Thomas Hobbes was born in 1588 in Malmesbury to a local priest. After graduating from a provincial school, he managed to enter Oxford University and then get a job as a tutor in a family of English aristocrats. This allowed him not only to move in aristocratic circles, but also to travel with his students around France and Italy, to become acquainted with the latest achievements of European science. Hobbes assessed the English Revolution as a grave social disaster and, with the onset of revolutionary unrest, moved to Paris, where he lived for about 11 years (1640-1651). In France, he developed his political philosophy and set it out initially in his work “On the Citizen” (1642), and later in his main work “Leviathan, or the Matter, Form, and Power of the State, Ecclesiastical and Civil” (1651). When Cromwell invited him back, Hobbes returned to England, but he never found common ground with his compatriots, who were divided into two warring camps; his works “On the Citizen” and “Leviathan” were included in the index of prohibited books. Nevertheless, the thinker continued to develop his philosophical concept. Over the course of several years, he published two works – “On the Body” (1655) and “On Man” (1658), which, together with the previously written doctrine “on the citizen”, formed three parts of “The Principles of Philosophy”, presenting his views as a complete system. Hobbes died in 1679.
The events of the English Revolution obviously had a direct impact on Hobbes’s life, his political views and his scientific interest in the problems of the political structure of society. He developed a firm conviction that no oppression or hardship associated with life in a state could be compared with the destructive consequences that social unrest and civil war entail.
Hobbes became acquainted with Bacon quite early, from whom Hobbes adopted the general principles of empirical methodology, but unlike Bacon, Hobbes joined the mechanistic natural science of his time. This was primarily due to the influence of the works of leading European scientists: Galileo, Kepler, Descartes, Gassendi, Harvey, many of whom Hobbes was personally acquainted with. Even more decisively than Bacon, Hobbes rejected scholastic Aristotelian philosophy, excluded theology from philosophy and, in general, all reasoning about the spirit and spirits. His own philosophy has two main sections: the first is natural philosophy (geometry, physics, physiology) and the second is civil philosophy, which is divided into the doctrine of the inclinations, affects and morals of people – ethics and the doctrine of the state – politics. The model of scientific knowledge for Hobbes, as for many of his contemporaries, was geometry and its rationalistic deductive method, which he considered possible to directly extend to the field of metaphysics, which, while being faithful to the nominalism traditional for English thinkers, led to the creation of materialistic metaphysics.
Materialistic metaphysics. Having borrowed much from Descartes’ physics, Hobbes nevertheless categorically disagreed with Descartes in the field of metaphysics. In his objections to the latter’s “Metaphysical Meditations”, Hobbes came out as a supporter of the empirical approach, which gives preference to experience and considers the intellect as something secondary in relation to corporeal substance. The presence of thinking, according to Hobbes, does not yet mean the need to recognize a special spiritual substance. His criticism of Descartes’ cogito ergo sum is that it is necessary to distinguish the subject from its faculties, otherwise we get the absurd assertion that if I walk, then, therefore, I am a walk. It is quite possible “that the thinking thing is the subject of thought, reason, or intellect, and by virtue of this – something corporeal” (2: 136). If words are something derived from our imagination and our feelings, then “thought will be nothing else than a movement in some parts of the corporeal organism” (2: 140). In connection with the criticism of Descartes’ spiritual substance, Hobbes considers it necessary to abandon the concept of innate ideas (God, soul, substance). Ideas are the result of perception. Thinking itself in a corporeal thing is a kind of movement and is reduced to affirmation and denial, i.e. to operations on words, which are only doubled perceptions of ideas. Words are created with reliance on memory as signs of ideas in the mind, stored in memory and independent in their existence from the impressions that originally caused them. Under the influence of speech, reason and understanding, the ability for science, art and communication develop in man. Speech also contains the possibility of departing from true knowledge, since words are only signs of things, but not the things themselves. Words can contain an absurd meaning or have no meaning at all. True experience can only be made up of facts. Science consists in studying the connection and dependence of facts among themselves.
