Abstract

Assesses the European reception of Hobbes's thought from c.1640 to c.1750. It begins by discussing the publishing history of his works on the Continent, and the various attempts to edit or translate them. Then it considers the reception of his writings, dividing the European writers into three categories: the defenders of orthodoxy, who reacted against Hobbes's ideas because they regarded them as extreme; the radicals, who celebrated and developed his ideas—also because they regarded them as extreme; and a broader third category, consisting of those who engaged in more or less positive ways with Hobbesian theories, not to shake the foundations of orthodoxy, but to develop arguments and positions within the intellectual mainstream. It suggests that this third category was larger and more significant than has hitherto been recognized. Finally, the essay considers Hobbes's own relationship to the ‘Republic of Letters’ of his time.