Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury

1. Introduction

Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury (1588–1679) is widely regarded as one of the founding figures of modern political philosophy and an important contributor to early modern debates in metaphysics, epistemology, and the emerging sciences. Writing against the backdrop of the English Civil War and the broader upheavals of seventeenth‑century Europe, he sought to construct a unified philosophical system that would explain both nature and society in terms of matter and motion.

Hobbes is best known for Leviathan (1651), where he develops a distinctive version of social contract theory. In his account, human beings in a pre‑political state of nature face insecurity and potential conflict because of their rough equality, competing desires, and vulnerability. To escape this condition, they covenant to establish a commonwealth under a sovereign whose authority is undivided and absolute in form, though justified instrumentally by the goal of peace and protection.

Beyond political theory, Hobbes elaborates a rigorously materialist metaphysics and a mechanistic view of causation, reduces mental life to bodily motions, and advances a nominalist theory of language. His writings on law, religion, and church–state relations argue that civil authority has final jurisdiction over doctrinal and ecclesiastical matters, a position that made him a target of theologians and politicians alike.

Interpretations of Hobbes have emphasized different aspects of his thought. Some portray him as a theorist of authoritarian political absolutism, others as a precursor of liberalism who grounds political obligation in consent and individual self‑interest. Scholars similarly disagree about whether his account of the passions and the laws of nature yields a substantive ethics or merely a prudential strategy for survival. Despite these disagreements, there is broad agreement that Hobbes’s attempt to apply a “geometrical” method to morals and politics marks a decisive moment in the formation of modern philosophy and the theory of the state.

2. Life and Historical Context

Hobbes’s life spanned a period of intense religious, political, and scientific transformation in Europe. Born in 1588 in Westport, near Malmesbury, during the panic surrounding the Spanish Armada, he would later remark that “fear and I were born twins,” a phrase commentators often connect to his life‑long preoccupation with security.

Chronological outline

The English Civil Wars (1642–1651) form the immediate historical backdrop of Hobbes’s central political writings. Many historians argue that his vivid depiction of the state of nature reflects, in abstract form, the breakdown of authority and sectarian violence he witnessed. Others caution that his state of nature is a hypothetical device rather than a direct commentary on any specific conflict.

Hobbes also lived through the Scientific Revolution. Encounters with continental mathematicians and natural philosophers, including Galileo, exposed him to mechanistic explanations and geometric method. His efforts to build a “civil science” were shaped by these developments, but contemporaries in the Royal Society frequently criticized his competence in geometry and natural philosophy.

Religiously, Hobbes’s England was marked by disputes among Anglicans, Puritans, Catholics, and various dissenting sects. His attempt to subordinate ecclesiastical authority to the civil sovereign, and his skeptical treatment of prophecy and miracles, were seen by many as threats to both church and state. Parliamentary actions against perceived “atheism” in the 1660s, including an investigation of his works after the Great Fire of London, contributed to his reputation as an unsettling, if not impious, thinker.

3. Education, Patronage, and Early Career

Hobbes’s educational and social formation laid the groundwork for his later philosophical ambitions, even before he turned explicitly to systematic metaphysics and politics.

Early education and Oxford

Hobbes attended the local grammar school in Malmesbury and later a private school run by Robert Latimer, where he acquired strong skills in Latin and Greek. In 1603 he entered Magdalen Hall, Oxford (now Hertford College). The curriculum remained heavily scholastic and Aristotelian, focusing on logic and rhetoric rather than the new sciences. Many scholars suggest that Hobbes’s later hostility to scholastic philosophy was shaped partly by dissatisfaction with this training.

Hobbes completed his degree in 1608. Evidence suggests he did not excel in the traditional disputation‑based pedagogy but developed an enduring interest in classical texts.

Cavendish patronage

Immediately after Oxford, Hobbes became tutor to William Cavendish, heir to the earldom of Devonshire. This appointment initiated a long association with the Cavendish family that provided him with financial security, access to libraries, and eventual entry into continental intellectual circles.