Hobbes’s first philosophy begins with a thought experiment that discards all our metaphysical premises: suppose the destruction of the entire world, after which only one man remains, this remaining man continues to think, imagine and remember. This thought experiment makes the activity of the mind dependent in advance on external influence and the work of the imagination and sense organs. “Moreover, if we consider well what we do when we think and reason, it seems that even in the situation where all things in the world exist, we think and compare only the images of our imagination” (1: 1, 139), i.e. we act within the framework of our consciousness and the experience that belongs to us. Therefore, Hobbes considers the only reasonable thing to limit the sphere of philosophy to material substance: where there are no bodies, “where there is neither origin nor properties, philosophy has nothing to do” (1: 1, 79). “A body is everything that does not depend on our thinking and coincides with some part of space, that is, has the same extension as it” (1:1, 146). “Bodies and their accidents, as they appear to us in different ways, differ from each other in this respect, that the former are things, but do not come into being, while the latter come into being, but are not things” (1:1, 157), so whiteness can disappear and be replaced by blackness, and the property of being a man can be replaced by the property of being non-man. Hobbes considers the use of the expression “first matter” justified, but stipulates that it should be understood not as an independently and separately existing thing, but as a body in general, a body abstracted to the maximum extent from all accidents. As a result, the subject of science turns out to be something spatial, to which, as with Descartes, everything material is reduced. Starting from the general properties of bodies, we simultaneously clarify the principles of first philosophy, its main categories: space and time, body and accidents, cause and effect. Later we clarify them in relation to the field of geometry, mechanics, and then move on to empirical knowledge of natural things in physics and then in living nature. People themselves are nothing more than a continuation of nature and, in essence, are no different from animals. The only and essential difference is rationality, which itself is based only on the movement and development of material bodies. “By reasoning I mean… calculation. To calculate means to find the sum of things added together or to find the remainder when subtracting something from another. Therefore, to reason means the same thing as adding and subtracting” (1: 1, 74). In turn, thinking is possible regarding such objects as numbers, figures, quantities and movements. Objects that have these properties are bodies. The unified Hobbesian system unites the scientific consideration of all kinds of bodies: physical bodies, the human body, and the civil body, by which Hobbes means human society. Hobbes is convinced that, like the rational order of nature revealed in the natural sciences,It is possible to establish a rational order in human public affairs. Hobbes’s works on political philosophy are devoted to this goal.
Political philosophy. Hobbes views his efforts in the field of political philosophy as an attempt to establish a strictly scientific, objective approach to the study of social phenomena. In both religion and politics, people act under the influence of interests, and this state of affairs is ineradicable. “I doubt not,” he says, “that if the truth that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two angles of a square were inconsistent with anyone’s right to rule … the doctrine of geometry would be … driven out by burning all the books on geometry” (1: 2, 79). However, the good of society as a whole requires abandoning private interests and adopting an objective, reasonable point of view.
The scientific approach to the problems of society begins with the establishment of the concept of natural reason and the natural state. A dual understanding of the concept of the natural state is possible: as a scientific hypothesis and as a concept of a certain historical stage in the development of human society. As in the cognition of nature, the cognizing reason, turning to society, finds support in a certain original rationality. However, here the path to rationality is complicated by the fact that outside of society, nature provides man with only reason and leaves him alone among his own kind – the same individuals who possess reason. Hobbes considers this state to be the natural state of man.
