The First Law of Nature

In this episode, we go back to the seventeenth century to talk about Thomas Hobbes’ hugely influential political philosophy. Focusing mostly on De Cive, we dive into his hilariously bleak anthropology, his totalitarian absolutism, and his uncomfortable fit within the modern tradition of political liberalism. But things are a little more complicated than they first appear: maybe old Bishop Bramhall was right when he said that Hobbes’ ideas are ‘a rebel’s catechism’.

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References:

Thomas Hobbes, On the Citizen, ed. and trans. Richard Tuck and Michael Silverthorne (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016).

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. Edwin Curley (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994).

Thomas Hobbes and Bishop Bramhall, Hobbes and Bramhall on Liberty and Necessity, ed. Vere Chappell (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com