Thomas Hobbes Philosopher
- Gender: Male
- Citizenship: United Kingdom
- Born: Apr 5, 1588
- Died: Dec 4, 1679
Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, in some older texts Thomas Hobbs of Malmsbury, was an English philosopher, best known today for his work on political philosophy. His 1651 book Leviathan established social contract theory, the foundation of most later Western political philosophy.
Though on rational grounds a champion of absolutism for the sovereign, Hobbes also developed some of the fundamentals of European liberal thought: the right of the individual; the natural equality of all men; the artificial character of the political order; the view that all legitimate political power must be "representative" and based on the consent of the people; and a liberal interpretation of law which leaves people free to do whatever the law does not explicitly forbid.
He was one of the founders of modern political philosophy and political science. His understanding of humans as being matter and motion, obeying the same physical laws as other matter and motion, remains influential; and his account of human nature as self-interested cooperation, and of political communities as being based upon a "social contract" remains one of the major topics of political philosophy.
Fear of things invisible in the natural seed of that which everyone in himself calleth religion.
fear & religion
Prudence is but experience, which equal time, equally bestows on all men, in those things they equally apply themselves unto.
experience
I put for the general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death.
death & power
It is not wisdom but Authority that makes a law.
wisdom
Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues.
war
The condition of man... is a condition of war of everyone against everyone.
war
Science is the knowledge of consequences, and dependence of one fact upon another.
knowledge & science
In the state of nature profit is the measure of right.
nature