The state of nature. In the state of nature, reason grants man the right to everything, for reason presents everything as subject to reason and belonging to man. In the state of nature, everyone is equal: in their rationality and their claims to everything and in their ability to harm another, which causes mutual distrust and fear of man before man. Because of the feeling of rivalry, the thirst for profit and the desire to protect themselves, people are in constant struggle with each other, there is a “war of all against all” (1: 1, 291). In such conditions, “there is no room for industry, since no one is guaranteed the fruits of his labor … there is no society, but … there is perpetual fear and constant danger of violent death, and man’s life is solitary, poor, hopeless, dull and short” (2: 96). But in a civil state, Hobbes notes, do we not carry weapons to protect ourselves from robbers, do we not lock our house and even our chest at home from our family? This means, in his opinion, that the natural state is the basis of life in society, and therefore a return to it is always possible, which is what happens during periods of civil wars. In relations between states, the natural state prevails unchanged.
The unbearable nature of this situation requires the mind to find a way out of the natural state and take the path leading to sustainable peace. This path takes the form of natural laws that the mind dictates to man. The first law balances on the edge of peace and war, it states that peace should always be sought and followed, but if peace cannot be maintained, man is allowed to defend himself by all possible means. The second law indicates how the state of peace can be maintained – this is a mutual renunciation of the right to everything by all people equally for the sake of peace and equal freedom and security, that is, a renunciation of one’s right for the sake of another person. Mutual transfer of rights – a contract – creates the basis for legal and fair communication between people. The third law states that people must fulfill agreements, since failure to fulfill a contract means a return to war.
Further laws have the form of general moral requirements: they assume mutual gratitude, compliance, forgiveness, and impartiality in people. “Everyone is obliged to grant to anyone else the same rights that he demands for himself” (1: 1, 311). The most general natural rule: “do not do to others what you do not wish for yourself” (1: 1, 315). Thus, according to Hobbes, moral principles underlie legal regulations, and law in his rationalistic concept is not yet separated from morality. Natural law coincides with moral law, therefore the science of natural laws is a true moral philosophy.
These natural laws are based on reason, but they contradict human passions. Compliance with natural laws depends not only on the reason of an individual, but also on the behavior of other people, on their rationality. They do not act automatically like the laws of nature and can be violated. Therefore, there must be a force that would support people’s desire for peace and suppress actions that lead to war. For this reason, a social contract is concluded between people, leading to the formation of a state.
The state. The state is a general power capable of protecting citizens from external attacks and internal strife, to which the rights of all citizens are transferred, insofar as this leads to peace. At the same time, the individual retains inalienable natural rights: the right to protect one’s life and health, the right to follow the natural law, in fact, reason according to Hobbes. Unification in the state is something more than the agreement or unanimity of many people, it is a real unity in one person, Hobbes emphasizes. He calls the state a “mortal god” and compares it to the biblical monster Leviathan. Fear of the state should lead to peace, harmony, obedience and mutual assistance between citizens, for it overcomes the fear of another person and the desire to enter into war with him. For children, the path to community lies through physical coercion, and for adults and reasonable people through voluntary consent. Therefore, the unification of people into a state can be voluntary and peaceful or forced and violent. There are also two ways of forming a state: natural origin assumes the unification of people by virtue of the natural power of some person to whom they submit out of fear or trust, this is how despotic states or patriarchal states arise. The second option for the emergence of a state is when the unification is based on the conscious consent and decision of those uniting, this is how a political state arises.
