A RETROSPECT
THOMAS HOBBES’ HISTORICAL MILIEU
On April 5, 1588 at Malmesbury, Wiltshire, England, in a tumultuous era of his own, was the dawn of one of the roosters of the philosophical strata, Thomas Hobbes. On the other hand, a quite ridiculous incident accompanied his birth. His mother prematurely oozed him out due to her perturbation of the impending Spanish armada.
Thomas Hobbes could hardly see the promising daylight of his birth, since he was born at the time where the entire Europe was darkly clouded with haze of social insurrections and adversities particularly of political affairs. He could barely experience domestic tranquility because of the incessant skirmish between the ruling heads and the civil society, the parliament and the monarch. People are groping for power and other self-interested motives. Others are clamoring for independence.
His predicaments were worsened by his father’s freak behavior. His father was an impoverished local vicar of Westport who always neglected his ecclesial duty, by adding insult to such demeaning disposition, his father was exiled after being involved in a scuffle in his father’s church.
His impoverished father died soon; nonetheless his wealthy uncle brought him under his custody. Young Thomas showed brilliance in his mental faculty, motivating his uncle to aid him
financially. He was brought to Magdalene College at Oxford University at age fourteen. Five years later he took his Bachelor of Arts. However during his stay in this institution, he felt a radical distaste on his curriculum, particularly on scholastic logic and Aristotelian physics. Instead, he bent time translating the book of the historian Thucydides, which was later, published in 1628. He also spent time reading literary classics of one of the literary giants of the Greeks – homer’s Iliad and Odyssey together with his autobiography.
After graduating at around 1608, Hobbes took the fortune of tutoring the young son of William Cavendish, a noble family of Devonshire. Probably because of his wit and worth-praising performance, he almost devoted the whole of his life to this family. With his sufficient back-ups, he had the leeway to reflect and tour around Europe meeting some outstanding and renowned contemporary philosophers and scientists, such as Galileo, Kepler and Descartes, which later gave him a vital influence.
Hobbes came across Francis Bacon after his travel around Europe at around 1610. Nevertheless, he was lured by Euclid’s intricate geometrical scruples. Presumably, at same juncture he was getting tabs on Galileo’s major pen work – the dialogue which later convinced him that the basic exposition on how man moves and relates is somewhat like that of Galileo’s principle – that the natural state of an object is determined by motion or in a state of motion itself, and would not cease in such state unless being restrained. He applied this principle on his own greatest endeavor – his comprehensive social and political philosophy. He commenced by scrutinizing man halfway through physiological and more focused on psychological milieu applying the general laws of motion. Then he took a steep backward to consider the bigger picture of man by exposing how humans do in a mechanistic format or as bodies in motion driven by sensations, desires, appetites etc…
Thomas Hobbes is “rare” during the seventeenth century in the bivouac of science, on which, he is the first to apply systematically the basic notion of this science to human behavior. He was deeply awed by the innovations made by Copernicus in astronomy, Galileo in the field of physics and Harvey in physiology. This big guy dreamt of unifying or synthesizing all conjoins of philosophy, the study of physical bodies, the study of living matters and political sciences on its focal motion of mechanistic materialism – that everything is reduced to material bodies in motion. He expanded his study to philosophy all through moral and political philosophy. Few of Hobbes major works are his Elements, published in 1640.This book that seems to sustain and favor the power of the king over the clamor of the parliament. This caused him an unnecessary delusion. Fearing of the reprisal that might pound him, he set on his worthless exile to France where he hid for eleven years. After such, Hobbes surfaced again and tutored a fugitive prince who later became King Charles II.
De Cive, however, come out in 1642 as more minced and formal analysis of the third part of his political scheme. Leviathan, came out later when De Cive gains little impact on English’s social – political system.
Leviathan (1651) a masterpiece of his own is quite dispiriting in its conclusion. His Leviathan speaks of man as naturally pleasure monger and ravenous in nature – not naturally good, in a sense. He sees man as a blind galloping monster looking for prey to satiate its hunger and just guided by unenlightened self-interest. And if left unshackled, will bring in a deleterious effect on the human societal hive. This, he says, a man in the “state of nature” – with no subsisting civil right or rule of law. He worsens the matter by concluding that life of every man is poor, nasty, solitary, brutish and short. It is a perpetual skirmish between man against man.
However, in his “right of nature”, he says that all people have equality either in physical or moral ground. Man possesses a passionate love of survival. The laws of nature say that every man has the right and duty to execute his power for the sake of self-preservation – and it’s an imperative.
A state, which he dubbed as Leviathan is an artifice to keep the society running relatively with peace and order. This is working through a social contract bonded by a law under a governance of either an absolute monarch or a democratic parliament. And the bottom line is,
“…the state will be given a monopoly on violence and autonomy. In return, the state promises to exercise its absolute power to maintain a state at peace by punishing deviants, etc…Realizing that its power depends wholly on the willingness of the citizenry to surrender theirs, the State itself will have an incentive not to abuse it. Of course, there is no guarantee that it won’t. But if it does, it must brace itself for the consequences.”
