- Paperback: 593 pages
- Publisher: Cambridge University Press (Mar 26 1993)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0521396417
- ISBN-13: 978-0521396417
- Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 13.7 x 3.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 703 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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"Anyone who works extensively on Hobbes's philosophy will find this a useful new edition of Leviathan." Ethics
Book Description
S. A. Lloyd proposes a radically distinct interpretation of Hobbes's Leviathan that shows transcendent interests - interests that override the fear of death - to be crucial to both Hobbes's analysis of social disorder and his proposed remedy to it. Most previous commentators in the analytic philosophical tradition have argued that Hobbes thought that credible threats of physical force could be sufficient to deter people from political insurrection. Professor Lloyd convincingly shows that because Hobbes took the transcendence of religious and moral interests seriously, he never believed that mere physical force could ensure social order. Lloyd's interpretation demonstrates the ineliminability of that half of Leviathan devoted to religion, and attributes to Hobbes a much more plausible conception of human nature than the narrow psychological egoism traditionally attributed to Hobbes.
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First Sentence
Your most worthy Brother Mr Sidney Godolphin, when he lived, was pleas'd to think my studies something, and otherwise to oblige me, as you know, with reall testimonies of his good opinion, great in themselves, and the greater for the worthinesse of his person. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Your most worthy Brother Mr Sidney Godolphin, when he lived, was pleas'd to think my studies something, and otherwise to oblige me, as you know, with reall testimonies of his good opinion, great in themselves, and the greater for the worthinesse of his person. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Leviathan: The Umbrella Against Fear,
By
This review is from: Penguin Classics Leviathan (Paperback)
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.
5.0 out of 5 stars
An essential piece,
By Matthew Jones (Port Hardy, British Columbia Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Penguin Classics Leviathan (Paperback)
Hobbes Leviathan is an essential read. Firstly I admire Thomas Hobbes for his bravery during the 17th century when this book was written and secondly for his grim view of humanity. Atheism during the height of the Catholic Church was strictly taboo and he had to write this piece very cleverly. Leviathan is a must for those whom are interested in the philosophical ideology of who we are and what makes us strive for things that we do and generally what makes us as men tick. This book is complex. The common "run-on" sentences used in philosophy and the Old English style makes the book difficult to understand at times. It almost seems to be pure thought with no organization which has been jotted down in 728 pages. In all, I like to call Hobbes Leviathan the "Atheists Bible" (though perhaps Hobbes would not like this type of name for one of his works) and I truly believe that this work is just as essential and important to philosophy as Plato.
5.0 out of 5 stars
definitive edition of this work,
By Al Kihano (Iskandria) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Hobbes: Leviathan: Revised student edition (Paperback)
Leviathan is a the most exiting work of political philosophy I have ever read. You may disagree with it, but you should read it anyway and recognize its significance in the history of ideas.This edition is a good one. Its pages are thin enough for ink to bleed through, but the text itself is definitive and its printing is based on editions from Hobbes' lifetime. Contrary to a prior reader review, this edition DOES have parts three and four, although rarely do those sections get read anymore (the interesting things are in one and two).
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