The article concerns the topic of religion in Thomas Hobbes' view of man.

As well as being considered the greatest English political philosopher, Hobbes has traditionally been thought of as a purely secular thinker, highly critical of all religion. In this provocative new study, Professor Martinich argues that conventional wisdom has been misled. In fact, he shows that religious concerns pervade Leviathan and that Hobbes was really intent on providing a rational defense of the Calvinistic Church of England that flourished under the reign of James I. Professor Martinich presents a close reading (...) of Leviathan in which he shows that, for Hobbes, Christian doctrine is not politically destabilizing and is consistent with modern science. (shrink)

The increasing secularization of political thought between the mid-seventeenth and mid-nineteenth centuries has often been noted, but rarely described in detail. The contributors to this volume consider the significance of the relationship between religious beliefs, dogma and secular ideas in British political philosophy from Thomas Hobbes to J.S. Mill. During this period, Britain experienced the advance of natural science, the spread of education and other social improvements, and reforms in the political realm. These changes forced religion to account (...) for itself and to justify its existence, both as a social institution and as a collection of fundamental articles of belief about the world and its operations. This book, originally published in 1990, conveys the crucial importance of the association between religion, secularization and political thought. (shrink)

In the last few years it has become fashionable to 'rethink' the heritage of the western secularist modernity and claim that it is, basically, Christian. One possibility of proving this thesis is to show that the founding fathers of secularism themselves argued from an - at least implicitly - Christian point of view, above all when setting up the normative standards for politics. One such deliberately secular founding father is Thomas Hobbes, and contrary to Christian or religious interpretations of (...) his political philosophy two things can be shown: firstly his political philosophy doesn't depend upon religion or religious commitments and, furthermore, the underlying systematic arguments in favour of a political theology are not plausible, let alone effective. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.1 (2003) 128-129 [Access article in PDF] Robert Crocker, editor. Religion, Reason and Nature in Early Modern Europe. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2001. Pp. xix + 228. Cloth, $77.00. By describing the early modern period as such, we thereby avow a continuity with it that ill squares with the following, insufficiently appreciated fact. The early modern counterparts of the largely atheistic American Philosophical Association, (...) let's say, were to an even greater degree theistic, and, moreover, theism affected their description and explanation of the world in a profound way—certainly more so than it does their few theistic descendents. This is true even of authors, like Hobbes and Spinoza, who might be read as leading to later atheism. The fact of early modern theism and its centrality in early modern philosophy and science are amply demonstrated in one after another of the eleven essays of this book.An emblematic figure is Robert Boyle, who figures as a main player in three of the essays, and is at least mentioned in five of the others. Lotte Mulligan, for example, investigates the role of "right reason" in Boyle's argument that religion is illuminated and made [End Page 128] plausible by metaphorically expressed analogies with natural philosophy, and conversely. The upshot is that only the "Christian Virtuoso," endowed with right reason whereby he is inspired to notice and express these analogies, was in a position to interpret the codes expressed both in the book of revelation and in the book of nature, one being incomplete without the other.Luisa Simonutti treats Boyle's engagement with the theological and scientific work of Spinoza through Spinoza's correspondence with Oldenburg. And G. A. J. Rogers deploys the work of Boyle, as well as of Locke, Newton, and the Cambridge Platonists, against the once-standard view (vide Butterfield) that "a major feature of the seventeenth-century was a secularization of knowledge." (Given just the other papers in this volume, this may seem like shooting fish in a barrel. Even so, perhaps one or two of the shots appear to miss. Newton seems proleptically to answer Hume's skepticism about induction by invoking, not divine simplicity, but an argument to the best explanation.)These papers overlap with two others, forming the core of the book. Sarah Hutton and Robert Crocker take on Cambridge Platonism. The former deals with Ralph Cudworth's rejection of Cartesian voluntarism in favor of an intellectualism of goodness and wisdom that grounds both the providential governance of the world and its intelligibility to human inquiry. The latter deals with Henry More's doctrine of the soul's pre-existence, a prima facie unlikely doctrine, but one that is less problematic, according to More, than the orthodox alternatives (creationism and traducianism).Three other papers fall outside this core, but their topics are no less relevant. Perhaps the most undeniable connection between the natural and the supernatural is to be found in Grotius, here studied by Jacqueline Lagree. Likely the most unexpected player will be the eccentric esprit fort, Cyrano de Bergerac. His work of nearly pure fantasy, in the Rabelaisian tradition, might well have made later, more serious heterodoxies possible. James E. Force provides a nice case study in Newton's reliance on what he took to be providentially guided comets as sources for the replenishment of otherwise declining celestial motion and matter (a line which, ironically, was picked up by Hume as a premise of an argument designed to undo the argument from design). Richard H. Popkin outlines three views of Judaism in the period. There is little connection with nature, but an important one with reason via a problem that exercised Cudworth and Newton: most peoples are polytheistic despite the clear monotheism of revelation. One theory had it that Judaism was the original, pure religion, which degenerated into various forms of paganism. But this degeneracy was soon read by the English deists such that originally there was a natural religion, of which Judaism and all others were a degeneration. Transmitted to the Enlightenment by Spinoza... (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes, one of the most important figures