HOBBES’ PHILOSOPHICAL CHARACTER
The tortuous lane of Hobbes lifeline gave him, perhaps, an impression of a drastic human nature. Hence, a materialistic philosophy and a bitter connotation tainted his philosophical stroke. Notwithstanding the influences of his contemporaries with philosophies containing a materialistic character. His philosophy is focused on political issues. He attempted and succeeded in framing his philosophy on his era, where the societal picture is distorted. Although, untenable on the opposite side of the coin.
The ambiance of his philosophy is quite authoritative in nature. Obviously, he’s a reactionary and a die hard of monarchs and even spent the whole of his life at that status, not mentioning his logical approach to such chaotic and pandemonic political dimension of his society.
“The philosophy of Thomas Hobbes is perhaps the most complete materialistic philosophy in the 17th century. Hobbes rejects Cartesian dualism and believes in the mortality of the soul. He rejects free will in favor of determinism, a determinism which treats freedom as being able to do what one desires. He rejects Aristotelian and scholastic philosophy in favor of the “new” philosophy of Galileo and Gassendi, which largely treats the world as a matter in motion. Hobbes is perhaps most famous in his political philosophy. Men in a state of nature, that is a state without civil government, are in a war of all against all in which life is hardly worth living. The way out of this desperate state is to make a social contract and establish the state, Hobbes subscribe to a very authoritarian version of the social contract.”
HOBBES CRUCIAL TIME LINE
1588 April 5, born in Malmesbury, Wiltshire, England. His premature birth was hastened by his mother’s fear upon hearing of the approach of the Spanish Armada. His father was vicar of Westport but fled to London after being involved in a brawl outside his own church, leaving Thomas to be raised by a wealthy uncle.
1603 Enters Magdalen Hall, Oxford where he studies scholastic philosophy with little enthusiasm but does well in logic.
1608 Receives bachelor’s degree and becomes tutor to the son of William Cavendish, earl of Devonshire.
1610 On his first trip to the continent discovers the influence of scholasticism is waning and resolves to return to England to pursue learning based on the classics. Has several meetings with Francis Bacon.
1628 Publication of his English translation of Thucydides through which he intended to show the English the dangers of democracy.
1629 William Cavendish dies and Hobbes becomes tutor for the son of Sir Gervase Clinton. Travels to the continent with Clinton’s son and discovers a passion for geometry and ponders how to use the geometrical method to demonstrate his social and political principles.
1634 Once more employed by the Devonshires, he takes his third journey to the continent where he enters the intellectual circle of the Abbe Mersenne, patron of both Descartes and Gassendi, and became good friends with Gassendi.
1636 Travels to Italy where he meets with Galileo. With the influence of Galileo, Hobbes develops his social philosophy on principles of geometry and natural science.
1637 Returns to England where the king and parliament are in a heated struggle.
1640 Circulates his manuscript Elements of Law, which demonstrated the need for absolute sovereignty, to members of parliament. King dissolves parliament in May. November, the Long Parliament impeaches Thomas Wentworth and Hobbes flees to Paris where he is welcomed once more into the circle of Mersenne.
1642 Publication of De Cive and First Draught of 1646 the Optiques. Begins De Corpore, the first work in a trilogy on body, man and citizen.
1646 Tutor in mathematics to the future Charles II, also exiled in Paris.
1647 Severe illness puts him near death but he recovers. Publishes second edition of De Cive.
1648 The death of Mersenne.
1651 Publication of Leviathan. Returns to England and begins his dispute with John Bramall, bishop of Derry, on the issue of free will.
1654 Of Liberty and Necessity published without his consent.
1655 In response Bramall publishes A Defense of True Liberty from Antecedent and Extrinsical Necessity.
1656 Response to Bramall published as The Questions Concerning Liberty, Necessity and Chance.
1657 Publication of the second part of his trilogy, De Homine.
1658 Another response by Bramall, Castigations of Hobbes his Last Animadversions with an appendix titled “The Catching of Leviathan the Great Whale.”
1663 Death of Bramall.
1665 Publication of De Corpore. Beginnings of his controversy with John Wallis and Seth Ward, charter members of the Royal Society, on issues of geometry, religion and the state of the universities. Year of the Great Plague.
1666 Year of the Great Fire of London. After the two great catastrophes, parliament was caught up in a witch hunt and sought to stamp out atheism. Leviathan is scrutinized but the king intercedes in his behalf but prohibits Hobbes from publishing any more of his works.
1668 Finishes Behemoth, a history of the period between 1640 and
1660, and submits it to the king for publication but is denied.
1672 After completing a prose version of his autobiography, Hobbes writes a Latin verse version.
1675 At the age of 86, publishes a translation of both the Iliad and the Odyssey.
1679 December 4, dies at Hardwick Hall.
1682 Posthumous publication of Behemoth.
