Thomas Hobbes An All-Around Good Guy

Biography  Born:April 5, 1588  Died:December 4, 1679  Grew up in England and attended Hertford College, Oxford.  Took some interest in classic Greek and Latin authors, and became first to translate Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War from Greek to English  Then lived in Paris and became more interested in philosophy.

Early Philosophy  First interested in Man: things such as man’s sensations, as well as more social matters  Believed that men were moved to enter society, which must be regulated so it men do not resort to “brutishness and misery”  Returned to England and combined Human Nature and De corpore politico into The Elements of Law

Leviathan  Written during the English Civil War  Demonstrated the need for a strong central authority so that the evils of discord and civil war could be averted  With no government (or a state of nature), every person would have a right to everything in the world  This means a “war of all against all” (bellum omnium contra omnes), and lives that are “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”

Later Life  Hobbes worked in math and sciences with little success  Others refuted a lot of what he published  He suffered a bladder disorder, followed by a paralytic stroke  It is said he uttered the following words before dying: “A great leap in the dark”