Leviathan (Thomas Hobbes)
Leviathan or the Matter, Forme and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil ( Leviathan or material, form and violence of a church and state community ) is the title of a state-theoretical work by the Englishman Thomas Hobbes from 1651. It is one of the most important works of the western political philosophy and one of the theoretical foundations of modern political science.
The title of the work is based on the biblical - mythological sea monster Leviathan , before whose omnipotence all human resistance must be put to shame. A similar role is played by the state in Hobbes' absolutist understanding of politics , which thus becomes the counterpart of the natural state personified by the monster Behemoth .
History of origin
Hobbes wrote his work against the background of the English Civil War 1642–1649, which claimed countless victims on both sides and, with its chaotic circumstances, probably influenced Hobbes' impression of human nature. He also processed information about the social life of the North American natives, as their independence from a state can be viewed as a natural state. The English first edition of the Leviathan was published in 1651, followed by a revised edition in Latin in 1668 due to censorship .
content
The book consists of four parts: On Man , On the State , On the Christian State and The Kingdom of Darkness . However , it owes its important position in political theory and the history of ideas to the first two parts alone. Parts three and four, which deal systematically and historically with the relationship between church and state, are little known today and are even missing in some text editions. During Hobbes' lifetime, however, it was they who contributed to a considerable extent to the hostility towards the author.
Hobbes' stated aim is to give politics a scientific basis based on a rational insight into principles. In doing so, real phenomena should be assumed, but the principles derived from the facts obtained in this way should be rational truths. A precise analysis is supposed to reveal the nature of the community (“Commonwealth”) of the state and the church, so that it becomes clear what actually holds this community together. Hobbes tries to put forward an argument against the mixed constitution and the politics of Aristotle , but also against the international arbitration function of the Catholic Church and its sovereignty over individual conscience. Methodically, his approach is based on rationalism : the object to be examined (the state) is broken down into its components (the people). If it is possible to determine the individual components and the relationships in which they are related to one another in such a way that a functional description of the original object emerges, the investigation is successful. Hobbes therefore begins his investigation with an analysis of essential human characteristics.
From people
In order to avoid a petitio principii , Hobbes outlines a natural state in which humanity lives without law and without a state . In the natural state, man is presented as free from the restrictions of historical morality, tradition, the state or the church. From Hobbes' image of man it follows that in such a state of nature violence, anarchy and lawlessness prevail; people wage - in Hobbes' negative worldview - a "war of all against all" ( bellum omnium contra omnes ), in which "man [...] is a wolf to man" ( homo homini lupus , originally by Plautus ).
For Hobbes, the human being is not a zoon politikon , as with Aristotle , who strives for a society that arises organically from relationships of subordination between the stronger and the weaker and the cooperation of people of equal strength with the same interest. According to Hobbes, man is characterized by three mainsprings: desire, fear and reason; none of these three components lead him to seek the company of others for anything else unless it is to his own advantage. With this, Hobbes represents a psychological egoism that is given by nature and cannot be willingly overcome.
Desire is almost completely exhausted in striving and lust for fame - passions that arise from the fundamental disposition. They “do not shy away from violence, to submit to someone else's wife, child and cattle […] to defend what has been stolen […] to take revenge for trivialities such as a word, a smile, a contradiction or any other sign of contempt”.
Hobbes contrasts an inequality of physical and mental faculties , which in Aristotle's case establishes an organic community, with a fundamental equality of opportunities and thus also of rights: Through preliminary cooperation, cunning or simply greater strength, everyone can be overcome so that their individual power does not can be sufficient to claim authority or even to see their own claims as secured. Therefore, people are characterized by " suspicion ". Since even a peaceful person, who does not satisfy his desires at the expense of others, has to assume that his counterpart is after his wealth and his freedom, he will preventively eliminate this danger. Even more than a natural animal trait of man, it is his rational anticipation (“future hunger will make man hungry”) that forces him to go to war. As a result of this war, people live "in constant fear and the impending danger of violent death"; their life is "lonely, poor, hideous, animal and short."
Hobbes attributes to every human being to have an interest in self-preservation that takes on the character of a natural duty (command of reason). In order to be able to follow this duty, everyone has the right (a natural right or ius naturale ) to claim everything that could be useful for it. For Hobbes, this fundamental and universal right of everyone is identical with the most all-embracing freedom . At the same time, however, this right is not protected against the claim of others to the same things - there is no legal guarantee. Even reason and its insight into nature do not yet make peace possible.
Contrary to popular belief, Hobbes also knows morality in the state of nature in the form of the law of nature ( lex naturalis ), which would enable peaceful coexistence through the observance of contracts and the resolution of conflicts by arbitrators. Reason, however, cannot dictate that this law be followed as long as it is expected that the others do not do the same (see Prisoner's Dilemma ). Such action would pose a threat to self-preservation and would therefore not be rational, according to Hobbes. Therefore, the human being would have to remain in a state of war, because cooperative action does not correspond to the passions and there is no fear that is greater than that for the good and one's own life.
