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Sovereignty

In Our Time: Philosophy

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The Sovereignty of the Commonwealth

Sovereign is for Hobbes the essence of the Commonwealth, and he means two things by that. So you can't have a Commonwealth unless you have sovereignty. And secondly, he means that it's the life-giving principle for the Commonwealth. It's the formal cause of a Commonwealth that distinguishes it from the material out of which it's made. That's Hobbes's brilliant contribution to thinking about sovereignty. I'd like to stay with Hobbes for a while, because I think that was terrific, but I think it's further to go.

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