His duties evolved from language tutoring to acting as secretary, travel companion, and intellectual adviser. The household’s connections brought him into contact with statesmen and scholars and enabled him to observe aristocratic politics at close range, experience that later informed his analysis of faction and counsel.

Humanist and philological work

During this early phase, Hobbes’s chief intellectual activity was classical scholarship rather than original philosophy. His major publication from this period is his English translation of Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War (1629). He praised Thucydides as a historian who unmasked the dangers of demagoguery and democratic instability.

Many interpreters see the Thucydides translation as shaping Hobbes’s sensitivity to civil strife and popular rhetoric. The preface contains reflections on the mischiefs of sedition and the importance of strong leadership, themes that echo—though in more systematic form—in his later political theory. Others caution against drawing too direct a line from this humanist work to his mature system, emphasizing that it precedes his adoption of mechanistic science and geometrical method.

4. Continental Travels and Scientific Influences

Hobbes’s repeated travels on the European continent were central to his intellectual transformation from humanist scholar to systematic philosopher.

Early journeys

Hobbes accompanied Cavendish family members on continental tours in 1610–1613 and again in the 1620s. These trips exposed him to French and Italian culture and to conversations about politics and religion in courts and salons. Surviving evidence suggests that, at this stage, his interests remained largely literary and historical.

The scientific turn (1630s)

A decisive change occurred during travels between 1634 and 1637. Hobbes spent extended periods in Paris and Florence, encountering mathematicians and natural philosophers who were challenging Aristotelian physics.

Key influences often cited include:

Hobbes reportedly experienced a sort of “conversion” to geometry when he saw a demonstration of Euclid. He came to regard geometrical method—starting from definitions and deducing consequences—as the paradigm for all genuine science, including what he called “civil philosophy.”

Parisian exile and networks

After fleeing England in 1640 amid rising political tensions, Hobbes resided mainly in Paris until 1651. There he joined Mersenne’s intellectual network and interacted with leading thinkers. Accounts vary on the closeness and significance of these relationships. Some historians argue that Hobbes was a central and combative participant in debates about motion, optics, and theology; others view him as more marginal, emphasizing the limited uptake of his scientific ideas.

These continental experiences deepened Hobbes’s conviction that natural philosophy and politics belonged to a unified project. The tripartite plan he later articulated—De Corpore (on body), De Homine (on man), and De Cive (on citizen)—reflects this ambition to integrate mechanical physics, psychology, and political theory within a single, scientifically grounded system.

5. Intellectual Development and Systematic Ambitions

Hobbes’s intellectual trajectory can be understood as a movement from humanist scholarship toward an ambitious, architectonic system encompassing metaphysics, science, psychology, and politics.

From humanism to mechanism

In his early “humanist and philological” phase, Hobbes worked as a translator and commentator on classical texts. This work honed his prose style and historical sensibility but did not yet display a distinctive metaphysical stance.

Following his encounters with continental science, he embraced a mechanistic worldview. He came to hold that all phenomena are motions of bodies and that philosophy should imitate geometry by starting from definitions and proceeding deductively. This commitment underlies his later insistence that clarity in language and method is a precondition for resolving moral and political disputes.

The tripartite system

Hobbes conceived his mature philosophy as a structured whole, often described as comprising three main parts:

There is debate about the precise order in which Hobbes thought these parts should be developed. In practice, he published De Cive (1642) before De Corpore (1655) and De Homine (1658). Some commentators argue that this inversion shows how the urgency of civil conflict pushed him to articulate his political theory before completing the metaphysical groundwork; others suggest that his metaphysics evolved in response to controversies triggered by his political writings.

Relation of system to politics

Hobbes presented his political philosophy as a science of the state, grounded in his broader theory of body and motion. Proponents of a “systematic” reading emphasize continuities between his physics, psychology, and politics, claiming that his account of authorization and sovereignty follows from more basic principles about human desires and causal necessity. Alternative approaches treat his political arguments as relatively independent, noting that much of Leviathan is intelligible without detailed reference to his technical metaphysics.

Despite such disagreements, there is broad recognition that Hobbes saw himself as offering not isolated doctrinal claims but an interconnected body of principles meant to explain nature, mind, and commonwealth within a single, coherent framework.