in the history of political philosophy, is still widely regarded as a predominantly secular thinker. Yet a great deal of his political thought was motivated by the need to address problems of a distinctively religious nature. This is the first collection of essays dedicated to the complex and rich intersections between Hobbes's political and religious thought. Written by experts in the field, the volume opens up new directions for thinking about his (...) treatment of religion as a political phenomenon and the political dimensions of his engagement with Christian doctrines and their history. The chapters investigate his strategies for showing how his provocative political positions could be accepted by different religious audiences for whom fidelity to religious texts was of crucial importance, while also considering the legacy of his ideas and examining their relevance for contemporary concerns. Some chapters do so by pursuing mainly historical inquiries about the motives and circumstances of Hobbes's writings, while others reconstruct the logic of his arguments and test their philosophical coherence. They thus offer wide-ranging and sometimes conflicting assessments of Hobbes's ideas, yet they all demonstrate how closely intertwined his political and religious preoccupations are and thereby showcase how this perspective can help us to better understand his thought. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes argues that the fear of violent death is the most reliable passion on which to found political society. His role in shaping the contemporary view of religion and honor in the West is pivotal, yet his ideas are famously riddled with contradictions. In this breakthrough study, McClure finds evidence that Hobbes' apparent inconsistencies are intentional, part of a sophisticated rhetorical strategy meant to make man more afraid of death than he naturally is. Hobbes subtly undermined two (...) of the most powerful manifestations of man's desire for immortality: the religious belief in an afterlife and the secular desire for eternal fame through honor. McClure argues that Hobbes purposefully stirred up controversy, provoking his adversaries into attacking him and unwittingly spreading his message. This study will appeal to scholars of Hobbes, political theorists, historians of early modern political thought and anyone interested in the genesis of modern Western attitudes toward mortality. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.4 (2001) 589-590 [Access article in PDF] Luc Foisneau. Hobbes et la toute-puissance de Dieu. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2000. Pp. 424. Paper, FF 174. As a recent conference in London confirmed, Hobbes scholarship remains sharply divided, even precarious, with several plausible and diametrically opposed interpretations en jeu. This is especially true as to the question of Hobbes's religion in relation (...) to his political thinking. The famous "Strauss thesis" appeals to many, and, not long ago (Journal of the History of Philosophy 34, no. 2, 1996), this journal printed an exchange between Edwin Curley and A. P. Martinich that canvassed the old arguments and introduced many new ones. The issue seems to be whether Hobbes was sincere in making his theological arguments, prompting us to include them in his thought, or ironic, allowing us to pass them by.French philosopher Luc Foisneau has produced a carefully written, brilliantly crafted account of Hobbes's theory of political obligation that includes the theological elements and makes them central, but without resort to the difficult concept of authorial sincerity. Foisneau, who teaches at the Institut d'Études Politiques, Paris, finds his interpretive key in Hobbes's description of divine omnipotence. The concept, he claims, figures centrally in Hobbes's theory of knowledge. It grounds the theory of political obligation and provides a principal justification for sovereignty itself. Moreover, Foisneau draws a starkly moving picture of human mortality vis-à-vis God's "irresistible power," asserting that the secular or lay temper of modern moral and political theory stems less from a rejection of theology (certainly not in Hobbes's case) than from a sharpened awareness of human limitations. Foisneau gives an impressive and convincing answer to the abiding question: "Hobbes's theology: What does it matter?" Namely, Hobbes's theology is the core of Hobbes's politics.Before briefly considering one strand in the tissue of Foisneau's argument, let us consider two features of his work and the context of its production.The first is that the author's focus is securely on the text itself, recalling the French explication du texte tradition. According to its strictures, working in detail, the analyst of the text carefully unfolds its meaning, precisely contained in and coextensive with the text's form. Hobbes the man and his contemporaries recede as limiting cases or frames of reference, though they and the other Hobbesian texts do figure as material illustrative [End Page 589] of points made through textual interpretation. Indeed, the history of ideas serves to illuminate the text; see the potentia absoluta/ordinata distinction, below. This steady, ample focus on the text's possible coherence and the concern not to leave the four corners of the document bear comparison with the contextualism of Lucien Lefebvre and Quentin Skinner.The second feature is linked to the first, and it is Foisneau's association with the Centre Thomas Hobbes (CTH), at the Centre National des Recherches Scientifiques, Paris, headed by Prof. Yves Charles Zarka. The foremost academic institution devoted solely to the study of Thomas Hobbes, the CTH annually holds extended, international seminars, explicating two or three chapters of Leviathan. Several books and articles have appeared under CTH sponsorship, dealing with specific aspects of Hobbes's work, for example, detailed analyses of his philosophic vocabulary. The CTH's highly focused, on-going program of study gives promise that the rough places in Hobbes scholarship may one day be a bit plainer. Foisneau's book is a major contribution toward that end.Let us consider one particular, viz., Hobbes's modeling of the sovereign's power upon God's absolute power. Hobbes's long-time interlocutor, John Bramhall, is quick to detect and criticize this in De Cive, moving him to reprove both the theological and political deficiencies of Hobbes's conceptual translatio. Bramhall denies one can consider God's absolute power independently of His ordained power, expressed in the eternal laws He has ordained. Nor may one place the power of the sovereign beyond the reach of the law. Impressed... (shrink)

