LEVIATHAN

Rating:
Summary: Absolute power for the sovereign
Review: First a word about the edition that I read. It was the Oxford World's Classics paperback. It claims to have modernized the spelling. I don't know about you, but as far as I am concerned doth, hath, belongeth is not modern. It wouldn't have been very hard for them to change it to does, has and belongs. Many people complain about the way it was written, making it hard to read. I found that if you read the difficult parts aloud, as if you were giving a lecture, they are easier to understand the first time through. Definitely not for speed-readers.
Hobbes was a remarkable man. He published Leviathan when he was in his early 60's. For someone of his age he was very much in tune with the science of his day. One can only speculate that if he were to have been born 400 years later, with modern science at hand, he would have been considered the greatest philosopher of all time.
The first part of his book, "Of Man" goes about providing definitions of what must be virtually all of humankinds various behaviours and emotions. He also goes on to define what is basic human nature. It is here, without the benefit of modern science, where his philosophy, indeed the cornerstone of his philosophy, gets off on the wrong foot. Thanks to modern archaeology we know that humans are not solitary creatures by nature, but social animals.
In the second part of his book "Of Commonwealth" he spells out why we form commonwealths, and how a commonwealth should run. Again he is very thorough in looking at all aspects of a government and what it needs to do. He defines the power of the sovereign, the making of laws, the consequences of breaking these laws, and where the sovereign gets authority to carry out the consequences. I felt that he gave the sovereign far too much power, and he is there, it would seem, for life. The people only make covenants between themselves that this person or peoples are to be sovereign. Once a sovereign is declared, there is no covenant, or constitution, between the people and the sovereign; the sovereign is given Carte Blanche powers. One must remember that this book was written while Hobbes was in "exile" in Paris during the English civil war and the subsequent government of Cromwell. And while he is careful to call the sovereign "a person or assembly of people" it is quite obvious that he prefers the singular.
The third part of the book "Of a Christian Commonwealth" was for a large part just skimmed over by me. Some people suggest that Hobbes, because of some of the things he says in the first half of the book, was really an atheist. They say that he wrote this to fool the church to thinking otherwise of him. After skimming through this part I feel that Hobbes was more likely a reformer, someone who definitely believed in God but didn't agree with the way the church and the Pope were behaving back then. I myself am an atheist and cannot imagine writing so copiously on a subject that I do not believe in, never mind doing all of the Biblical research that Hobbes must have.
The fourth part, and the conclusion really don't have much to say. He is busy blasting the Pope, the Catholic Church and Aristotle.
All in all some good philosophical points. His definitions of free will and spirit I think should be more widely taught. The fact that this edition could have been modernized a bit more, as well as the last half of the book being pretty useless today, leads me to give it three stars.

Rating:
Summary: Hobbes is a lot smarter than I am
Review: I finished reading Leviathan a couple months ago, but cringed every time I thought about writing a review. The book is large at over 700 pages and covers so much ground, a review would have to be a book in itself to do it justice. Due to Leviathan's philosophical content and somewhat antiquated language, it's very slow going. Each page needs time to digest.

So I'm not going to bother writing a real review. I will just say that Leviathan is a 5-star classic and worth your time, if you can deal with reading political philosophy. Hobbes divides the work into four major sections:

Of Man, in which he discusses human nature and why civilized people prefer peace to war. Here Hobbes establishes the primary reason that people form a government to rule over them: to safeguard them from enemies, both external and internal.

Of Common-wealth, in which Hobbes first talks about the several forms of government and the pros and cons of each. He then explains the rights that a government has over its people; according to Hobbes, the government can do pretty much anything it wants to. Finally he goes into the things that tend to weaken or dissolve a government.

Of a Christian Common-wealth, the longest section, in which Hobbes accepts the Bible as the word of God and quotes from it numerous time to bolster his position in support of a powerful government.

Of the Kingdome of Darknesse, the shortest and strangest section, in which Hobbes veers away from the topic of government and instead focuses on religious practices and beliefs of the day that he deems improper and inconsistent with the Bible.

It took me months to read this, but I came away with great respect for Hobbes and a better understanding of politics. I can't say that I agree with everything I read, but I think the majority of his arguments are sound and convincing.

Five stars, no doubt in my mind. But it's a dive into the deep end, so you'll probably only finish it if you really appreciate and enjoy philosophical discussion!

Rating:
Summary: Hobbes is a lot smarter than I am
Review: I finished reading Leviathan a couple months ago, but cringed every time I thought about writing a review. The book is large at over 700 pages and covers so much ground, a review would have to be a book in itself to do it justice. Due to Leviathan's philosophical content and somewhat antiquated language, it's very slow going. Each page needs time to digest.

