Three readings of the political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes

Abstract

Hobbes's Leviathan has been lauded as "the greatest, perhaps the sole, masterpiece of political philosophy written in the English language." I Such accolades are supported, at least in the twentieth century, by the prodigious volume of literature which has been produced in the field of Hobbes studies. However, the claim for the enthronement of Hobbes as a classic thinker is not as solidly founded as might first appear when accounting for the approval which his work has met in the twentieth century. Despite declarations of Hobbes's rigorous logic and lucid expression which have become his heralds for all commentators; Hobbes scholarship is itself deeply divided over the issue of what is actually communicated in his civil philosophy. At times it would seem that the only point of agreement is the myth of his singleminded clarity! The primary concern of this dissertation is not to provide yet another analysis of Hobbes's political thought but, rather, to examine the twentieth century scholarship that it has generated. A number of studies have already been conducted which survey the corpus of commentaries on Hobbes that have blossomed in the late nineteenth and throughout the twentieth century. These range from histories which chronicle the development of trends in attitudes towards Hobbes showing why these might have come about.2 to those which seek to classify and methodologically disect these various schools of interpretation. 3 The current undertaking leans towards this latter variety of scholarship on Hobbes studies. There are characteristics of this study which have a substantial degree in common with Greenleafs incisive analysis of twentieth century scholarship on Hobbes. The current undertaking will be conducted with essentially the same objectives as those announced by Greenleaf and, in the majority of instances, will follow a similar format in achieving these ends. The first part of this thesis will classify the scholarship which is to be examined under three heads: these shall be referred to as libertine, rational choice and natural order interpretations of Hobbes. These categories, with few exceptions4, stand in an isomorphic relation to what Greenleaf has termed respectively the traditional, individualist and natural law cases for Hobbes interpretation. Greenleaf presents the distinctive features of each of these cases and then explains their diversity by showing them to have concentrated upon different areas and aspects of Hobbes's civil philosophy. I have attempted to systematise these multiform readings of Hobbes further by focusing upon the very different accounts which each school provides of his concept of obligation. The nomination of a particular device through which Hobbes's philosophy can be read should not be taken as an affirmation of the exclusive centrality of obligation to his political philosophy. Of course, accounting for obligation is an importatant mechanism in understanding Hobbes but it is only one of many concepts available. By proceeding to analyse the various interpretations of Hobbes via reference to a particular term of which all give account emphasis will be focused upon the relationships that exist between the various schools. And so while this study follows Greenleaf in tracing the development of three general modes of Hobbes interpretation it seeks to identify a more analytically detailed relationship between these schools. Show more