Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan

An introduction to Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan. Hobbes looms over all of us as the preeminent defender of the modern state and sovereign authority. Nuanced and original, he is probably the most influential figure in modern political philosophy who, and could be described as the father of both modern liberalism and modern conservatism.

Hobbes’ originality was his belief that political theory could be deduced from scientific principles about psychology, the senses, language, morality, knowledge, and power.

To understand politics, he argued, you had to understand people. Hobbes grounds Leviathan in a state of nature – a theoretical situation in which humans have no institutions, no government, no coercive power – a pre-societal condition.

Human existence in a state of nature is, according to Hobbes, pretty undesirable. In the most famous passage of Leviathan he says that in a state of nature there are ‘no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.’

In a state of nature, we have a right to all things, but because we seek our own self-preservation, there are ‘laws of nature.’ Hobbes says that the first law of nature is ‘that every man seek peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it; and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek and use all helps and advantages of war.’

Because some ignore or misunderstand the laws of nature we require a sovereign power to keep us in awe; a leviathan.

Hobbes has been reinterpreted in the 20th century in game theory terms as a prisoner’s dilemma.

Or send me a one-off tip of any amount and help me make more videos:

Buy on Amazon through this link to support the channel:

Follow me on:

Subscribe to the podcast:

Sources:

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

Thomas Hull, Hobbes and the Making of Modern Political Thought

Glen Newey, The Routledge Guidebook to Hobbes’ Leviathan

Martinich Aloysius, Hobbes

Credits:

[cactusimon]

I’m a recent patreon supporter. You really have been making great content for ages. I’m glad you also have stamina for it!

[iamerror]

Great video! I haven't studied Hobbes in years and this crash course did an excellent job refreshing my memory and putting it into context.

[zadig]

Love how this is edited! Thanks for the hard work and the awesome video.

[pedrito]

Omg, great comedic sense man, the part in the car was hilarious. And btw, awesome video on Hobbes. Your videos are just getting better and better.

[davodshah]

Literally just looked over this when studying a level history today, thanks for the timely upload

[Anika]

Such a well made video.
I loved it. Very underrated chamnel 😢

[ibrahimali]

Thank you for your faithful representation and explanation of Hobbes' theory. Too many unfortunately mislabel his reasonings.

[MourningTalkShow]

“Fearful of our fundamental equality” is a nice nugget to chew on.

[BobBogaert]

"When the smoke clears and you can see the sky again,
there will be the chopped off heads of Leviathan."

[jonfischer]

Lol, I really enjoyed the intro driving bit. Good video as always!!

[ironjose]

2:36 "bumping into one another" as he drives over a bumper <3

[Skepticallady]

Great content and explanation of Hobbes and his social contract! Your channels is great, keep it up! Greetings from Costa Rica 😊

[HoneyTouchConsultingLLC]

You make phenomenal videos. Keep up the great work!

[danielfitzgerald]

Every time he says "In a state of nature" I just think of the scene from Darkest Hour where Churchill is in the bath dictating a speech to his secretary through the door and says "I'm coming out in a state of nature" before proceeding to walk out bollock naked.

[shodanxx]

This is extremely salient to me, I don't know why but lately I've been having lots of discussions about this topic. I also randomly stayed listening to the audiobook origins of political order by Francis Fukuyama. He criticizes Hobbes, Rousseau and the other guys "state of nature" as wrongly individualistic as opposed to familial / band or tribal and provides as supporting evidence the social life of some monkey which share a common ancestor with humans in addition of archeological evidence that humans have never been in an individualist social order as the norm.

[ozlemdenli]

came to this video via the one on rage. great content

[panoptos]

This is my favorite channel. In this particular video, as he was driving, I had a difficult time concentrating on what he was saying. I kept thinking: keep your eyes in the road. Blame it on the ADD.

[soup]

Im about to start writing a paper on Leviathan here soon, video out just in time

[socialswine]

This video feels like I’m in an Uber and the driver is wired on adderol and rambling about Hobbes

[standowner]

Yesterday, I was watching your videos on Foucault and you had 100K subscribers. Today you have 101K.
That's impressive!