Thomas Hobbes was an English philosopher, political theorist and mathematician, considered one of the main exponents of the thought contractualist in Political Philosophy. Hobbes was very close to the royal family and defended, until the end of his life, the monarchy. The main book written by Hobbes was Leviathan.
For Hobbes, the State must be strong and with centralized power, as it must have the capacity to contain the natural impulses that promote a chaotic relationship between people. Hobbes worked as preceptor of two sons of the Cavendish family, traditional British nobles. The thinker was influenced by Francis Bacon, philosopher Hobbes worked as an assistant for some time, Aristotle and Machiavelli.
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Biography
Thomas Hobbes was born on April 5, 1588, in Westport. the English thinker was son of an anglican pastor, who ended up leaving his hometown and his family (which was taken care of by Thomas Hobbes' uncle) after a disagreement. Hobbes received formal education, having studied at an Anglican school and later at a private college.
After completing his basic studies, Hobbes entered, at the age of 15, higher education at Oxford University. At this institution, Hobbes knows the Aristotelian Thomist Philosophy, which influenced his idea of conceiving society as a mechanism formed by “atoms”, which are individuals. He also met and was influenced by Machiavelli's ideas.
Aristotelian theses about the natural sciences were widely questioned in the time of Hobbes because of the new discoveries of Galileo, and Hobbes himself was not a great admirer of the ancient Greek philosopher. In Hobbes' childhood and adolescence, England was under the sway of the Tudor dynasty and for a long time he lived with the fear of the Spanish invasion.
The defending ideas of absolutism they originated, probably, from the fear that the English philosopher experienced as a young man, allied to the bourgeois and peasant revolts that established a climate of voltagepolicy in England.
Upon graduating from Oxford, Hobbes became preceptor of William Cavendish, the Duke of Devonshire. Between 1608 and 1610, the preceptor traveled with his student to France and Italy. In 1621, he works as an assistant to the fellow English philosopher Francis Bacon, and in 1628 he becomes tutor to the son of Sir Gervase Clifton, another English nobleman. On a new trip to France, Hobbes studies and deepens in the mathematical theories of Euclid.
In the 1630s, the philosopher becomes tutor to another son of the Cavendish family and, on a trip accompanying his new student, he meets him personally discards and GalileoGalilei. In 1634, in England, the philosopher writes and distributes the first book of his philosophical trilogy: of Cive.
The book, translated as the citizen, was a defense of the monarchy on the eve of the English Revolution of 1642. Your defense of absolutism condemned him to exile after the success of the Revolution, which later established the Cromwell Republic. In 1646, he becomes professor of Prince Charles, who lives in exile with his family in France.
In 1651, in his exile in France, the philosopher writes and publishes his book Leviathan, in which you describe your theory contractualist and jusnaturalist and defends the monarchy as a political regime capable of combating the state of human nature. Still in 1651, he returns to England, having written and published of corpore (The body), in 1655, and of homine (The man), in 1658.
Based on his works, the interpretation of the time considered him atheist, which brought him polemics with the republican government and with the new restored monarchy, in 1560, led by Carlos II (his ex-student). Towards the end of his life, Hobbes keeps close to the king and the English government. He died in Witshire, England, on December 4, 1679, at the age of 91 years.
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Main ideas
We have two aspects to present as central in the Hobbesian work, one being in the field of Philosophytheoretical and another from Philosophypractice. In the theoretical field, Hobbes was an empiricist, arguing that there is no kind of mental representation prior to experience. However, the great philosophical production of the thinker is linked to practical philosophy, that is, to political philosophy. In the political field, the English defended:
The state of human nature as a moment of natural inability to social life;
Society as a complex composition of “atoms”, which are individuals;
The social contract as the formation of the human community that removes man from his state of nature;
The need for the monarchy to establish order among the people.
Social contract
Hobbes assumes that there was a hypothetical time when humans were wild and lived in their natural state. For him, this moment was chaotic, because the human being is, for Hobbes, naturally tiltedforthe evil. According to the philosopher, human beings need the intervention of a strong state body, with laws strict rules enforced by a strong monarchy, so that they leave their natural state and enter the state civil. Hobbes claims that, in his state of nature, "man is man's wolf".
The marital status would be the solution for a peaceful coexistence, in which the human being would give up their freedom to obtain peace in social life. The monarch, argues the philosopher, can do whatever it takes to maintain social order. Private property, for Hobbes, should not exist and the monarchy is justified by its need as a guarantee of safe coexistence.
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Construction
The main works of Thomas Hobbes are:
of Cive: first part of a trilogy composed of books that talk about the human condition in its natural state, through freedom, religion and government.
of corpore: the second part of his trilogy is a book that involves Philosophy and Natural Sciences. In it, the philosopher talks about the need to understand movement as the core of philosophical work.
of homine: talks about human passions and their natural inclination that can lead to the promotion of war.
Leviathan
Hobbes' best-known work is Leviathan, or matter form and power. On it, Hobbes writes his contractualist political theory more completely. An interesting factor surrounding the writing of this book is that Hobbes wrote and published it in English, as opposed to did with his other books and what was done at the time, when it was common among intellectuals to write their books in Latin. The purpose of this feat was that the English population, in the midst of the crisis of the monarchy, could read and understand the need for the monarchical institution in the political formation of society.
The leviathan is a sea monster described in the Old Testament, which is characterized by its immense size and strength, and the idea that it protects the smallest and most fragile sea creatures. The State, for Hobbes, in its monarchical form, would be a leviathan that would protect human beings, fragile creatures, of human evil itself.
Summary
He is an English philosopher and one of the main exponents of contractualist thought.
He was tutor to the children of English nobles and always maintained a close relationship with the English monarchy.
He believes that human beings, in their state of nature, are essentially evil.
He defended the monarchy and the strong State as fundamental for establishing social order and peaceful coexistence.
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by Francisco Porfirio
Philosophy teacher
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/filosofia/thomas-hobbes.htm