2. Background
 Born in Westport near
Malmesbury, Wiltshire, England
 April 5, 1588-December 4, 1679
 The Elements of Law and Natural Politic
 Leviathan (1651)

4.  Spanish armada
 Fathers name: Thomas Sr.
 Robert Latimer
 John Wilkinson

5. •
Studied at Oxford University in England
• Main interests are Political Philosophy. History,
Ethics and Geometry
• Influenced by Aristotle, Thucydides, Tacitus, Rene
Descartes, and Hugo Grotius
• Modern founder of the social contract tradition;
life in the state of nature is "solitary, poor,
nasty, brutish and short”.

6.  Physical doctrine of emotion
 Physical momentum
 The Elements of Law, Natural & Politic
 De Cive or in English “The Philosophical
Rudiments Concerning Government and Society
in 1651”

7.  Mathematical instructor
 Young Charles
 Prince of Wales
 Political crisis resulting to war
 The state: “great artificial man or
monster” (LEVIATHAN)

8. The
Leviathan

9.  A condition wherein there is the absence of
government
 Hobbes terms this situation “the condition of mere
nature”, a state of perfectly private judgment, in
which there is no agency with recognized authority to
arbitrate disputes and effective power to enforce its
decisions.
 Hobbes assumes that people generally “shun
death”, and that the desire to preserve their own lives
is very strong in most people.
 Hobbes ascribes to each person in the state of nature
a liberty right to preserve herself, which he terms “the
right of nature”.

11.  The state of nature is the state of war.
 It is “the war of all against all”.
 The right of each to all things invites serious conflict,
especially if there is competition for resources, as there
will surely be over at least scarce goods.
 Conflict will be further fuelled by disagreement in
religious views, in moral judgments, and over matters
as mundane as what goods one actually needs, and
what respect one properly merits.

13.  A form of government represented by a sea monster
wherein the head symbolizes the sole ruler of the state
and the body composes of the people or the citizens of
the state.
 Hobbes believed that an absolute monarchy - a
government that gave all power to a king or queen was best. Its powers must be neither divided nor
limited.
 Needed to suppress or prevent the state of nature that
can eventually lead to a state of war.

14. The
government represented by
Leviathan ‘sea
monster’
Needed to suppress
or prevent
State of Nature
Can eventually
lead to a
State of War
The Summary of the Leviathan