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Thomas Hobbes
Hobbes, Thomas
The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature
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2003
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© The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature 2003, originally published by Oxford University Press 2003. (Hide copyright information)
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Hobbes, Thomas (1588–1679), philosopher, was for a great part of his life in the service of the Cavendish family, and in 1647 was appointed mathematical tutor to the prince of Wales. At some time he was in contact with F.
Bacon, translated some of his essays into Latin, and took down his thoughts from his dictation. On three occasions he travelled on the Continent with a pupil, and met
Galileo, Gassendi,
Descartes, and the French mathematician Mersenne. On his return to England he submitted to the Council of State in 1652, and was pensioned after the Restoration. He was intimate with W.
Harvey,
Jonson,
Cowley,
Aubrey,
Waller, and
Godolphin.
As a philosopher Hobbes resembles Bacon in the practical or utilitarian importance that he attaches to knowledge. Nature and man are the objects of his enquiry. Hobbes has been generally described as a nominalist. The basis of all knowledge, according to him, is sensation, and the causes of all sensations are the several motions of matter. Motion is the one universal cause, and our appetites are our reactions, in the direction of self-preservation, to external motions. Accordingly man is essentially a selfish unit. Upon this theory Hobbes bases the political philosophy expounded, most notably in
Leviathan.
Hobbes's philosophical works, founded on a comprehensive plan in which matter, human nature, and society were successively to be dealt with, include
Human Nature (1650),
De Corpore (Latin 1655, English 1656), and
De Homine (1658). He published a translation of
Thucydides in 1629 and of
Homer in quatrains (1674–5); also a sketch of the Civil Wars,
Behemoth, or the Long Parliament (1680), which was suppressed. His reply to
D'Avenant's dedication of
Gondibert expresses his literary theory. His prose is masterly, distinguished by economy, directness, a highly effective use of metaphor, and passages of sustained and inventive irony. The aphorism which expresses a central tenet of his philosophy, that the life of man in a state of nature is ‘solitary, poore, nasty, brutish and short’, has had an incalculable influence on later writers.
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Thomas Hobbes: skeptical moralist.
Magazine article from: American Political Science Review; 6/1/1995; ; 700+ words
; ...theorists, the claim that Thomas Hobbes was a skeptic in matters...Genuine moral obligation, Thomas Nagel has argued, "plays...Leviathan at all"; what Hobbes called moral obligation...life for human beings). THOMAS HOBBES: MORAL SKEPTIC? Let...
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PASIÓN Y RAZÓN EN THOMAS HOBBES/Passion and Reason in Thomas Hobbes
Magazine article from: Alpha; 7/1/2008; ; 700+ words
; ...relacin entre pasin y razn en Thomas Hobbes, pensador ingls considerado racionalista...between passion and reason in Thomas Hobbes. The English thinker is considered...imagination, understanding. Thomas Hobbes es considerado un pensador racionalista...
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The Correspondence of Thomas Hobbes, 2 vols.
Magazine article from: The Review of Metaphysics; 6/1/1996; ; 700+ words
; Hobbes, Thomas. Edited by Noel Malcolm. The Clarendon Edition of the Works of Thomas Hobbes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. 2...important tool for understanding the life and works of Thomas Hobbes
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Collins, Jeffrey R.: The Allegiance of Thomas Hobbes.(Book review)
Magazine article from: History: Review of New Books; 9/22/2006; ; 700+ words
; Collins, Jeffrey R. The Allegiance of Thomas Hobbes New York: Oxford University Press 336 pp., $99...9 Publication Date: December 2005 The Allegiance of Thomas Hobbes, by Jeffrey R. Collins, an assistant professor of...
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The Allegiance of Thomas Hobbes.(Book review)
Magazine article from: Renaissance Quarterly; 9/22/2006; ; 700+ words
; ...Jeffrey R. Collins. The Allegiance of Thomas Hobbes. Oxford: Oxford University Press...9. Perhaps many still think of Hobbes as the foremost apologist of Stuart...regime was being dismantled, some of Hobbes's contemporaries considered his...
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The Two Gods of Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes on Religion and Politics.
Magazine article from: Canadian Journal of History; 4/1/1994; ; 700+ words
; ...with John Pocock's "Time, History and Eschatology in the Thought of Thomas Hobbes" (1970), has taken Hobbes's theology seriously. Most of it has presumed that Hobbes's' views on religion are to be read literally, not (as previous generations...
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The Disciplined Citizen: Thomas Hobbes, Neostoicism and the Critique of Classical Citizenship.
Magazine article from: The Australian Journal of Politics and History; 12/1/1999; ; 700+ words
; Hobbes and Citizenship In recent years the history...modern passive accounts of citizenship is Thomas Hobbes: while the "neo-Roman" theory of citizenship...In these respects Skinner's account of Hobbes' role in civic theory is a conventional...
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Reason of State, Propaganda, and the Thirty Years' War: An Unknown Translation by Thomas Hobbes.(Book review)
Magazine article from: Renaissance Quarterly; 3/22/2008; ; 700+ words
; ...An Unknown Translation by Thomas Hobbes. Oxford: Clarendon Press...polemical pamphlet made by Thomas Hobbes during the late 1620s. Malcolm...our understanding of both Hobbes and early modern reason of state. THOMAS TURLEY Santa Clara University
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Leviathan harpooned: aware of the dangers posed by judges and the law, Thomas Hobbes offered a solution.
Magazine article from: National Review; 6/30/1997; ; 700+ words
; ...the great political philosopher Thomas Hobbes has had one long stretch of bad...In his essay on John Bramhall, Hobbes's most persistent contemporary...Eliot, was snidely dismissive: "Thomas Hobbes was one of those extraordinary...
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El Fundamento Antropologico de la Filosofia Politica y Moral de Thomas Hobbes. (Summaries And Comments).(Review)
Magazine article from: The Review of Metaphysics; 12/1/2000; ; 700+ words
; ...la Filosofia Politica y Moral de Thomas Hobbes. Buenos Aires: Ediciones de la...This study postulates that Hobbes's moral and political philosophy...conception of Man that gives unity to Hobbes's system. In general, the book...
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Thomas Hobbes
Encyclopedia entry from: Encyclopedia of World Biography
Thomas Hobbes The English philosopher and political theorist Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was one of the central...impending invasion of the Spanish Armada, Thomas Hobbes later reported that "my mother gave...
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Hobbes, Thomas
Encyclopedia entry from: U*X*L Encyclopedia of World Biography
Thomas Hobbes Born: April 5, 1588 Westport, England...English philosopher and political theorist Thomas Hobbes was one of the central figures of political...Armada (a fleet of Spanish warships), Thomas Hobbes later reported that "my mother gave...
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Hobbes, Thomas (1588–1679)
Encyclopedia entry from: Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World
HOBBES, THOMAS (1588 – 1679) HOBBES, THOMAS (1588 – 1679), English philosopher. Thomas Hobbes, perhaps the greatest of the English philosophers, was...
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Thomas Tenison
Book article from: The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition
Thomas Tenison , 1636-1715, English churchman, archbishop of Canterbury...1701) of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and wrote books on Thomas Hobbes (1670) and Francis Bacon (1679).
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Thomas Erastus
Book article from: The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition
Thomas Erastus 1524-83, Swiss Protestant theologian, a physician, whose original...view. Erastianism achieved its definitive expression in the Leviathan of Thomas Hobbes . Bibliography: See E. Evans, Erastianism (1931).
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