A cornerstone of modern western philosophy, addressing the role of man in government, society and religion In 1651, Hobbes published his work about the relationship between the government and the individual. More than four centuries old, this brilliant yet ruthless book analyzes not only the bases of government but also physical nature and the roles of man. Comparable to Plato's Republic in depth and insight, Leviathan includes two society-changing phenomena that Plato didn't dare to dream of -- the rise (...) of great nation-states with their claims to absolute sovereignty, and modern science, with its unprecedented analytic power. To Hobbes, the leviathan -- a mythical sea creature described in the Old Testament -- represented his central thesis: that the state must be strong in order to control and protect its citizens. Even today, Hobbes's thesis in Leviathan is debated among scholars and philosophy aficionados around the globe. One of the earliest attempts at a genuinely scientific understanding of politics and society in their modern form, this book also remains one of the most stimulating. In his timeless work, Hobbes outlines his ideas about the passions and the conduct of man, and how his theories are realized in every individual. Addressing free will and religion, Hobbes constructs an intelligent argument for the basis of religion within government and how to organize a peaceful and successful Christian commonwealth. Like Plato's Republic, this book contains ideas on psychology, ethics, law, language, and religion that continue to challenge modern thinkers and exercise a profound influence on Western thought. A classic treatise of philosophy, Leviathan is critical reading for anyone who wishes to examine the human mind through the prisms of government and society. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan is the greatest work of political philosophy in English and the first great work of philosophy in English. In addition, it presents the fundamentals of his beliefs about language, epistemology, and an extensive treatment of revealed religion and its relation to politics. Beginning with premises that were sometimes controversial, such as that every human action is caused by the agent's desire for his own good, Hobbes derived shocking conclusions, such as that the civil government enjoys (...) absolute control over its citizens and that the sovereign has the right to determine which religion is to be practiced in a commonwealth. Hobbes's contemporaries recognized the power of the arguments in Leviathan and many of them wrote responses to it. Selections from books by John Bramhall, Robert Filmer, Edward Hyde, George Lawson, William Lucy, Samuel Pufendorf and Thomas Tenison are included in this edition. Leviathan is divided into four parts: In the first part, Of Man, Hobbes presents a view of human beings and of the natural world in general that is materialistic and mechanistic. In the second part, Of Commonwealth, he defends the theory of absolute sovereignty, the view that the government has all the political power and has the right to control any aspect of life. In the third part, Of a Christian Commonwealth, he critiques concepts like revelation, prophets, and miracles in such a way that it becomes doubtful whether they can be rationally justified. In the fourth part, Of the Kingdom of Darkness, he explains various ways in which priestly religion has corrupted religion and transgressed the rights of the sovereign. In this revised edition of Hobbes's classic work, A.P. Martinich improves Hobbes's punctuation for the sake of clarity. He has also added new notes for readers, extensive cross references, and substantial part of Hobbes's reply to Bramhall's The Catching of Leviathan. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes is arguably the greatest of all English philosophers. In the second half of the twentieth century, he has been the subject of sustained critical attention. Hobbes was capable of powerful argument on virtually any level, whether logical, scriptural or historical. And he has attracted attention in all these areas and more questions of historical method, language and linguistics, metaphysics, ethics, law, politics, science and religion. Hobbes has been examined from a great variety of perspectives as an (...) ethical positivist and a deontologist, as a bourgeois advocate and a supporter of the aristocracy, as an absolutist and a proponent of parliamentary government, as a "conservative" and a "modern," as an atheist and a believer. The periodical literature on Hobbes is accordingly very rich, but it is also difficult to access. The four volumes of these critical assessments assemble an important array of material which will be invaluable to all students of Hobbes. (shrink)

This book presents a new interpretation of the seventeenth-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes’s philosophy of religion. I argue that the key to Hobbes’s treatment of religion is his theory of religious language. On that theory, the proper function of religious speech is not to affirm truths, state facts, or describe anything, but only to express non-descriptive attitudes of honor, reverence, and humility before God, the incomprehensible great cause of nature. The traditional vocabulary of theism, natural religion, and (...) even scriptural religion is preserved intact, but only as a system of natural and conventional signs of honor, as we laud the ‘infinite,’ ‘wise,’ and ‘good’ cause of nature, and speak of it in conventionally-approved scriptural terms—not in an attempt to describe it, but only as a way of expressing our veneration. The proposed reading undercuts the most influential alternative interpretations, revealing that Hobbes is neither an atheist, nor a literal-minded theist with a realist conception of the traditional divine attributes. At the same time, understanding Hobbes’s non-descriptivist approach to religious discourse helps us to see why so many have found either an atheistic or a realist-minded theistic interpretation attractive. The book advances a comprehensive analysis of Hobbes’s highly original philosophy of religion, including both his treatment of natural religion and his treatment of revealed religion and scripture. It also connects his philosophy of mind and language, epistemology, and theory of human nature to his engagé religious politics, including his views on religious toleration, sectarianism, religious education, ecclesiology, and the religious function of the civil state. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), whose current reputation rests largely on his political philosophy, was a thinker with wide ranging interests. In philosophy, he defended a range of materialist, nominalist, and empiricist views against Cartesian and Aristotelian alternatives. In physics, his work was influential on Leibniz, and lead him into disputes with Boyle and the experimentalists of the early Royal Society. In history, he translated Thucydides's History of the Peloponnesian War into English, and later wrote his own history of the Long (...) Parliament. In mathematics he was less successful, and is best remembered for his repeated unsuccessful attempts to square the circle. But despite that, Hobbes was a serious and prominent participant in the intellectual life of his time. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes’ Lebensaufgabe besteht in einer wissenschaftlichen Staatsphilosophie. Dabei stellt er sich den drei Herausforderungen seiner Epoche: methodisch dem Beweisideal der Mathematik, politisch der blutigen Wirklichkeit der Kriege und Bürgerkriege und moralisch dem Schwinden gemeinsamer Überzeugungen. Weil er sich allen drei Herausforderungen stellt, zugleich sie miteinander verbindet, schafft er das die Tradition stürzende Argumentationsmuster der politischen Moderne, die Vertragstheorie. Mit ihr bringt er eine der größten Staatsphilosophien der abendländischen Geistesgeschichte hervor. In De cive / Vom Bürger (1642), das noch (...) vor dem Leviathan (1651) entstand, finden sich bereits zahlreiche von Hobbes’ zentralen Gedanken zur politischen Philosophie. Diese Schrift wird hier durchgängig von international renommierten Autoren kommentiert. Mit Beiträgen von Jeremy Adler, Ronald Asch, Dirk Brantl, Franz Hespe, Moritz Hildt, Otfried Höffe, Heiner Klemme, Elif Özmen, Dietrich Schotte, Peter Schröder, Patricia Springborg, Tom Sorell und Lothar Waas. (shrink)