6. Major Works: The Elements of Law, De Cive, and Leviathan

Although Hobbes wrote on a wide range of subjects, three political works—The Elements of Law, De Cive, and Leviathan—form the core of his civil philosophy.

The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic (1640)

Composed amid rising conflict between Charles I and Parliament, The Elements of Law circulated in manuscript and was only printed (in two parts) in 1650. It offers Hobbes’s first systematic account of human nature and political obligation. The work is divided into “Human Nature” and “De Corpore Politico,” foreshadowing the later separation between anthropology and politics.

Scholars often stress both continuities and differences between Elements and Hobbes’s mature position: the basic themes of fear, self‑preservation, and absolute sovereignty are already present, but later works refine his theory of authorization and the state of nature. Some also note a somewhat stronger royalist tone, reflecting the immediate constitutional crisis of 1640.

De Cive (On the Citizen, 1642)

Written in Latin and printed in 1642, De Cive was the first of Hobbes’s works to appear in public and quickly established his international reputation. It presents a more polished account of natural right, laws of nature, and the social contract, explicitly structured around liberty, authority, and religion.

Because De Cive is concise and systematically arranged, many commentators treat it as the clearest statement of Hobbes’s political doctrine, particularly regarding the logic of covenanting and the nature of sovereignty. Others see it as transitional, noting that Leviathan later expands and in some respects modifies key arguments, especially concerning representation and ecclesiastical power.

Leviathan (1651)

Leviathan, or The Matter, Forme and Power of a Common-Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil is Hobbes’s most famous and extensive work. Published in English, it reaches a broader audience and is structured in four parts: Of Man, Of Commonwealth, Of a Christian Commonwealth, and Of the Kingdom of Darkness.

The text develops a detailed psychology of the passions, a sophisticated account of representation and authorization, and an elaborate discussion of scriptural interpretation and church–state relations. Its famous description of the state of nature and the depiction of the sovereign as a “mortal god” have become canonical in the history of political thought.

Interpretations of Leviathan differ on whether it primarily articulates a theory of stability and security, a critique of religious authority, or an inquiry into language and meaning. Many scholars compare the three political works to track changes in Hobbes’s views over time; others emphasize their fundamental consistency, seeing them as successive presentations of a single underlying theory adapted to changing political and polemical circumstances.

7. Metaphysics and Materialist Mechanism

Hobbes’s metaphysics is characterized by a thoroughgoing materialism and mechanism. He holds that everything that exists is body and that all change can be explained in terms of motion and impact.

Bodies, motion, and causation

In De Corpore and throughout his system, Hobbes maintains that:

• Only bodies exist; “incorporeal substances” are contradictions in terms.
• Qualities such as colors or sounds are not properties inhering in external objects but effects—motions—produced in human sense organs and brain.
• Causation is the regular succession of motions according to mechanical laws, leaving no room for final causes in Aristotelian style.

This view aims to place human beings within the same causal order as the rest of nature. Thought, desire, and will are understood as internal motions in the human body, typically in the brain and heart.

Space, time, and God

Hobbes’s positions on space and time were controversial. He tends toward a conception of space as extension of body, resisting the idea of an empty void. His critics, especially in the Royal Society, charged him with confusion over geometry and the nature of infinity. Interpretations differ over how coherent and sophisticated his account is, with some defenders arguing that his critics misread his conceptual framework.

Regarding God, Hobbes maintains that we can speak meaningfully of a first cause or eternal, omnipotent being, but he insists that divine operations must also be conceived materially, as motions of some kind. This has led many contemporaries and later readers to classify him as a covert atheist or at least a radical theist. Others argue that Hobbes’s metaphysical theology is more complex, combining a minimal natural theology with a view that many traditional attributes of God are known only by revelation and should be regulated by the civil sovereign.

Anti-scholasticism and nominalism

Hobbes’s metaphysics is closely tied to his rejection of Aristotelian–scholastic categories such as substantial forms, real qualities, and immaterial souls. He treats universals as names rather than real entities, a stance connected to his nominalism about language. For him, the entities admitted by metaphysics are restricted to determinate bodies in motion, whose properties are described using the constructed terms and definitions of geometry and physics.