The power of the sovereign. The state is a single person, for whose actions a great multitude of people have made themselves responsible by contract, so that this person can use their force for peace and common defense. Hobbes calls this artificially created person the sovereign. The sovereign arises as a result of a contract, but he himself does not conclude a contract with anyone and is not one of the contracting parties. Since the supreme power is not based on an agreement, it is unconditional and absolute. As a result, citizens pay for their security in the state and a peaceful life by limiting their rights. “Outside the state, anyone can rightfully rob or kill anyone, but in the state only one person can do this” (1: 1, 374). “Every act of the ruler must remain unpunished” (1: 1, 339). The reason for such a rigid position of Hobbes is in the logic of the concept of the state of nature, which makes the state of the world directly dependent on the power of state power. The slightest damage to this power means a departure from the social contract to war. As a result, subjects cannot change the form of government, i.e. change the contract. Supreme power cannot be lost, it is also inalienable in its essence. Of all the forms of government: aristocracy (power in the hands of an assembly of several people), democracy (power in the hands of an assembly of all) and monarchy (power of one person), Hobbes gives preference to monarchy, where the position of power is the most stable. The supreme power of the sovereign is indivisible, moreover, the duty of the sovereign is to ensure that the power is always united, otherwise the division leads to a weakening of power and brings us closer to war. Hobbes is against dividing power between the king and parliament, seeing in this idea of dividing power the cause of civil war. The state is “a single person, whose will, based on the agreement of many people, must be considered the will of them all, so that it can use the strength and abilities of each for the defense of the common peace” (1: 1, 331). Therefore, punishing the sovereign is unjust, because it means punishing another for his actions, since responsibility lies with all subjects. If someone does not agree with the decisions of the authorities, he is still obliged to obey. Otherwise, he will be forced to declare war on the state and, as a result, will inevitably be defeated and killed. Property only arises in the state under conditions of peace and concluded agreements. Although property excludes the rights of another to it, this limitation does not concern the sovereign, who himself is the condition of possession of property. Therefore, subjects do not own property absolutely, and the sovereign can use it in certain cases, for example in the event of war.
The Problem of Freedom. The absolute power that Hobbes endows the sovereign with places him before the problem of freedom. From a political point of view, Hobbes justifies the limitations of human freedom by the fact that if the sovereign’s power were absent, then, being outside the concluded agreement, everyone could at any moment become a slave, i.e. lose freedom altogether. The limitations of freedom in the state do not depend on the form of government (freedom in a monarchical state and in a democratic one can be the same), but on the weakness of the government and its imperfection. Much worse disasters await people if they find themselves without any state power. It is wiser to endure oppression from the authorities than to expose oneself to the disasters of war. Therefore, the limits of the freedom of subjects are determined by what is not included in the concluded social contract. In other words, it is determined by what the sovereign has passed over in silence. Thus, subjects can be free in choosing their way of life or in the methods of raising children.
From a philosophical point of view, freedom and necessity, according to Hobbes, are compatible: the water of a river flows along its bed freely and at the same time necessarily. More subtle reasoning leads Hobbes to distinguish between the freedom to will and the freedom to do. “Will and desire mean the same thing, and differ only in our understanding according to whether we take into account previous reflection or not. Where desire arises, there is a sufficient reason for it… Therefore, neither the will of man nor the will of animals has freedom that would be freedom from necessity. But if by freedom we understand not the ability to will (volendi), but the ability to perform (faciendi), then such freedom, insofar as it is possible at all, is undoubtedly possessed by both man and beast in the same way” (1:1, 206-207).
To these arguments of Hobbes there is an objection raised against the philosopher by Bishop Bramhall: if a man cannot will otherwise than he wills (that is, if his desires do not depend on him), then how can he be held responsible for what follows from his desires? In other words: no one can will what he does not really want.
Religion and the state. Hobbes pays special attention to the issues of the relationship between the state and religion – key to the English revolution. Hobbes’s main principle is that the agreement between people should be placed above the agreement with God.
Religion, he maintains, is inherent in man by virtue of the “passion of natural piety” (1:1, 249). Different religious beliefs arise from the imagination, as well as under the influence of ignorance and superstition, supported by churchmen. Every religion exists for the sake of human community. The only difference can be whether it is determined by human policy or divine policy. “The fear of an invisible power, invented by the mind, or imagined on the basis of fictions admitted by the state, is called religion; that of those not admitted, superstition. But if the imaginary power be really such as we imagine it to be, then it is true religion” (2:43). Thus, rational reasoning leads us to the conviction that the chain of causes and effects must have its beginning in the person of an infinite God. That which does not contradict reason and natural laws can be declared by the state to be divine laws. It turns out that the most true religion can be recognized as faith in the state, in a mortal god.
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