Hobbes: the Premier Political Scientist

“Nosce teipsum, read thyself: (…) to teach us that for the similitude of the thoughts, and passions of one man, to the thoughts and passions of another, whosoever looketh into himself and considereth what he doth when he does think, opine, reason, hope, fear, etc., and upon what grounds; he shall thereby read and know, what are the thoughts and passions of all other men upon the like occasions.” (p 8, introduction)

Reference: Thomas Hobbes. Leviathan. J.C.A. Gaskin (ed. & introduction). Oxford World's Classics. Oxford University Press. 2008. 

The work of Thomas Hobbes should be read in light of the emergence of the modern state as we know it -marked by the absolute concentration and consolidation of power. The modern state was born when the tight bonds of feudalism were threatened by the Ottomans who were marching on Vienna after their conquest of Constantinople. The fall of the Eastern Roman Empire in 1435 shocked the rulers of Europe into action. The defeat of an empire which had stood for over a thousand years eventuated in a loss of faith in old traditional rule: the integration of church and stately power and the loose patchwork of vassal states.

Whereas in a Christian state power had been bestowed and borrowed by God, in the modern state power does not experience limitation and is up for grabs to just about anyone. In this world of disorder, where ancient ties and commitments mean absolutely nothing Hobbes presumed he saw the nature of mankind. Without order, without an awful authority hovering over the heads of men, people are cruel, cunning and lethal. 

Hobbes rejected the ancient Greek idea of man as a zoon politikon (ζῷον πολιτικόν), a political/sociable animal. His view of mankind delineates separate, independent, atomic individuals, roughly equal to each other. After all, what some may lack in strength they make up for in cunning. Hobbes’ atomic individuals do not need each other to live fulfilled, human and morally upright lives. Morality is a product of the social contract, but it is not its goal and certainly not man’s inclination. Additionally, where Machiavelli approached his philosophy in an already considerably scientific manner, taking examples from real life and deducing from them universal guidelines, Hobbes went one step further. He developed and presented his theory as an exact science; making use of axioms to argue his statements (as in geometry) and using terminology like 'natural law' and 'natural right'. The result was an overwhelmingly logical body of work based on some very basic assumptions about human nature.