Leviathan: Or the Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil (Part 2 of 2)

by Thomas Hobbes, James Adams

[This is Part 2 of a 2 part Cassette audiobook edition.]

The leviathan is the vast unity of the State. But how are unity, peace, and security to be attained? Hobbes' answer is sovereignty, but the resurgence of interest today in Leviathan is due less to its answers than its Hobbes sees politics as a science capable of the same axiomatic approach as geometry.

Written during the turmoil of the English Civil War, Leviathan was, in Hobbes' lifetime, publicly burnt and even condemned in Parliament as one of the causes of the Great Fire of London in 1666. Its current appeal lies not just in its elevation of politics to a science, but in its overriding concern for peace, its systematic analysis of power, and its convincing apologia for the then-emergent market society in which we still live.

Genres: Nonfiction

8 pages, Audio Cassette

Published August 1, 2011

About the author

Thomas Hobbes was a British philosopher and a seminal thinker of modern political philosophy. His ideas were marked by a mechanistic materialist foundation, a characterization of human nature based on greed and fear of death, and support for an absolute monarchical form of government. His 1651 book Leviathan established the foundation for most of Western political philosophy from the perspective of social contract theory.

He was also a scholar of classical Greek history and literature, and produced English translation of Illiad, Odyssey and History of Peloponnesian War.

Reviews

[John Saxon · Rating 5 out of 5]

The writer accepts that all men are created free and equal in the state of nature and consent to be governed, which is rejected by Sir Robert Filmer, one of the other primary English proponent of absolute authority in the 1600s. This means he accepts that democracy or aristocracy are acceptable as long as the people consent to these forms of government.

One thing I found interesting is how Hobbes rejects eternal conscious torment in hell, or the existence of immaterial spirits who require exorcisms, as these things are used by the preachers to control their congregations. He also believed the sovereign must be in authority over the religious power or men will have two masters which will lead to instability and war, which is a rejection of the liberal principles of freedom of conscience, of thought and of religion.

Good book to read if you want to hear an alternative view as to what the scope and ends of power and sovereignty should be. Read Filmer to hear about an alternative source of that sovereignty.

[Ivan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Once Hobbes gets to actually talking about power the book becomes boring. Before that it is unbearable as Hobbes covers his metaphysics (which unsurprisingly is provably false) to use as a foundation for his later claims. The language is pretentious even for the time.
Honestly it reads like a tankie video essay explaining why submitting to a supreme ruler is based actually.

[Jeffrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

detailing duties of the government and social contract and comparing them to parts of the human body

[Sara K · Rating 3 out of 5]

2,5
There is some interesting thoughts in the first part of the Leviathan, but the second part can just as well be skipped over.