This mechanistic ontology underwrites his broader project: by treating human minds and societies as configurations of bodies, Hobbes aims to make them objects of systematic science, governed by the same basic principles as the physical world.

8. Human Nature, Psychology, and the Passions

Hobbes’s account of human nature is primarily psychological and motivational, grounded in his materialist metaphysics but focused on everyday experience of desire, aversion, and deliberation.

Sensation and imagination

Hobbes describes sense as the effect of external bodies pressing upon our sense organs, causing motions that are continued into the brain and heart and that appear as “phantasms” or images. Imagination and memory are decaying sense: lingering motions that persist after the external object is gone. These accounts aim to naturalize mental phenomena without invoking immaterial faculties.

Desire, aversion, and felicity

For Hobbes, human beings are characterized by continuous endeavor—small beginnings of motion—toward or away from perceived objects. When the motion is toward, it is desire; when away, aversion. There is no highest good in the scholastic sense; instead, human life is a restless pursuit of ongoing satisfaction, which he calls felicity.

He emphasizes certain passions as especially significant for politics:

Some interpreters stress the bleakness of this picture, seeing Hobbes as reducing all motives to self‑interested desire. Others highlight his recognition of curiosity, sociability, and concern for reputation, arguing that Hobbes allows for more complex, even quasi‑moral motivations.

Will, deliberation, and freedom

Deliberation is the alternation of contrary desires and aversions until action occurs. The will is simply the last desire in this sequence immediately preceding action, not a distinct faculty. Hobbes defines freedom (liberty) negatively as the absence of external impediments to motion, applying the same notion to both natural and political liberty.

Critics have long debated whether this compatibilist account leaves room for moral responsibility. Some argue that Hobbes’s deterministic psychology undermines meaningful choice; others contend that his definition of liberty is sufficient for assigning praise and blame within a civil framework, provided we distinguish external constraints from internal causes of action.

9. Epistemology, Language, and Science

Hobbes’s views on knowledge, language, and scientific method are tightly interwoven and central to his understanding of philosophy as a constructive, deductive enterprise.

Knowledge and method

Hobbes distinguishes between experience-based opinion and scientific knowledge. For him, genuine science arises when we:

1. Arbitrarily define names for things and their properties.
2. Reason deductively from these definitions, as in geometry.

He famously claims that in geometry we “make” the figures we study, and so can have certain knowledge of them. Extending this idea, he argues that we can achieve scientific understanding of politics because commonwealths are artificial constructions, whose principles we can specify and whose consequences we can deduce.

Some commentators see this as an early formulation of a constructivist or conventionalist epistemology. Others criticize it for underestimating empirical investigation and exaggerating the analogy between geometry and social life.

Language and nominalism

Hobbes assigns language a foundational role. Words are names that humans impose by agreement. There are no real universals in things; universals are linguistic conveniences for grouping particulars. This nominalism underlies his suspicion of technical scholastic vocabulary, which he believes generates pseudo‑problems and ideological conflict.

He emphasizes that the abuse of language—through metaphor, equivocation, or the use of undefined terms—leads to confusion and civil discord. Consequently, much of Leviathan and De Corpore is devoted to clarifying definitions and criticizing ambiguous theological and legal language.

Science and mathematics

Hobbes advocates a deductive, demonstrative conception of science, modeled on Euclidean geometry. He seeks to extend this model to mechanics, optics, and civil philosophy. However, his own mathematical work, especially his repeated attempts to square the circle, drew sharp criticism from contemporary mathematicians, who argued that he misunderstood basic aspects of geometry and infinitesimals.

Assessments of Hobbes’s scientific standing diverge. Some historians regard him as a significant contributor to the philosophical self‑understanding of science, even if his technical achievements were limited. Others emphasize his hostility to experimental practices championed by the Royal Society and portray him as a conservative figure resisting the empirical turn in natural philosophy. Despite these disputes, there is widespread agreement that Hobbes’s reflections on method and language influenced later discussions about scientific explanation, conceptual analysis, and the role of artificial constructs in knowledge.

