Between Hobbes and Milton Conal Condren: George Lawson's Politica and the English Revolution. Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Pp. xviii, 211. $49.50.) (original) (raw)
Related papers
Hobbes Studies, 2022
Well-known for his work on absolutism, divine right theory, and his contextual reading of Hobbes’ ideas, Sommerville also published successful critical editions of Sir Robert Filmer and King James vi and I’s political writing. Sommerville’s engagement in key historiographical debates on early- modern British history, involving “opposing camps” of revisionists and post-revisionists, is less explored. Here, I focus on the question whether pre-Civil War England was immune to ideological conflict or, instead, featured a confrontation between King and Parliament based on ideas of power, liberty and obedience. I also highlight the continued relevance of Sommerville’s innovative account of English political thought as deeply shaped by European theories. His work reminds us of the role of the history of political thought in rectifying false claims and unchecked opinions, so commonly expounded in our divided world. In conclusion, I advance my own critical interpretation of Sommerville’s views on absolutism and patriarchalism.
Tracing the Theological: On the Importance of Political Theology in the Writings of Thomas Hobbes
"This paper seeks to trace the ways in which Christianity, in particular 17th century Calvinist theology, influenced and shaped the thinking and writings of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. The writings of Hobbes, especially the Leviathan, continue to be highly influential texts for political theory and thought today, especially as it informed the emergence of modern secular states, the development of social contract theory, natural law, and the rise of political rights and responsibilities of citizens in a liberal state. Most of this Hobbesian influence on contemporary politics is derived from readings of Hobbes as a secular political theorist (either areligious or an atheist) who initiated a critical break from earlier theories of religious and monarchical rule, and opened the way for the emergency of modern political systems rooted in republican and parliamentarian principles of citizenship. “For the truth is that the way modern liberal democracies approach religion and politics today is unthinkable without the decisive break made by Thomas Hobbes” (Lilla 88). On this reading, the Leviathan is seen as the political handbook par excellence for modern secular and liberal state. I argue that this assertion, however, is a fundamental misreading of Hobbes and his writings. Not only should Hobbes be seen as a powerful Christian political theologian, but the entire project of Leviathan is one of reconciling religious and civil rule under the control of a Christian commonwealth (hence the subtitle: “The matter, forme, & power of a common-wealth ecclesiasticall and civill”). To read Hobbes as a secular theorist unconcerned or hostile to religion requires not only ignoring the historical context in which Hobbes was writing during and responding to in his works, but even more, to ignore his own words. While many of Hobbes's ideas about theology were certainly heterodox for his time, this very heterodoxy strengthens the case for Hobbes as a deeply committed political theologian."
III. The Ideological Context of Hobbes's Political Thought
The Historical Journal, 1966
T H E modern reputation of Hobbes's Leviathan as a work' incredibly overtopping all its successors in political theory' 1 has concentrated so much attention on Hobbes's own text that it has tended at the same time to divert attention away from any attempt to study the relations between his thought and its age, or to trace his affinities with the other political writers of his time. It has by now become an axiom of the historiography 2 that Hobbes's 'extraordinary boldness' 3 set him completely 'outside the main stream of English political thought' in his time. 4 The theme of the one study devoted to the reception of Hobbes's political doctrines has been that Hobbes stood out alone ' against all the powerful and still developing constitutionalist tradition', 6 but that the tradition ('fortunately') 6 proved too strong for him. Hobbes was 'the first to attack its fundamental assumptions ', 7 but no one followed his lead. Although he 'tried to sweep away the whole structure of traditional sanctions', 8 he succeeded only in provoking 'the widespread re-assertion of accepted principles', 9 a re-assertion, in fact, of 'the main English political tradition'. 10 And the more Leviathan has become accepted as 'the greatest, perhaps the sole masterpiece ' u of English political theory, the less has Hobbes seemed to bear any meaningful relation to the ephemeral political quarrels of his contemporaries. The doctrine of Leviathan has come to be regarded as 'an isolated phenomenon in English thought, without ancestry or posterity'. 12 Hobbes's system, it is assumed, was related to its age only by the 'intense opposition' which its 'boldness and originality' were to provoke. 13 The view, however, that Hobbes 'impressed English thought almost entirely by rousing opposition', 14 and that consequently 'no man of his time
Absolving God: Religion and Rhetoric in Hobbes's Political Thought
Book in progress
This book uses innovative methodological techniques to identify and explain dramatic changes in Thomas Hobbes’s religious arguments across his three major political works —Elements of Law (1640), De Cive/On the Citizen (1642), and Leviathan (1651). Despite a burgeoning literature on Hobbes and religion, no one has rigorously documented (1) his increasing focus on scripture, (2) his growing attention to the Old Testament in particular, or (3) his progressive adoption of a multi-pronged strategy of religious argument. This book will be the first to systematically explain why Hobbes was increasingly concerned with violent religious pluralism and to account for his ever-more sophisticated responses to it. Absolving God makes three major contributions. Its scholarly contribution is to show how we can explain many of Hobbes’s most puzzling and politically risky arguments once we recognize how they track the very specific religious debates that fueled Britain’s bloody civil war. The book’s methodological contribution is to show how automated text analysis can give a more comprehensive and precise account of the arguments to which Hobbes was responding. Except for some of my own collaborative work (see below), these methodological tools have not been used by political theorists. The book’s contemporary relevance comes from showing why a major political thinker thought that the best strategy for dealing with dangerous religious enthusiasm is to meet it on its own terms. Absolving God also isolates the very specific distinctive argumentative tactics that Hobbes thought would be most effective for defusing violent sectarian conflict and evaluates their potential use today.