An introduction to Thomas Hobbes as a systematic and not merely political philosopher. Best known for his contributions to political philosophy, Thomas Hobbes set out to develop a coherent philosophical system extending from logic and natural philosophy to civil and religious philosophy. In this introduction to Hobbes’s thought, Otfried Höffe begins by providing an overview of the entire scope of his work, making clear its systematic character through analysis of his natural philosophy, his individual and social anthropology, and (...) his political thought. He then offers an innovative examination of religious and ecclesiastical questions, touching not only on the political implications of religion so important to Hobbes, but also on his attempt to reconstruct Christianity in terms of a materialistic philosophy. He also explores Hobbes’s continuous critique of Aristotle and Aristotelian Scholastics, in which Höffe argues that Hobbes and Aristotle have much more in common philosophically than is normally supposed—and certainly more than Hobbes himself acknowledged. Finally, Höffe sketches the influence Hobbes had and continues to have on the development of legal and political philosophy. “A thoroughly successful introduction to the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes ” — Reinhard Brandt, in Süddeutsche Zeitung, in praise of the German edition. (shrink)

This chapter examines Thomas Hobbes's book entitled Leviathan. It suggests that this work is more than just an account of social contract, and explains that Hobbes also explored the issues concerning the human mind and its affects and powers, the psychology of religion, language and reasoning, and the condition of English higher education. The chapter also considers the place of natural persons in Hobbes's systems and suggests that Hobbes deployed two conflicting images of humanity in his writings.

The argument laid out in this book discusses and interprets the work of Hobbes in relation to religion. It compares a traditional interpretation of Hobbes where Hobbes’ use of conventional terminology when talking about natural law is seen as ironic or merely convenient despite an atheist viewpoint, with the view that Hobbes’ morality is truly traditional and Christian. The book considers other thinkers of the age in tandem with Hobbes and discusses in detail his theology inspired by corporeal mechanics. (...) The position is that there are significant senses in which Hobbes can be said to be a traditional natural law theorist. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes tells us that he wrote Leviathan to “absolve the divine laws” of the charge that they justify rebellion. This article interprets the argumentative strategy of the second half of Leviathan in light of this intention. Over the course of his three major political works, Hobbes develops a convergent argument to absolve God’s laws. This strategy of judicial rhetoric relies on using multiple independent claims in the hope that one’s audience finds at least one of them persuasive. This (...) was a risky strategy for Hobbes that angered his critics. The strategy also reveals something about what sort of philosopher Hobbes was and how we ought to approach his work. (shrink)

Religion for a Secular Age provides a transnational history of modern Ved nta through a comparative study of two of its most important exponents, Friedrich Max Muller (1823 1900) and Swami Vivekananda (1863 1902). This book explains why Ved nta's appeal spanned the ostensibly very different contexts of colonial India and Victorian Britain and America, and how this ancient form of thought was translated by Muller and Vivekananda into a modern form of philosophy or religion. These religiously-committed men (...) attempted to reconcile religion with modernity by appealing to Advaita (literally, 'non-dualistic') Ved nta's monistic interpretation of reality. The 'scientific' study of religion allegedly demonstrated the evolutionary superiority of Ved nta and the possibility of religion's survival in 'the light of modern science'. They believed Ved nta could also provide the religious basis for moral engagement in this world, even as the hold of orthodox Christianity and traditional Hinduism appeared to be weakening. Ved nta thus served as a way of articulating a form of religion suitable for a secular age religion which has embraced modern forms of thought while breaking away from creeds, scriptures and institutions to thrive in the spheres of public debate of London, Calcutta and New York.". (shrink)