10. Political Philosophy and the Social Contract

Hobbes’s political philosophy centers on a distinctive account of the state of nature, natural right, laws of nature, and the social contract that establishes the commonwealth.

State of nature and natural right

The state of nature is a hypothetical condition without a common authority. Hobbes characterizes it as a state of war, not necessarily of constant fighting, but of constant uncertainty and readiness for conflict:

"

“During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man.”

— Hobbes, Leviathan, I.13

In this condition, each person possesses a natural right (jus naturale)—the liberty to use their own power as they think fit for self‑preservation. This unbounded right, combined with equality of vulnerability, scarcity, and mistrust, generates insecurity.

Laws of nature

Opposed to natural right are laws of nature (leges naturales), which Hobbes defines as rational precepts conducive to peace. The first instructs individuals to seek peace when they can; the second, to lay down their right to all things when others do likewise; subsequent laws specify requirements of covenant‑keeping, gratitude, and equity.

Interpretations differ on the status of these laws. Some view them as genuinely moral norms, binding regardless of enforcement; others regard them as prudential rules that are fully effective only within a stable commonwealth.

Covenant and social contract

The transition from state of nature to civil society occurs through covenants—mutual agreements. In Hobbes’s central model, individuals covenant with one another to authorize a person or assembly to act on their behalf:

"

“Covenants, without the sword, are but words, and of no strength to secure a man at all.”

— Hobbes, Leviathan, II.17

Crucially, the sovereign is not party to this contract but is created by it. Subjects transfer their rights of self‑governance to the sovereign, retaining only an inalienable right to resist threats to their life. This structure is meant to solve the problem of collective action by concentrating power in a single, authoritative will.

Scholars debate whether Hobbes should be read as an early contractarian (grounding authority in mutual advantage) or contractualist (emphasizing justifiability to each person). Some highlight the rational choice features of his argument; others stress the role of fear, language, and education in sustaining obedience. Disagreement also persists over how his model relates to particular historical regimes, with readings ranging from royalist absolutism to a more generalized theory of state legitimacy.

11. Sovereignty, Law, and the Structure of the Commonwealth

Once established by covenant, the Hobbesian commonwealth is defined by the presence of a sovereign whose authority is supreme, undivided, and inalienable.

Attributes of sovereignty

In Leviathan and De Cive, Hobbes enumerates the “rights of sovereignty,” including:

• Exclusive authority to make and interpret laws.
• Control over war, peace, and military forces.
• Power to appoint officials and judges.
• Final say over doctrines to be publicly taught, including religious doctrines.
• Immunity from lawful punishment by subjects.

These rights are, in his view, logically entailed by the act of authorization. Dividing or limiting them would recreate the conditions of conflict that the social contract is meant to overcome.

Interpretations diverge on how absolute this absolutism is. Some emphasize formal constraints: the sovereign remains bound by natural law and by the instrumental aim of securing peace. Others argue that, in practice, subjects have little recourse against a sovereign’s decisions, leaving only the right to resist immediate threats to life.

Forms of commonwealth

Hobbes allows that sovereignty may be vested in:

He argues that monarchy is generally superior in stability and secrecy, but his criteria for legitimacy do not privilege any specific form; what matters is the effective unity and supremacy of the sovereign power. Some commentators therefore interpret him as conceptually neutral about regime type, while others see him as substantively monarchist, particularly in the English context.

Law, obligation, and civil structure

For Hobbes, civil law is the command of the sovereign, known by promulgation and backed by coercive power. His maxim auctoritas non veritas facit legem (“authority, not truth, makes the law”) encapsulates the view that legal validity depends on sovereign will rather than moral or theological correctness.

The structure of the commonwealth includes a hierarchy of offices and institutions—judges, counselors, magistrates—deriving authority from the sovereign. Hobbes discusses the roles of counsel versus command, distinguishing advisory bodies (which may deliberate) from the sovereign’s ultimate decision.

