Philosopher · 1588 – 1679
Thomas Hobbes
Key Takeaways
- Hobbes argued that without government, life would be a brutal war of all against all.
- In Leviathan he grounded political authority in a social contract.
- He defended a powerful, even absolute, sovereign to secure peace and order.
- His materialist view of humanity shaped modern political and scientific thought.
Thomas Hobbes was the founder of modern political philosophy, a thinker of the Scientific Revolution who applied the cool logic of the new science to the turbulent question of how human beings can live together in peace.
The state of nature
Hobbes asked what life would be like without any common authority. His answer was grim: a “war of all against all,” in which existence is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” Driven by fear and self-preservation, people in this state of nature have no security, no industry, and no lasting peace.
The social contract
The escape, Hobbes argued in Leviathan (1651), is a social contract: individuals agree to surrender their natural freedom to a sovereign powerful enough to keep order. Only such a “Leviathan” can guarantee peace. This vision was challenged by John Locke, who envisioned limited government, and later by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who rejected Hobbes’s dark picture of human nature.
Legacy
Condemned in his day as godless and tyrannical, Hobbes nonetheless reshaped political thought permanently. By grounding authority in the consent of self-interested individuals, he set the terms for centuries of debate about the state, freedom, and obligation, and Leviathan endures as a cornerstone of political philosophy.
Influence
Hobbes's social contract theory and his materialist account of human nature shaped political philosophy from Locke and Rousseau to modern theories of the state and political science.
Legacy
Hobbes is regarded as the founder of modern political philosophy, and Leviathan remains one of the most important works of political thought ever written.
Major Works
- Leviathan
- De Cive
- Elements of Law, Natural and Politic
Controversies
- Leviathan was attacked as promoting atheism and tyranny, and was later condemned and burned.
- His defense of absolute sovereignty has been read as both a charter for despotism and a foundation of order.
Notable Quotes
“...the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
Connections
Frequently Asked Questions
Who was Thomas Hobbes?
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) was an English philosopher whose Leviathan founded modern political philosophy and social contract theory.
What is the state of nature?
It is Hobbes's idea of life without government — a condition of insecurity and conflict that people escape by agreeing to a social contract under a sovereign power.
Citations & Sources
People Like Thomas
John Locke
93John Locke was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as the father of liberalism, whose theories of empiricism, natural rights, and government by consent shaped the Enlightenment and the founding of modern democracies.
Why Locke developed his own social contract theory partly in response to Hobbes.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
90Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan-French philosopher, writer, and composer whose ideas on the social contract, the general will, and natural human goodness shaped modern political thought, education, and the Romantic movement.
Why Rousseau engaged and contested Hobbes's account of human nature and the contract.
Baruch Spinoza
87Baruch Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher of the early modern era whose rationalist masterpiece, the Ethics, advanced a radical monism identifying God with Nature and made him a foundational figure of modern thought.
Why A contemporary whose naturalistic and political philosophy parallels Hobbes's materialism.
Niccolò Machiavelli
88Niccolò Machiavelli was a Renaissance Italian diplomat, political philosopher and writer whose treatise The Prince founded modern political science and gave his name to ruthless statecraft.
Why An earlier theorist of power whose realism about politics anticipated Hobbes.
Mary Wollstonecraft
85Mary Wollstonecraft was an English Enlightenment writer and philosopher, a pioneer of feminist thought whose A Vindication of the Rights of Woman argued for the education and equality of women.
Why Also a philosopher · From the same civilization
René Descartes
92René Descartes was a French philosopher, mathematician and scientist, the "father of modern philosophy", famous for "I think, therefore I am" and for founding analytic geometry.
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