is an excellent writer and his theories are easy to understand by the laymen.As a graduate student of political philosophy, I recommend if you have an interest in politics, philosophy, or government then you must start with reading Hobbes "Leviathan."
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Book Description
This book discusses some of those ethical and political questions that puzzled several of the great minds of the twentieth century, such as Leo Strauss, Eric Voegelin, Jacques Maritain, and John Finnis: the question of natural law and its relationship to a teaching of individual freedom and rights.

The main aim of the book is to interpret anew the relationship between law and rights in Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, two important founders of modern rights doctrines. But in order to put their teachings into the right perspective, Syse also portrays and discusses other models of law and rights, from Aristotle, through Thomas Aquinas, to John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham, with detours to the teachings of Plato, Cicero, and Augustine. Throughout the discussion, the role of religion and revelation is given center stage as a complex, yet fascinating picture of the relationship between natural law, religion, and rights emerges - one which is neither as simple nor as complicated as often imagined.

Natural Law, Religion, and Rights should be of interest both to students struggling with the meaning and contents of the natural law tradition, as well as to teachers and researchers working on the many-faceted problems of natural law and natural rights. ... Read more