Legal theorists have variously seen Hobbes as an ancestor of legal positivism, emphasizing the separation of law and morality, or as a theorist of law grounded in natural reason, since civil laws ideally give determinate shape to the laws of nature. Debates also focus on his account of representation: whether the sovereign truly “is” the person of the people, or whether this is a legal fiction sustained by ongoing obedience and belief.

12. Religion, Theology, and Ecclesiastical Power

Religion occupies a substantial portion of Hobbes’s writings, especially in Leviathan, where he treats it as both a subject of scriptural interpretation and a central factor in civil conflict.

Scriptural interpretation and theology

Hobbes approaches the Bible with a hermeneutic that emphasizes plain meaning, historical context, and the authority of the civil sovereign in resolving doctrinal disputes. He argues that many traditional theological doctrines—such as the nature of spirits, angels, and the afterlife—are often misdescribed as involving incorporeal entities, which he rejects as unintelligible.

He distinguishes between natural theology, which yields a minimal conception of God as first cause, and revealed theology, which depends on prophetic testimony. Hobbes insists that claims of private revelation must be publicly certified by the sovereign, to prevent competing religious authorities from undermining civil peace.

Church–state relations

Hobbes defends an Erastian position, holding that ultimate authority over religious practice and teaching belongs to the civil sovereign, whether or not that sovereign is personally pious. In Leviathan, he treats the Christian commonwealth as a unified political body in which ecclesiastical officials are subordinate officers of the state.

This view leads him to deny the existence of an independent spiritual jurisdiction, such as that claimed by the Roman Catholic Church or by Presbyterian assemblies. He also questions the political implications of doctrines like papal supremacy and excommunication, which he sees as potential sources of divided loyalty.

Religion as source of conflict and obedience

Hobbes explains much religious conflict in terms of fear, ignorance of causes, and the manipulation of language by clergy. He devotes the fourth part of Leviathan (“Of the Kingdom of Darkness”) to critiquing what he regards as corrupt or misleading religious doctrines that have obscured obedience to sovereign power.

At the same time, he acknowledges that properly regulated religion can support political stability, providing moral education and reinforcing obedience. Some scholars emphasize this stabilizing function, interpreting Hobbes as seeking to domesticate Christianity within the framework of civil science. Others view his theological positions as so minimal and skeptical that they amount to a secularization of religion, making him a forerunner of modern critiques of ecclesiastical authority.

Contemporaries frequently accused Hobbes of atheism or heresy, leading to official scrutiny in the 1660s. Modern interpretations range from seeing him as a heterodox but sincere Christian, to a political theologian instrumentalizing religion, to a covert secularist who uses Christian language to advance a fundamentally naturalistic worldview.

13. Ethics, Natural Law, and Obligation

Hobbes’s ethical theory is closely intertwined with his political philosophy but raises distinct questions about the nature of good, law, and moral obligation.

Good, evil, and value

For Hobbes, “good” and “evil” are primarily relative to individual appetites and aversions: what one desires is good for that person; what one hates is evil. This subjectivist account seems to leave little room for objective moral values. However, when discussing the commonwealth and laws of nature, Hobbes also speaks of certain states—especially peace and security—as rationally preferable for all.

This duality has led to divergent interpretations. Some read Hobbes as a thoroughgoing egoist and relativist; others argue that he implicitly recognizes shared human interests that ground more robust moral claims.

Laws of nature as ethical principles

The laws of nature articulate rational requirements to seek peace, keep covenants, show gratitude, accommodate others, and so forth. Hobbes explicitly calls them “moral laws” and sometimes speaks of them as divine commands knowable by reason.

Debate centers on the sense in which these laws “oblige.” One influential line of interpretation holds that, for Hobbes, obligation arises only where there is a coercive power to enforce it, so the laws of nature bind in foro interno (as dispositions) but require a commonwealth for full, action‑guiding force. Another line contends that the laws of nature are binding as dictates of right reason irrespective of political enforcement, giving Hobbes a thicker natural law ethics.

Obligation, consent, and justice

Hobbes defines justice as the keeping of valid covenants. Since covenants in the state of nature are insecure, genuine civil obligation emerges only when a sovereign is established. Consent—express or tacit—to the commonwealth creates a normative bond: subjects authorize the sovereign’s acts and are obliged to obey its laws, except when their lives are directly threatened.

