La Aventura del Pensamiento - Thomas Hobbes (Summary)

Key Points


ü  Thomas Hobbes was born in Westport, England, on April 5, 1558.
ü  He lived during the Revolution and Civil War that proclaimed the Republic, and executed Charles V.
o   These series of events make him think Anarchy, was the worst think that could happen to society.   
o   Only a STRONG and AUTHORITARIAN GOVERNMENT could ensure social order.
o   Modern Political Philosophy.
ü  Great British Philosophers are commonly related (involved) with political issues, the values, among others.
ü  Hobbes's Philosophical Ideas:
o   Hobbes believed that all phenomena in the universe, without exception, can be explained in terms of the motions and interactions of material bodies. He did not believe in the soul, or in the mind as separate from the body, or in any of the other incorporeal and metaphysical entities in which other writers have believed. Instead, he saw human beings as essentially machines, with even their thoughts and emotions operating according to physical laws and chains of cause and effects, action and reaction.
·        As machines, human beings pursue their own self-interest relentlessly, mechanically avoiding pain and pursuing pleasure.
o   He rejected what we now know as the scientific method because he believed that the observation of nature itself is too subjective a basis on which to ground philosophy and science.
o   Hobbes maintained that the constant back-and-forth meditation between the emotion of fear and the emotion of hope is the defining principle of all human actions. Either fear or hope is present at all times in all people.
·        In a famous passage of Leviathan, Hobbes states that the worst aspect of the state of nature is the "continual fear and danger of violent death."
o   He believed that in man's natural state, moral ideas do not exists. Thus, in speaking of human nature, he define good simply as that which people desire and evil as that which they avoid, at least in the state of nature.
o   Absolute Monarchy (Best form of Government)
·        Hobbes promoted that monarchy is the best form of government and the only one that can guarantee peace. In some of his early works, he only says that there must be a supreme sovereign power of some kind in society, without standing definitely which sort of sovereign power is best. However, in Leviathan, he unequivocally argues that absolutist monarchy is the only right form of government.  
ü  Finally he died on December 4, 1679.
ü  Some famous quotes of Hobbes are:
o   "The condition of man... is a condition of war of everyone against everyone."
o   "It is no wisdom, but authority that makes a law."

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