Hugo Grotius und Thomas Hobbes stehen beide in unterschiedlicher Weise für einen Neubeginn in der Politischen Philosophie bzw. in der Rehtsphlosophie. Während bei Grotius die Anknüpfung an die vorangehende Tradition des Christlichen Naturrechts gleichwohl unübersehbar ist, ist Hobbes' Beziehung zum Naturrecht kontrovers. In der Konfrontation beider Autoren mit dem in der scholastischen Diskussion herausgearbeiteten Naturgesetzbegriff zeigt sich, wie die Auseinandersetzung zwischen den voluntaristischen und rationalistischen Positionen letztlich einer Rechts- und Moralphilosophie Bahn bricht, die sich von den theologischen Voraussetzungen des (...) Christlichen Naturrechts befreien kann, ohne dabei mit diesem in unmittelbaren Widerspruch zu geraten oder auch nur dessen Begriffsrahmen zu sprengen. Durch eine strikte Trennung von Evaluationsproblem und Obligationsproblem eröffnet Grotius' De iure belli ac pacis das Feld einer säkularen Moralwissenschaft, welche Hobbes im Leviathan dann auf ein neues methodisches Fundament stellt und zudem durch eine säkulare Verpflichtungstheorie ergänzt. In different respects, Hugo Grotius and Thomas Hobbes represent a new beginning in political and legal philosophy. Although Grotius' connection with the previous tradition of Christian natural law is obvious, Hobbes' relation to natural law is controversial. Both of them, however, confront the concept of natural law as developed in the scholastic discussion. The ensuing debate between voluntarism and rationalism finally paves the way for a new philosophy of law and morals. This new philosophy can extricate itself from the theological presumptions of Christian natural law without running into contradiction with it, or even dissolving its conceptual framework. Through its strict division between evaluation and obligation, Grotius' De iure belli ac pacis opens the door for a secular moral science, which Hobbes in Leviathan places on a new methodological foundation and also expands upon through a secular theory of obligation. (shrink)

A. P. Martinich's The Two Gods of Leviathan appeared in 1992, and J. R. Collins's The Allegiance of Thomas Hobbes in 2005. Martinich offered a revisionist interpretation of Thomas Hobbes's religious commitments. He rebuked the conventional view that Hobbes was an atheist and placed him within particular traditions of reformed Christian theology. Collins's book strongly differed from these conclusions, and reasserted Hobbes's hostility to traditional Christianity as part of a general contextualization of his writings within the period of (...) the English Revolution. The following exchange between Martinich and Collins was first aired in 2007 as a debate at the Southwestern Political Science Association's Annual Conference. (shrink)

This volume collects recent essays and reviews by Thomas Nagel in three subject areas.

Given the seditious and, at the same time, ineradicable nature of religion, it is up to the political scientist to suggest to the sovereign how to action its two components in order to give them a form that is harmless to the state. For this purpose, Hobbes proposes a radical reform of worship capable of restraining it within the limits of that «Reason dictated to be done by the weak to the more potent men» and, therefore, cleaned of all (...) alleged supernatural, metaphysical and mysterious aspects superimposed on it by theologians. (shrink)