This leads to questions about the scope and durability of consent. Critics argue that Hobbes’s account cannot explain obligations of later generations who did not participate in the original covenant, or of individuals who never explicitly consented. Defenders respond that authorization can arise from residence, protection, or participation in civil life, not only from formal contract.

Relation to traditional natural law and virtue ethics

Hobbes’s theory diverges from classical and scholastic natural law in rejecting a teleological human nature ordered to a highest good. Yet his list of natural laws overlaps with traditional moral precepts, and he sometimes presents them as commands of a rational, legislating God. This has prompted some scholars to interpret Hobbes as a radicalizer rather than a repudiator of natural law.

Compared with virtue ethics, Hobbes pays little attention to character traits for their own sake, focusing instead on actions and institutions that secure peace. Still, he occasionally praises virtues such as justice, equity, and modesty as dispositions conducive to social stability. The degree to which these virtues possess intrinsic ethical significance in his system remains a matter of ongoing scholarly dispute.

14. Later Writings, Controversies, and Self-Defense

In the decades after Leviathan, Hobbes devoted substantial energy to defending his views against critics in mathematics, natural philosophy, law, and theology.

Completion of the system: De Corpore and De Homine

De Corpore (1655) and De Homine (1658) were intended to complete his philosophical system. They presented his theories of geometry, body, motion, optics, and human nature. These works immediately provoked criticism, particularly from mathematicians who challenged his attempts to square the circle and his treatment of infinitesimals.

The ensuing pamphlet wars with figures such as John Wallis and Seth Ward were lengthy and acrimonious. Historians generally agree that Hobbes’s mathematical claims were mistaken, but they differ over whether these errors undermine the philosophical significance of his method and metaphysics.

Legal and political disputes

Hobbes also engaged with English legal theorists. In A Dialogue between a Philosopher and a Student of the Common Laws of England (written in the 1660s, published 1681), he criticizes aspects of common law jurisprudence and defends the primacy of sovereign legislation. Common lawyers such as Sir Matthew Hale opposed Hobbes’s reduction of law to sovereign will and his skepticism toward customary law, seeing them as threats to the traditional English constitutional order.

Theological controversies and censorship

Hobbes’s religious views drew sharp responses from Anglican divines and other theologians. Works such as Leviathan and later Latin treatises were attacked for alleged atheism, denial of immaterial souls, and subordination of the church to the state. After the Great Fire of London (1666), Parliament ordered an inquiry into “atheistical” books; Hobbes feared prosecution and sought legal opinions about whether he could be charged with heresy.

As a result, he refrained from publishing further controversial religious writings in England, circulating some works only in Latin or privately. Among these were De principiis et ratiocinatione geometrarum (on geometry) and theological pieces like Historia Ecclesiastica (now lost) and Decameron Physiologicum.

Historical and autobiographical writings

In his later years, Hobbes wrote Behemoth, or The Long Parliament (c. 1668), a dialogue‑style analysis of the causes and course of the English Civil War. The work offers a partisan yet revealing interpretation of political and religious events; it was initially suppressed and only published posthumously.

He also composed a Latin verse autobiography (Vita Carmine Expressa) and undertook verse translations of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, reflecting both his enduring literary interests and a desire to shape his posthumous image. Scholars debate how far these late works modify his earlier positions, with some emphasizing continuity of themes—fear, authority, sedition—while others see a more reflective and occasionally conciliatory tone.

15. Reception, Criticisms, and Early Influence

From the outset, Hobbes’s work elicited intense controversy and divergent readings across theology, politics, and philosophy.

Seventeenth-century reactions

In England, royalists and Parliamentarians both found elements to criticize. Royalist thinkers objected to grounding sovereignty in human covenant rather than divine right, while Parliamentarians rejected his defense of undivided, absolute authority. Religious critics, including Anglican bishops and Puritan divines, condemned his materialism and Erastian ecclesiology.

