Pub Date : 2019-03-19DOI: 10.1163/18750257-03201008
O. Asbach
{"title":"De cive / Vom Bürger, written by Thomas Hobbes","authors":"O. Asbach","doi":"10.1163/18750257-03201008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18750257-03201008","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42474,"journal":{"name":"Hobbes Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2019-03-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49408293","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-03-19DOI: 10.1163/18750257-03201004
Daniel Eggers
This paper discusses the juridical interpretation of Hobbes’s state of nature argument, which has been defended by commentators such as Georg Geismann, Dieter Hüning or Peter Schröder. According to the juridical interpretation, the primary reason why the Hobbesian state of nature needs to be abandoned is not that everybody’s self-preservation is constantly threatened. It is that, due to the universal right to all things, the jural order of the state of nature includes some kind of logical contradiction. The purpose of the paper is to show that the juridical interpretation does not do justice to Hobbes’s actual argument and that it starts from a false presupposition: being a Hohfeldian ‘liberty-right’, the right to all things can consistently be granted to all individuals at the same time.
{"title":"Hobbes, Kant, and the Universal ‘right to all things’, or Why We Have to Leave the State of Nature","authors":"Daniel Eggers","doi":"10.1163/18750257-03201004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18750257-03201004","url":null,"abstract":"This paper discusses the juridical interpretation of Hobbes’s state of nature argument, which has been defended by commentators such as Georg Geismann, Dieter Hüning or Peter Schröder. According to the juridical interpretation, the primary reason why the Hobbesian state of nature needs to be abandoned is not that everybody’s self-preservation is constantly threatened. It is that, due to the universal right to all things, the jural order of the state of nature includes some kind of logical contradiction. The purpose of the paper is to show that the juridical interpretation does not do justice to Hobbes’s actual argument and that it starts from a false presupposition: being a Hohfeldian ‘liberty-right’, the right to all things can consistently be granted to all individuals at the same time.","PeriodicalId":42474,"journal":{"name":"Hobbes Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2019-03-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46343941","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-03-19DOI: 10.1163/18750257-03201001
Edgar Straehle
In this paper I examine how Hobbes’ philosophy can be read from an Arendtian perspective. I argue that Arendt provided two different interpretations of Hobbes: one set down in The Origins of Totalitarianism, where Hobbes is depicted as the spokesman of the emerging bourgeoisie; and another that she developed later, scattered among various texts such as The Human Condition and Between Past and Future. I focus on this second interpretation and on her analysis of concepts such as common sense, authority and sovereignty. Firstly, I examine how she changes the meaning of common sense, and how this shift is linked to what Arendt understands by the expression “estrangement from the world.” Secondly, I explain how Hobbes redefined the concept of authority and how his notion of sovereignty deliberately conflated the dual concepts of authority and power.
{"title":"The Problem of Sovereignty: Reading Hobbes through the Eyes of Hannah Arendt","authors":"Edgar Straehle","doi":"10.1163/18750257-03201001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18750257-03201001","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper I examine how Hobbes’ philosophy can be read from an Arendtian perspective. I argue that Arendt provided two different interpretations of Hobbes: one set down in The Origins of Totalitarianism, where Hobbes is depicted as the spokesman of the emerging bourgeoisie; and another that she developed later, scattered among various texts such as The Human Condition and Between Past and Future. I focus on this second interpretation and on her analysis of concepts such as common sense, authority and sovereignty. Firstly, I examine how she changes the meaning of common sense, and how this shift is linked to what Arendt understands by the expression “estrangement from the world.” Secondly, I explain how Hobbes redefined the concept of authority and how his notion of sovereignty deliberately conflated the dual concepts of authority and power.","PeriodicalId":42474,"journal":{"name":"Hobbes Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2019-03-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18750257-03201001","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42096635","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-03-19DOI: 10.1163/18750257-03201002
N. Boyd
This article analyses how the reception of Hobbes in Germany in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was determined within the context of the Holy Roman Empire. It argues that it is precisely this context that forms the peculiarities of the Hobbes reception in Pufendorf, Thomasius, and Hegel. It thereby offers a new way of viewing the development of the particular political theories of these three figures and their relationship to the English philosopher’s political thought.
{"title":"The Reception of Hobbes in Germany and the Holy Roman Empire","authors":"N. Boyd","doi":"10.1163/18750257-03201002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18750257-03201002","url":null,"abstract":"This article analyses how the reception of Hobbes in Germany in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was determined within the context of the Holy Roman Empire. It argues that it is precisely this context that forms the peculiarities of the Hobbes reception in Pufendorf, Thomasius, and Hegel. It thereby offers a new way of viewing the development of the particular political theories of these three figures and their relationship to the English philosopher’s political thought.","PeriodicalId":42474,"journal":{"name":"Hobbes Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2019-03-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18750257-03201002","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47572613","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-03-19DOI: 10.1163/18750257-03201003
Dirk Brantl
This review traces recent developments in German Hobbes scholarship. Relevant publications are discussed along three major fields of inquiry: Hobbes and Liberalism, Hobbes on Politics and Religions, and Hobbes on the Passions, Politics, and Education.