So I'm not going to bother writing a real review. I will just say that Leviathan is a 5-star classic and worth your time, if you can deal with reading political philosophy. Hobbes divides the work into four major sections:

Of Man, in which he discusses human nature and why civilized people prefer peace to war. Here Hobbes establishes the primary reason that people form a government to rule over them: to safeguard them from enemies, both external and internal.

Of Common-wealth, in which Hobbes first talks about the several forms of government and the pros and cons of each. He then explains the rights that a government has over its people; according to Hobbes, the government can do pretty much anything it wants to. Finally he goes into the things that tend to weaken or dissolve a government.

Of a Christian Common-wealth, the longest section, in which Hobbes accepts the Bible as the word of God and quotes from it numerous time to bolster his position in support of a powerful government.

Of the Kingdome of Darknesse, the shortest and strangest section, in which Hobbes veers away from the topic of government and instead focuses on religious practices and beliefs of the day that he deems improper and inconsistent with the Bible.

It took me months to read this, but I came away with great respect for Hobbes and a better understanding of politics. I can't say that I agree with everything I read, but I think the majority of his arguments are sound and convincing.

Five stars, no doubt in my mind. But it's a dive into the deep end, so you'll probably only finish it if you really appreciate and enjoy philosophical discussion!

Rating:
Summary: The most in depth political examination since The Republic
Review: Leviathan brings up several questions to the minds of those who read it. Hobbes arguements about human thought, euthanasia, true freedom, God, the Devil, government, etc. are strong and thought provoking. The reader will discover that Hobbes book influenced the writers of the constitution. Anyone seriously interested in politics and theology should read this book.

Rating:
Summary: your excellence
Review: leviathan is a true gem. while siding with hume, i'll claim hobbes is more interesting and concise, and less repetitive. the conclusion is almost irrelevant. hasnt anyone noticed that all philosophy is ultimately debated and corrected.

Rating:
Summary: A Machiavel in reverse
Review: Leviathan is one of the first books written after philosophy begun to detach itself from the Catholic inspired medieval thinking, also marking the beginning of the influence philosophy received from the scientific thinking, a point not suficiently y explored by Thomas Hobbes but which one we can get with the benefit of hindsight.

Leviathan is an old Fenician word for a mythical crocodile, quoted in some verses of the biblical Book of Job, an taken by Thomas Hobbes as meaning the representation of a powerfull governor totally devoted to do his most to the benefit of the Commonwealth. In Hobbes mind the most efficient form of government was monarchy, but he takes a lot of time to analyse also Democracy and Aristocracy. One has to keep in mind that the time the book was written was one of internal revolt, a civil intestine strife in England, and the objective of Hobbes was to lay the foundations for human actions conducive to an equilibrium within the state, ending war.

His book can be also be taken as one where many important aspects of Right and Laws are aprehended, from the perspective of a deeply religious anglican man, that tried his best to separate, in his words, the Kingdoms of men (where civil laws are imperative) from the Kingdom of God (Naturall Right). He does extensive analysis of God's Laws and its importance to the balance in the relationship between men.

The edition is a very good one, with a good introduction and is a copy of the text as written in the 17th century, exhibiting an archaic English sometimes difficult to understand. Also, some quotations in Greek and in Latin are not translated, despite all the effort the author makes to turn them inteligible to the reader.

The book could be understood as antipodal to Machiavellian's The Prince, because power is not taken here as something good in itself, but only as a means of carrying the security and hapinnes the kingdom subjects deserve.

Rating:
Summary: Nasty, brutish, and LONG...
Review: OK, first off, skip the ENTIRE BEGINNING SECTION of this book - it is perfectly pointless today. In it, Hobbes is basically trying to do away with the concept of an immortal soul, thereby creating an atheistic society that cares nothing for religious matters. Hobbes is NOT known for his Philosophy of Mind.

What everyone remembers about Leviathan is Hobbes' terse, cynical, and on-the-money observation that life is "nasty, brutish, and short." Of course, what he means by this is life in the State of Nature. In order to try to make life a little better, man comes together to form societies.

So far, so good. What most people take exception to is the kind of Social Contract that Hobbes endorses. Hobbes says that a society should come together to form a Social Contract in which everyone is OBEY THE SOVEREIGN UNCONDITIONALLY NO MATTER WHAT. Here's the kicker, the sovereign or king himself exists OUTSIDE OF THE SOCIAL CONTRACT AND IS NOT BOUND BY IT. In other words, the sovereign can do whatever he likes and the people must obey his commands no matter how cruel or ridiculous.