La philosophie de Hobbes ne peut etre exposee sous forme doctrinale. Toute definition est un acte, tout raisonnement une operation, toute conclusion une generation. L'oeuvre elle-meme est l'effort de la raison. La presente etude se propose de saisir, dans son mouvement discursif, ce rationalisme en exercice qui court des premiers principes de la philosophie naturelle aux dernieres consequences de la philosophie civile, et qui, de facon coherente, unit une methodologie nominaliste, une metaphysique du phenomene et de l'accident, un mecanisme physique, (...) une deduction generative de la republique et une religion materialiste. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) toplum sözleşmesi teorisinin kurucusu olarak kabul edilen önemli bir siyaset kuramcısıdır. Hobbes’un doğal durumu tanımlaması, toplumun oluşmasındaki nedenleri belirtmesi, yetkiye ve siyasi yükümlülüklere dair fikirleri siyasi düşünce tarihinde dikkat çeker. Düşünür, özellikle yaşadığı yüzyılda monarşiyi güçlendirmek adına siyasal itaati meşrulaştırmanın gerekliliği üzerinde durmuş, dönemin koşullarından dolayı Tanrı fikrini tamamıyle dışlayamamıştır. Bu yüzden toplum sözleşmesi fikrini temellendirdikten sonra ahlaki yasalar ve yükümlülükler aracılığı ile Tanrı kavramını teorisine dahil etmeyi seçmiştir. Bununla birlikte, kendisinden önceki düşünürlerin aksine Tanrı’ya siyasal (...) ve toplumsal düzeni sağlama hususunda ancak ikincil bir görev vermiştir. Tanrı kavramını ve yazılı olmayan kuralların yükümlülüğünü dışlaması, söz konusu dönemde Hobbes’un ateist olduğuna dair tartışmalara yol açsa da, kendisi bunu kabul etmemiştir. Bizim kanaatimiz, Hobbes’un aslında bir ateist olduğu ve Tanrı fikrini sadece toplumun düzenini sağlamak için siyasi bir araç olarak kullandığı yönündedir. Bir başka deyişle, argümanımız; Hobbes’un dini ve Tanrı korkusunu, bireyleri yazılı yasalara uymaları yönünde zorlamak için kullandığı şeklindedir. Bu argümanın haklılığını gösterebilmek için makalemizde Hobbes’un De Cive ve Leviathan kitaplarındaki argümanları analiz edilmiş ve geliştirmiş olduğu kuramda dinin ve Tanrı’nın yeri incelenmiştir.Özet: Thomas Hobbes, İngiltere’de sosyal ve siyasi düzenin tehlike altında olduğu ve egemen gücün meşrulaştırılması gerektiği bir dönem olan onyedinci yüzyılda yaşamıştır. Doğal bilimlerdeki ilerlemeler ve felsefik düşünce yapısındaki değişimler, rasyonaliteyi önemli kılarak, söz konusu dönemde egemenin gücünün ve bireylerin özgür istencinin sorgulanmasına olanak vermiştir. Bu yüzden, Tanrı, din ve siyasi yükümlülükler ile ilgili sorunlar da yeni bir boyut kazanmıştır. Hobbes’un esas felsefesi Aristoteles teleolojisini çürütmek ve sonrasında da onu mekanik yaklaşım ile değiştirmekti. Hobbes’un modern doğal bilimlere olan yaklaşımı, siyaset felsefesini de mekanik bir yaklaşımla temellendirmeye itmiştir. Bu sebeple, Tanrı’nın birincil rolünü siyaset felsefesinden çıkarmış, ama bunu yaparken de Tanrı’nın varlığını inkar etmemiştir. Hobbes’un bu makalede tartışılan kitapları; De Cive ve Leviathan’da, bireylerin toplumun önemli parçaları olduğundan ama doğal olarak siyasi birer varlık olmadıklarından bahsedilir. Hobbes’a göre bireyler hayatta kalmak için siyasi bir kurumun altına girmek durumundadırlar. Bir başka deyişle, insanın zayıflığı, siyasi toplumun kurulmasını gerekli kılmıştır. İnsan doğal olarak siyasi bir varlık olmasa dahi, siyasi bir kurum altında yaşamak insan doğasına aykırı bir durum değildir. Hobbes’un üzerinde durduğu temel nokta, sivil toplumun yapay bir ürün olsa dahi bireylerin refahı için gerekli olduğudur. Yazılı yasaların ve bir otoritenin, kısacası zorlayıcı bir gücün olmaması halinde, insanlar tehlike altında olacaktır. Bu koşullar altında, bir kişinin kendisini koruması için ne gerekiyorsa yapacağı şaşırtıcı bir durum değildir. Böylesi bir savaş durumunu engellemek için, kişiler doğal durumdaki sınırsız özgürlüklerini bırakarak, egemen bir gücün altında yaşamayı tercih edeceklerdir. Aslında Hobbes’a göre, insanın güvenliğini sağlayan siyasi toplumun varlığı değil, zorlayıcı bir gücün varlığıdır. Bu güç, insanların barış içerisinde yaşaması için gereken koşuldur. Bir başka deyişle, bireyler önce toplumu oluşturmak için sonra da o toplumun devamlılığını sağlamak için bir güçten korkmalıdırlar. Korku kavramı olmadan Hobbes’un bahsettiği siyasi güce bir temel bulmak zor olacaktır çünkü korku faktörü bireylerin kişisel çıkarları ile toplumsal iyinin karşı karşıya geldiği durumlarda, bireyi korkutarak siyasi güce uymayı zorlayacak ve böylece toplumsal refahı sağlayacaktır. Bu noktada, Hobbes’un kuramına Tanrı kavramı dahil olur. Bu makalede, Hobbes’un kuramında dinin rolü olmadan siyasi yükümlülük kavramının eksik kalacağı tartışılmıştır. Bireyler birbirlerinden korktukları için ve güvenliğe ihtiyaçları oldukları için bir toplumun altında yaşamayı tercih ederler. Hobbes’a göre bu ihtiyaç Tanrı korkusuyla desteklenmelidir. Fakat, Hobbes ne Tanrı korkusunu ne de ahlaki yasaların varlığını doğal durumda kullanmıştır. Bunun yerine, sonrasında siyasi düzen için gerekli olan yükümlülüklere bir temel bulmak için, Tanrı kavramını kullanmayı seçmiştir. Hobbes, burada analiz edilen kitaplarında doğal yasalar, ahlaki yasalar ve ilahi yasalar kavramlarını açıklar. Ona göre, doğal yasalar ahlaki yasalardır ve aynı zamanda ilahi yasalar olarak da adlandırılabilirler. Bu yüzden üçü de aynı görünür ve hepsi de Tanrı tarafından verilir. Tanrı her bireye akıl verdiğinden, herkes bu yasalara akılları aracılığı ile ulaşabilir. Hobbes’un kuramında bu noktaya kadar, sadece sivil toplumda değil, doğal durumda da ahlaki yükümlülüklerin olmasına imkan veriliyordu. Fakat, Hobbes insanların doğal durumda ahlaki bilinçlerinin olmadığını ve ahlaki yasalara uymak zorunda olmadıklarını söyler. Ona göre doğal yasalar, ahlaki yasalar ya da Tanrı’nın yasaları, adına her ne dersek diyelim, yükümlülük yaratan yasalar olmaları için bir sivil otoritenin yaptırımında olması gerekir. Her ne kadar da doğal durumda ahlaki yasaların varlığından söz etse de, söz konusu yasaların insanların toplum altında yaşamaya geçmeden önce yükümlülüğe yol açmadığını da ekler.Doğal yasalar sadece insanları toplum altında birleştirmeye zorlayacak bir güç olması halinde, Tanrı’nın buyrukları olarak zorunluluğa dönüşürler. Bu demektir ki; ahlaki ilkeler siyasi bir güç olmadığı sürece anlamsızdırlar. Hobbes’un felsefesinde aklın buyrukları ve Tanrı’nın yasaları iki farklı kavram olarak ortaya çıkar; bu durum da bizi Hobbes’un aslında Tanrı’ya inanmadığını savunmaya kadar götürebilir. Halbuki, Hobbes’un yükümlülükleri meşrulaştırmak için dinin gücüne ihtiyacı vardır. Bu sebeple, Tanrı’yı bir araç olarak kullanmayı seçmiştir. Böylece, egemenin mutlak gücünü de sınırlamış ve yükümlülükler için de bir temel bulabilmiştir. Bir başka deyişle, Tanrı’nın varlığının dini açıdan meşrulaştırmasını yapmak yerine, egemen gücün eline dini ve Tanrı’yı siyasi ve sosyal düzene ulaşmak için bir araç olarak vermiştir. Hobbes’un göstermeye çalıştığı, Leviathan diye adlandırdığı toplumun bireylerden oluştuğu ve bu bireylerin egemen güce biat etme sebeplerinin, kendilerinin vermiş olduğu rıza ve yetki olduğudur. Kısacası, Hobbes siyaset felsefesinin temeline Tanrı’yı değil, öznelerin özgür iradelerini koyar. Bireyler doğal durumdaki sınırsız özgürlüklerinden feragat ederek bir egemen altında yaşamaya rıza göstermişlerdir, çünkü karşılığında güvenliklerini sağlayacaklardır. Bu anlaşma gereği egemene itaat etmeyi kabul ederler. Böylece siyasal olarak bireyin bağlı bulunduğu yükümlülükler Tanrı kavramı ile sınırlandırılmış olan egemenin gücü ile meşrulaştırılmış olur. Bu makalede, Hobbes’un egemenin mutlak gücünü ilahi irade olan Tanrı ile sınırlandırmış olduğu gösterilir. Aslında Hobbes’un yapmaya çalıştığı, egemenin gücüne mutlakiyet sağlayarak, onu ne dünyevi ne de ilahi bir güce karşı sorumluluk altına sokmaktır. Bunu nasıl başardığı ise bu makalede, Hobbes’un De Cive ve Leviathan kitaplarının analiz edilmesi ile detaylı olarak gösterilmiştir. (shrink)