{"title":"Recent Trends in German Hobbes Scholarship","authors":"Dirk Brantl","doi":"10.1163/18750257-03201003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18750257-03201003","url":null,"abstract":"This review traces recent developments in German Hobbes scholarship. Relevant publications are discussed along three major fields of inquiry: Hobbes and Liberalism, Hobbes on Politics and Religions, and Hobbes on the Passions, Politics, and Education.","PeriodicalId":42474,"journal":{"name":"Hobbes Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2019-03-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44780636","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-03-19DOI: 10.1163/18750257-03201009
D. Baumgold
{"title":"Note from the Editor","authors":"D. Baumgold","doi":"10.1163/18750257-03201009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18750257-03201009","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42474,"journal":{"name":"Hobbes Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2019-03-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46685904","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-03-19DOI: 10.1163/18750257-03201005
Celi Hirata
This paper seeks to examine two moments of the subject’s identification with substance in modernity, namely, the body in Hobbesian philosophy and the individual substance in Leibnizian thought. In Hobbes, to be a subject signifies to be subjected (to imaginary space, to the movements transmitted by means of shock, as well as to the sovereign), so that the body-substance is characterized by not having in itself its principle of movement. In Leibniz, for his turn, a subject (understood as substance) is that which contains in its own nature everything that can be truly predicated about it, implying that it is the foundation and principle of its own activity, or, in a word, it is self-sufficient. Nonetheless, although Hobbesian body is characterized by its inertia and Leibnizian substance by its self-sufficiency, it is my purpose to indicate that the former is more crucial than the latter to the constitution of the modern conception of subjectivity, i.e., of the subject as the center of action and as a founding power, capable of establishing a new order by its decision. This is not possible in Leibnizian philosophy, for, according to it, human activity, like that of any other substance, consists solely in the actualization of the divine plan of the best of all possible worlds.
{"title":"Subject and Subjectivity in Hobbes and Leibniz","authors":"Celi Hirata","doi":"10.1163/18750257-03201005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18750257-03201005","url":null,"abstract":"This paper seeks to examine two moments of the subject’s identification with substance in modernity, namely, the body in Hobbesian philosophy and the individual substance in Leibnizian thought. In Hobbes, to be a subject signifies to be subjected (to imaginary space, to the movements transmitted by means of shock, as well as to the sovereign), so that the body-substance is characterized by not having in itself its principle of movement. In Leibniz, for his turn, a subject (understood as substance) is that which contains in its own nature everything that can be truly predicated about it, implying that it is the foundation and principle of its own activity, or, in a word, it is self-sufficient. Nonetheless, although Hobbesian body is characterized by its inertia and Leibnizian substance by its self-sufficiency, it is my purpose to indicate that the former is more crucial than the latter to the constitution of the modern conception of subjectivity, i.e., of the subject as the center of action and as a founding power, capable of establishing a new order by its decision. This is not possible in Leibnizian philosophy, for, according to it, human activity, like that of any other substance, consists solely in the actualization of the divine plan of the best of all possible worlds.","PeriodicalId":42474,"journal":{"name":"Hobbes Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2019-03-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44100892","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-10-20DOI: 10.1163/18750257-03102007
Ioannis Evrigenis
{"title":"Three-Text Edition of Thomas Hobbes’s Political Theory, edited by Deborah Baumgold","authors":"Ioannis Evrigenis","doi":"10.1163/18750257-03102007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18750257-03102007","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42474,"journal":{"name":"Hobbes Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2018-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18750257-03102007","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41989768","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-10-20DOI: 10.1163/18750257-03102003
Elad Carmel
The connection that Hobbes makes between reason, method, and science renders reason a faculty that is not only natural but also acquired and even somewhat exclusive. This idea might pose a serious problem to Hobbes’s political theory, as it relies heavily on the successful use of reason. This problem is demonstrated in Hobbes’s account of the laws of nature, for which some equality in human reason is clearly needed, but Hobbes is not explicit about the relationship between that and the more advanced form of reason that eventually leads to science. This article suggests that Hobbes’s account of reason is developmental. The seed of natural reason is common to everyone, and is sufficient for the establishment of the commonwealth. Thereafter, peace and leisure provide the necessary conditions for developing the rational skill, that is, fulfilling the human potential for rationality. Consequently, under the right circumstances, knowledge and science are expected to progress dramatically for the benefit of society, an open-ended vision which Hobbes nevertheless leaves implicit. Following Hobbes’s account of reason and philosophy closely can therefore show that he might have had great hopes for humankind, and that in this sense he was a key member of an English Enlightenment.
{"title":"“Philosophy, Therefore, Is within Yourself”","authors":"Elad Carmel","doi":"10.1163/18750257-03102003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18750257-03102003","url":null,"abstract":"The connection that Hobbes makes between reason, method, and science renders reason a faculty that is not only natural but also acquired and even somewhat exclusive. This idea might pose a serious problem to Hobbes’s political theory, as it relies heavily on the successful use of reason. This problem is demonstrated in Hobbes’s account of the laws of nature, for which some equality in human reason is clearly needed, but Hobbes is not explicit about the relationship between that and the more advanced form of reason that eventually leads to science. This article suggests that Hobbes’s account of reason is developmental. The seed of natural reason is common to everyone, and is sufficient for the establishment of the commonwealth. Thereafter, peace and leisure provide the necessary conditions for developing the rational skill, that is, fulfilling the human potential for rationality. Consequently, under the right circumstances, knowledge and science are expected to progress dramatically for the benefit of society, an open-ended vision which Hobbes nevertheless leaves implicit. Following Hobbes’s account of reason and philosophy closely can therefore show that he might have had great hopes for humankind, and that in this sense he was a key member of an English Enlightenment.","PeriodicalId":42474,"journal":{"name":"Hobbes Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2018-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18750257-03102003","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42441551","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-10-20DOI: 10.1163/18750257-03102006
L. Apeldoorn, R. Douglass
{"title":"The European Hobbes Society","authors":"L. Apeldoorn, R. Douglass","doi":"10.1163/18750257-03102006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18750257-03102006","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42474,"journal":{"name":"Hobbes Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2018-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18750257-03102006","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41491803","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}