Prominent opponents included:

On the continent, reactions were mixed. Some members of the Mersenne circle engaged seriously with his ideas, while others regarded him as philosophically and theologically suspect. Spinoza and Pufendorf read Hobbes and adapted certain arguments, even while departing on key points.

Criticisms of moral and political doctrine

Early critics charged Hobbes with moral egoism, claiming that his reduction of value to desire undermined virtue and piety. Many also argued that his pessimistic view of human nature and insistence on absolute sovereignty justified tyranny. Hobbes replied that his theory aimed not to praise rulers but to secure peace and protect individuals from the worst evils of war.

A recurring challenge concerned the stability of obligation: if people are rationally self‑interested, why should they obey an unjust or failing sovereign? Critics alleged that Hobbes’s own principles could license rebellion whenever individuals judged disobedience safer, thereby undercutting the stability his theory sought.

Early influence

Despite opposition, Hobbes’s ideas quickly entered European debates about sovereignty, natural law, and international relations. Samuel Pufendorf and later Jean Barbeyrac grappled with Hobbes in developing more moderate natural law theories. Baruch Spinoza adopted and transformed elements of Hobbesian contract and state theory, especially the focus on power and affect.

In England, John Locke famously opposed Hobbes’s state of nature and absolutism but may have been influenced by his emphasis on consent and contract. Seventeenth‑century republicans and theorists of resistance often defined their positions against Hobbes’s model, which served as a foil for alternative visions of liberty and mixed government.

Evaluations of Hobbes during this early period ranged from seeing him as a dangerous corrupter of morals and religion to recognizing him as a formidable and systematic, if deeply controversial, philosopher of the modern state.

16. Legacy and Historical Significance

Hobbes’s long‑term impact extends across political theory, legal philosophy, ethics, and the study of international relations, with scholarly assessments evolving over time.

Political philosophy and liberalism

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Hobbes was often portrayed as the archetypal theorist of absolutism and authoritarianism. Later scholarship, especially in the mid‑twentieth century, began to emphasize his role as a founder of social contract theory, linking him to later liberal thinkers.

Some interpreters view Hobbes as a precursor of liberalism because he grounds authority in individual consent, prioritizes security of the person, and separates political legitimacy from religious truth. Others argue that his endorsement of undivided sovereignty and limited scope for resistance makes his theory fundamentally illiberal, despite using some of the same conceptual tools.

Legal and moral philosophy

In legal theory, Hobbes has been widely seen as an ancestor of legal positivism, particularly through his insistence that law is the command of the sovereign and that validity does not depend on moral correctness. Thinkers such as John Austin drew on Hobbesian themes in formulating command theories of law. However, some legal philosophers highlight Hobbes’s continued appeal to the laws of nature, suggesting a more complex relation between law and morality in his work.

In ethics, Hobbes has served as a key reference point for discussions of egoism, contractarianism, and the foundations of moral norms in self‑interest and rational agreement. Twentieth‑century contractarians—including David Gauthier and others—explicitly engage with Hobbes as a forerunner of game‑theoretic approaches to cooperation and obligation.

International relations and security studies

Hobbes’s image of the state of nature has profoundly influenced theories of international relations, where the interstate system is sometimes analogized to a Hobbesian anarchy lacking a global sovereign. Realist theorists use Hobbesian language to describe power politics and the security dilemma, while critics argue that such readings oversimplify both Hobbes’s text and contemporary global politics.

Historiography and reinterpretation

Over the last several decades, contextualist historians have reassessed Hobbes’s work in light of seventeenth‑century religious and political debates. Some, following the “Cambridge School,” emphasize how his arguments respond to specific controversies over church government, sovereignty, and scriptural interpretation. Others read Hobbes through contemporary lenses—feminist, post‑colonial, or democratic theory—questioning his assumptions about gender, empire, and representation.

Despite these varied approaches, there is broad agreement that Hobbes helped define key problems of modern political thought: the justification of state authority, the relation between law and morality, the role of fear and security in politics, and the tensions between individual liberty and collective order. His writings continue to serve both as a canonical reference and as a challenging interlocutor in ongoing debates about power, obligation, and the conditions of peaceful social life.