Thomas Hobbes
Author of Leviathan (1651): an absolute sovereign as the price of peace, the view the founders set themselves against.
Ask Thomas Hobbes a question
Answers come only from his own recorded words, with every quotation checked against its source.
Who he was
Thomas Hobbes was an English philosopher and the author of Leviathan (1651).
Leviathan describes the life of man without a common power as "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short," and makes an absolute sovereign the price of peace.
Why he is at the Seat
Hobbes is on the Lutz-based roster, but he sits at the Seat as the counterpoint. The founders' answer to the question of power was set against his, and his own words make the case they rejected.
What we hold
- Editions
- Molesworth, The English Works of Thomas Hobbes, vols. I-VII (Online Library of Liberty and Project Gutenberg)
- Size
- About 1.0 million words. Word counts are whole files, so they include editors' headnotes and footnotes.
- Translation
- Mostly written in English; the passages that are English translations of his Latin works carry the translator's name.
Known limits
- His Latin works and Molesworth's vols. VIII-XI are excluded.
- His record says nothing about the American founders. Questions about why they rejected him are answered from his own principles, with any comparison marked as inference.
Questions he answers well
The questions his engine was tested on before it opened.
- What powers must the sovereign have, and may subjects ever resist?
Published answers
- What is the right of self-defense against the sovereign?
- What causes a commonwealth to dissolve?
- Can sovereign power be divided?
- What are the laws of nature?
- What is the liberty of subjects?
- Why do people form a commonwealth?
- What is life like in the state of nature?
- What powers must the sovereign have, and may subjects ever resist the sovereign?
More in Prior Questions.