Most comparisons of Thomas Hobbes and Baruch Spinoza focus on the difference in understanding of natural right. We argue that Hobbes also places more weight on a rudimentary and exclusive education of the public by the state. We show that the difference is related to deeper disagreements over the prospect of Enlightenment. Hobbes is more sanguine than Spinoza about using the state to make people rational. Spinoza considers misguided an overemphasis on publicly educating everyone out of superstition—public education is (...) important, but modes of superstition may remain and must be offset by institutions and a civil religion. The differences are confirmed by Spinoza’s interest in the philosopher who stands apart and whose flourishing may be protected, but not simply brought about, by rudimentary public education. Spinoza’s openness to a wisdom-loving elite in a democracy also sets up an interesting parallel with Thomas Jefferson’s own commitment to the natural aristocracy needed to sustain republicanism. In demonstrating the 17th century philosopher’s skepticism toward using the state exclusively to promote rationality, even as he recognizes the importance of a sovereign pedagogical role and the protection of philosophy, we move to suggest that Spinoza is relevant to contemporary debates about public education and may reinvigorate moral and political discourse in a liberal democracy. (shrink)

This article shows that core ideas of Hobbes's argument for civil authority have their sources in commentary on or texts of the Hebraic Bible. These ideas centre on the Hebraic idea of created nature and of man . It is further shown that both the eschatological and enlightenment components of Hobbes's philosophy originate in these same biblical ideas. Therefore, the often stressed and accustomed division of Leviathan into a secular and a religious teaching is mistakenly conceived.

Hobbes' philosophy is one of the high points of a century of great philosophical achievement and Leviathan is recognized as one of the great classics of political theory. But the response from his contemporaries to Hobbes's materialist system and his secular analysis of society was largely ferociously hostile, demonstrating the challenging and indeed frightening nature of his ideas. This collection of many of the major contemporary responses to his thought by leading figures, mostly never republished, provides an outstanding source for (...) assessing his immediate impact and the long-term importance of his work. (shrink)

In G. K. Chesterton's story The Doom of the Darnaways, Lord Darnaway put on the spines of dummy books in his library such empty designations as The Snakes of Ireland and The Religion of Frederick the Great : I too might appear to have chosen a non-subject for this paper. My coming to the contrary conclusion was the unwitting work of the man whom Balliol College employed to give us tutorials in political philosophy. I soon noticed that his interpretation (...) of Hobbes seemed to be based on a few chapters of Leviathan ; desiring to get material for probing questions, and allured by Hobbes's style, I quickly devoured the whole of Leviathan. This reading left me with an abiding respect for the moral and political philosophy of Hobbes; his religious views, at this time, I found curious rather than impressive, but already I had no doubt that they were not mere hollow professions thinly cloaking an immoralist atheism, but were considered opinions sincerely held. (shrink)

