6. Major Achievements of Thomas Hobbes
1. Leviathan
Thomas Hobbes wrote his most famous book, Leviathan, in the year of 1651. It was an expansion of his moral and political philosophy that had been mentioned in a previous writing of his. (iep) The word "Leviathan" is a word that comes from the Hebrew for "sea monster". Also, it is the name of a sea creature that appears in the Bible. This "monster" is how Hobbes perceives the perfect government. Leviathan is split into four different books: "Of Man," "Of Commonwealth," Of a Christian Commonwealth," and "Of the Kingdome of Darknesse." The first book is the one that consists of the philosophical outline. The following books are all arguments to support everything mentioned in the first book. Hobbes starts off by saying that every condition of human nature can be concluded from materialist principles. He claims the state of nature is the "war of every man against every man." This basically means that people are constantly looking for ways to tear each other down. He believed that the only result to this conflict is to construct the Leviathan through social contract. In the second book he brings up the measures to initiate the Leviathan. He also touches base on the immunities of sovereigns and subjects. The last thing in the third book is that it imagines the legislative and civil procedures of the common wealth. Book three and four both bring up religious ideas. The unity of Christian doctrine with the philosophy created by Hobbes is mentioned in book three along with the religious system of the Leviathan. The fourth book brings up disparaging untrue religious beliefs and disputing that the political application of the Leviathanic state is fundamental to attain a protected Christian commonwealth. (2)
2. Political Philosophy
Thomas Hobbes believed that everyone is needy and vulnerable. As human beings we are easily influenced by other peoples words. Certain stories and thoughts can get lost in translation through being passed around through others. These certain things can lose meaning or even change meaning. Sometimes when people act on something they do so selfishly almost on accident because of their ignorance on something they thought they knew but didn't learn correctly. He also believed that people would never really reach the full potential of happiness because even with life under an authoritarian-sounding sovereign only little happiness would be gained. The only reasonable option that Hobbes could think of was a “sovereign” authority that is completely unaccountable to its subjects. To let the people deal with the “natural condition” of non-government. (5)
3. Elements of Law, Natural and Politic
Thomas Hobbes wrote The Elements of Law in 1640. Hobbes believed that all ideas are derived from sensation. When people see an object it causes an immediate pressure on the sense organ. Hobbes said that the motion causes "a resistance, or counter-pressure, or endeavor of the heart to deliver itself; which endeavor, because outward, seemeth to be some matter without. And this seeming, or fancy, is that which men call sense." He believed that colors abide in the perceivers and not in the objects themselves. In this book he bring up a story about names. He claimed that not just an actual name, but also adjectives, were the names of the people they described. In his book he used certain names for certain individuals to bring forth the idea. He wanted to show that names are used as a reference as well, they make you remember something about a person that is their identity. Hobbes used certain words in different ways to show that words can have different meaning in how they are used with people in mind. Hobbes was a nominalist, a person who believes that names are the only universal thing. The second of the book is named De Corpore Politico and is a direct product of the intellectual and political strife of the seventeenth century. The ideas presented in the book were his perception of the human condition. He wrote philosophy all centered around what humans do. This book opened the eyes of many and shed some light on why we are who we are and why we think the way we do. (1)