Otfried Höffe 
Thomas Hobbes 

Best known for his contributions to political philosophy, Thomas Hobbes set out to develop a coherent philosophical system extending from logic and natural philosophy to civil and religious philosophy. In this introduction to Hobbes’s thought, Otfried Höffe begins by providing an overview of the entire scope of his work, making clear its systematic character through analysis of his natural philosophy, his individual and social anthropology, and his political thought. He then offers an innovative examination of religious and ecclesiastical questions, touching not only on the political implications of religion so important to Hobbes, but also on his attempt to reconstruct Christianity in terms of a materialistic philosophy. He also explores Hobbes’s continuous critique of Aristotle and Aristotelian Scholastics, in which Höffe argues that Hobbes and Aristotle have much more in common philosophically than is normally supposed—and certainly more than Hobbes himself acknowledged. Finally, Höffe sketches the influence Hobbes had and continues to have on the development of legal and political philosophy.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Abbreviations



1. Introduction: Thomas Hobbes: A Pioneer of Modernity



1.1 Three Challenges of the Epoch

1.2 A Pioneer in Three Senses

1.3 The Continuity of Hobbes’s Development




I. Hobbes’s Career and Philosophical Development



2. Beginnings



2.1 Student, Tutor, and Traveling Companion

2.2 Euclid and Galileo

2.3 The English Civil War

2.4 Exile in Paris



3. Leviathan and Behemoth



3.1 A Fractured Relationship to Rhetoric

3.2 The Symbol of Leviathan

3.3 The Return to England




Part II. The Encyclopedic Character of Hobbes’s Philosophy

4. Science in the Service of Peace



4.1 The Principal Aim of Hobbes’s Philosophy

4.2 The Complex Method

4.3 The Mathematical Paradigm and Its Limits

4.4 Ethics and Political Authority

4.5 Analysis and Composition



5. Natural Philosophy and the Theory of Knowledge



5.1 Empirical Realism

5.2 Levels of Knowledge

5.3 On Dreams

5.4 Prudence



6. Language, Reason, and Science



6.1 Language 1: The Pre-communicative Dimension

6.2 Language 2: The Political Dimension

6.3 Realism and Nominalism

6.4 The Framework of Language and Reason

6.5 Science

6.6 Hobbes’s Division of the Sciences



7. An Anthropology of the Individual: The Passions



7.1 A Naturalistic Hedonism

7.2 A Topography of the Passions

7.3 Freedom, Self-Preservation, and Determinism

7.4 Power



8. An Anthropology of the Social: The Possibility of Peace in a Condition of War



8.1 The Conditions of Peace

8.2 “Man Is a Wolf to Man”

8.3 A Prevailing Inclination for Peace?



9. Legitimating the State



9.1 The Laws of Nature

9.2 A Moral Philosophy?

9.3 The Original Contract

9.4 Absolute Authority

9.5 A Right to Rebellion?



10. Law



10.1 “Not Truth but Authority”

10.2 The Division of Laws

10.3 A Theory of Commands

10.4 Laws of Nature as a Corrective?

10.5 Authorized Power



11. Religion and Church



11.1 A Twofold Political Question

11.2 The Anthropological Foundations of Religion

11.3 The Kingdom of God

11.4 The Principles of a Christian Politics

11.5 A Materialistic Theology

11.6 Hobbes’s Critique of Other Churches



12. An Excursus: Hobbes’s Critique of Aristotle



12.1 The “Vain Philosophy” of Aristotle

12.2 An Aristotelian in Spite of Himself

12.3 Inevitable Strife or the Social Nature of Man?



13. History



13.1 Translating Thucydides

13.2 The History of the Church and the Kingdom of God

13.3 Behemoth




Part III. The Influence of Hobbes



14. From His Age to Our Own



14.1 The Early Reception and Critique of Hobbes’s Work

14.2 A Continuing Debate

14.3 The Modern Discussion



Chronology of Hobbes’s Life and Work

Bibliography

Name Index

Subject Index

Über den Autor

Otfried Höffe is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Director of the Research Center for Political Philosophy at the University of Tübingen. His many books include
Aristotle (translated by Christine Salazar) and
Immanuel Kant (translated by Marshall Farrier), both also published by SUNY Press.
Nicholas Walker has translated many books, including
Kant’s Moral and Legal Philosophy (edited by Karl Ameriks and Otfried Höffe) and
Hegel on Ethics and Politics (edited by Robert B. Pippin and Otfried Höffe).