In The Sublime Object of Ideology, Slavoj Žižek tells a story about Buddhist prayer wheels in Tibet as a model of secularization: a belief machine. When routine actions are being performed, the animating principles or belief are no longer foregrounded in the process. While the developers of the scientific method were mostly devout Christians and believed in God’s direct involvement in the affairs of earth, carefully repeating situations through controlled experiments convinced them any potential variance in the processes they investigated (...) could be ignored. Applied generally, through the process of secularization, religious acts are automated so that people can go about their business without requiring constant awareness of God’s presence. While the foundations of science and innovations in healthcare have many connections with religion, the professionalization of medicine acts as a superstructure supporting the belief. A Christian hospital today is like a prayer flag in the wind: operating automatically through set policies but actualizing theology through its repetition of care. (shrink)

To understand Hobbes’s handling of Christian scripture in Part 3 of Leviathan we need to see it in the light of his own radical account of the norms controlling public religious speech and practice as set out in Part 2 and in other works such as De Cive and De Corpore. As these texts make clear, Hobbes holds that we ought rationally to venerate the first cause of all, and that the proper way to venerate this awesome and incomprehensible being (...) is to publicly adopt the local culture’s religious practices, however arbitrary or conventional those practices might be. For the seventeenth-century English subject, the Anglo-Protestant scriptural religion provides the appropriate vehicle to express this rationally mandated religious piety, and thus provides a form of devotion that Hobbes embraces in a spirit of genuine religious reverence. At the same time, he also regards this religion, like all scriptural religions, as a conventional human artifact that, given the ear of the sovereign, he might hope to shape in favor of Hobbesian ideals such as civil obedience, the separation of philosophy from religion, and the extirpation of belief in an immaterial spirit-world. The proposed interpretation dissolves systematic problems facing irreligious readings on the one hand, and more straightforwardly Christian readings on the other. (shrink)

We simply have no better account of Hobbes's religious thinking and religious projects than Martinich's excellent new book about Hobbes's Leviathan. According to Martinich, Hobbes was not an atheist, and his political theory was not that of a secularist. Rather he was a Calvinist, a monarchist, and an advocate of an episcopal church. Like so many others in the seventeenth century, Hobbes sought to meet the challenges which the scientific revolution posed for a Biblical faith. Hence, Leviathan has two goals, (...) " to show that the distinctively religious content of the Bible could be reconciled with the new science and to prove that religion could not legitimately be used to destabilize a government". (shrink)

Este artículo se ocupa del sentido de la teología políti-ca en las dos últimas partes de Leviatán, o la materia, forma y poder de un Estado eclesiástico o civil: “De un Estado cristiano” y “El reino de las tinieblas”. El análisis de estas secciones del opus magnum hobbe-siano se centra en tres temas: la forma política de los reinos de Dios en la tierra, la interpretación “materia-lista” de los espíritus y la concepción del soberano ci-vil como suprema autoridad interpretativa. A (...) partir de la querella entre Carl Schmitt y Erik Peterson respecto de la legitimidad política y doctrinal de la teología, se identifican presupuestos teóricos y metodológicos que están presentes en la argumentación presentada por Hobbes cuando aborda el vínculo entre religión y polí-tica. Si bien se adopta una perspectiva hermenéutica textualista que se restringe a un corpus limitado de la producción de Thomas Hobbes, el objetivo del artículo es reconocer en la teología política una práctica teórico política útil para conceptualizar las formas políticas representativas de una época. (shrink)

Entre las teorías de Thomas Hobbes y Baruch de Spinoza hay destacadas coincidencias y también importantes diferencias. Inician y revelan cambios en la teoría y la práctica políticas que ocurren en corto espacio de tiempo pero que son decisivos. Antecesores del positivismo, ambos compartieron bases ontológicas y metodológicas, lo que suele interpretarse, por razones cronológicas, como una influencia de Hobbes en Spinoza. Las diferencias entre ambos versan sobre el sentido de la religión en relación con su papel en la (...) política; las relaciones entre la revelación divina, la ley y la razón naturales y el orden moral; el iusnaturalismo como fundamento del sistema jurídico-político; el sentido y contenido del contrato social como fundamento de la obligación civil. Todas estas divergencias conducen a la más importante de todas, y es que Hobbes se enroca en un absolutismo que desconoce los derechos de la conciencia, mientras que Spinoza se erige en defensor del fuero interno. (shrink)

The God that our age is revealing to us is one Who asks new questions, challenges men anew, calls to deeper honesty and better service.

In the lively debate of the last two decades about the validity of the ‘secularization thesis’, the comparison between Europe and the USA plays a central role. The high level of religiosity beyond the Atlantic has put under pressure the assumption of the loss of importance of religion in modernity, which had been prevalent for a long time. In this debate, the connection between the differentiation theory and sociology of religion, which has already been discussed by the classics (...) of the discipline, has attracted too little attention. This article takes up this desideratum and proposes, following Max Weber, a theory of differentiation which is able to cover the variety of religious processes. This proposed analysis will be made concrete with reference to the different paths to modernity of Europe and the USA and the related importance of religion. (shrink)