Now, Hobbes was really trying to be more reasonable than he sounds. He lived at a time when England had spent years torn apart by constant war. He was also a self-professed coward: "Fear and I were born twins." Basically, what he wanted was an end to war at all costs. For him, that meant obeying a STRONG RULER - in his case, Oliver Cromwell. The second section is addressed to the people trying to make them understand why this is in their best interests.

The last section is addressed to the sovereign himself. Yes, he says, you can be a tyrant and do anything you want, BUT that will only cause you more trouble than it's worth. I have some advice for you to follow. Hobbes then goes on to RECOMMEND ways in which the sovereign could be a good ruler.

In the end, Hobbes thought he was being an eminently practical man. To him, the "natural rights theorists" would just be talking nonsense.

Rating:
Summary: PERFECT
Review: Ok..So you want to live without any god?Read this Book Plus Schopenhauer Plus Nietzsche.Your life will be much better !.This book is absolute Classic.Easy Read(not dificult as Kant which is good).10\10

Rating:
Summary: Leviathan: The Umbrella Against Fear
Review: To understand Hobbes' LEVIATHAN, the reader must first focus on 'fear.' His contemporaries were terrified of chaos and anarchy and would move heaven and earth to preserve the continuity of the state. Nowhere does he mention the word 'fear' but his real, if underlying purpose becomes clear enough as the reader plows through his dense tract that has as its purported goal to explain the origin of political institutions and to define their powers and proper limits. Hobbes sets up this thesis by first insisting that all of men's ideas originate from sense impressions, which take their cue from the external universe infringing on these sense organs. This emphasis on sense impression led Hobbes next to consider how the external universe manages this neat trick. Motion, according to Hobbes, is the key. Motion naturally leads man, for good or ill, to impact on other men. This impacting may be beneficial, as in man agreeing to help one another respect their respective rights, or it may be harmful, as in man being in a state or war. It was this fear that humanity might start to question the wisdom of the ruling nobility that caused Hobbes to write the longest defense of the royal right of kings ever written. Hobbes cleverly compared man to a wind-up clock: 'That great Leviathan is but an artificial man with an artificial soul.' As the reader follows this geometric logic, he is pressured to accept Hobbes' true premise: that it is better for the common man to put up with the occasional despot than to risk what he terms the horror of 'that condition which is called Warre, and such a warre as is of every man, against every man.'
Even if that regime becomes so thuggish that its citizens wish to break it, Hobbes says 'No way.' If these citizens do break this covenant, then Hobbes warns that their lives will be 'solitary, nasty, brutish, and short.' Clearly Hobbes was a man of his times, one who was a paid shill of the crowned heads of Europe. Such a man today we would label as a fearful toady who desperately needs to maintain his own precarious hold on power. So why is LEVIATHAN still read today? Perhaps Hobbes points out the road that humanity might have once chosen to travel. We, like Robert Frost, have thankfully chosen the other less travelled by.

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Summary: Political Geometry from Bacon's favorite secretary
Review: Tommy Hobbes was Francis Bacon's favorite secretary, and it shows in the math-like precision with which he attempts to build a model of human political interaction -- one that justifies the need for a strong state to hold human "appetites" in check. Hobbes' argument reads like a geometrical proof, which goes something like:

We take it as a given that people, like Galilean celestial bodies, are in perpetual motion, moved by appetites for power. The power of a person is his or her present means to obtain some future good. Every person's power resists and hinders the effects of other people's power. Thus, if all people are created equal in a hypothetical state of nature, then:

1. From equality proceeds mutual fear.
2. From mutual fear proceeds warfare.
3. In such warfare, nothing is unjust.
4. But reason suggests a better way to self-preservation (to peace): the right and laws of nature.
5. The right of nature is the liberty we have to use our power for self-preservation.
6. The 1st law of nature is that we ought to strive for peace, but when we cannot obtain it then it's war.
7. The 2nd law of nature is that in the interests of peace we will lay down our natural right to give us as much liberty as we would allow others to have against us (the golden rule).
8. This mutual laying down of our natural right is a social contract.
9. There must be a coercive power (the commonwealth) to enforce this contract.
10. The commonwealth is ruled by a sovereign who embodies the will of the people and is granted certain inalienable rights to enforce the social contract.

In short, those who fear authority (anarchists, libertarians, etc.) will revile Hobbes, because of power's potential for abuse, but Hobbes would argue that a true Leviathan could never abuse its subjects because it is actually made up of those same subjects (in other words, a roundabout defense of liberal democracy).