So, contrary to popular opinion, Hobbes does not represent a decidedly negative image of man. The bad behavior does not originate from a malicious, but certainly from a non-social nature of humans. They are required from him in the interest of his self-preservation in the natural state, since everyone must assume that all others are the same in this point. Neither inclination (desire) nor prudence (lust for fame and the pursuit of gain) nor reason (natural law) lead out of the natural state without further ado. Only when several people decide to form a political body together can the state of nature be overcome and the transition to the state made. It is there that law and statute are enforced and it is rational to act according to them.
From the State
Purely sensible laws are not enough to end the state of nature and initiate general peace. Since they are made up of words, they are not sufficiently frightening or effective, according to Hobbes. Instead, this situation creates the need for a superordinate, all-powerful authority that commands compliance with general laws and punishes their violation. By making the laws universal, there is no longer a common cause for fear among citizens of the state - they can expect everyone to fear them the punishments of the Leviathan. This offers security and protection and enables one to pursue one's own passions within the framework given by the law. Through a social contract , all future citizens irrevocably and voluntarily renounce “all power”, their freedom and especially their right to self-determination in favor of “an individual [...] or an assembly in which the will of all is united to a common will by voting becomes. ”This ends the state of war and nature. At the same time, however, the complete legal freedom that the individual possessed in the natural state is the only legitimate source of law. In this point there is Hobbes' revolutionary innovation: Every single person has unlimited autonomy and this - not the right of God or inherited property rights - is the basis of state rule. Its main purpose is to act as a legal guarantor, translating the universal autonomy of the individual into a common positive law .
Hobbes does not necessarily speak out in favor of a certain form of government, but does show sympathy for the monarchy . Hobbes considers the modern separation of powers to be inefficient and cumbersome, since the core idea of the Leviathan is to make the will of an individual (or a body) law for all. If this violence is shared (and not delegated), then, according to Hobbes, a conflict between the various institutions cannot be resolved peacefully.
For Hobbes, the conclusion of a contract is a legal figure in the true sense , i.e. H. a construct to explain and legitimize the transition from naturally given rights and natural laws recommended by reason to the state and its positive laws . Historically, Hobbes considers the establishment of a state through the actual conclusion of a contract to be possible in individual cases, but he considers the appropriation and accumulation of citizens by a conqueror who is not a citizen himself, but the ruler to be more likely and more common . Citizens' fear of the power of the conqueror ensures peace. Since this fear is general, everyone can act as if they had jointly transferred their rights to the conqueror.
Through the authority assigned to him, the sovereign is able to “force all citizens to peace and to mutual aid against foreign enemies.” He governs with unrestricted violence, i.e. absolute power to which everyone must submit. In particular, unlike the people who have now become subjects , he is himself not a contractual partner of the social contract and is therefore the only one who lives outside the law. However, he can no longer be the only one in the state of nature, because the state of nature grants everyone the right to everything (natural law). According to Hobbes, this results in competing, suspicious and glorious behavior. With the conclusion of the social contract, with which the legitimation of the sovereign goes hand in hand, the natural state is abolished so that the sovereign can no longer be in it; it is the product of the contract. The sovereign is therefore neither in a natural state nor within the closed social contract to which he is superordinate. A third category would therefore have to be created for him. Only this third category, provided that he understands how to protect his subjects, represents this law-free space. His power is above all justice.
Citizens are only protected from tyranny and arbitrary rule if the sovereign himself is 'sensible'. Hobbes believes, however, that the sovereign can only fulfill his duty to protect the lives of his subjects through this monopoly of force. It even goes so far that the sovereign cannot restrict his own power at all, since a restriction would endanger the security of the state. A right of resistance of those subjected to violence is provided only to a very limited extent, namely exclusively with regard to self-preservation: Since every citizen has the right and the duty to defend his own life, he may also try to defend himself against the sovereign if he is outside of a war against an external enemy because he allows his life to be endangered by others or even to threaten it himself (Leviathan, Part Two, Chapter 21).
The price of this overpowering state is the individual freedom to do everything and only to follow their own laws. It is sacrificed in the pursuit of physical and legal security . The driving force behind the formation of the state is no longer - as was the case with Aristotle - " Eudaimonia ", the "good life", but rather "bare survival", the escape from the dangers inherent in the state of nature. According to Hobbes, the goal of the state is not to achieve the highest good ( summum bonum ), but only to avoid the greatest evil ( summum malum ). However, Hobbes assumes that securing life and limb makes pursuing other needs (recognition, goods) rational in the first place.
In order to visually differentiate between the forms of rule, the state of nature and state violence, Hobbes uses the aforementioned mythological figures. It should be noted here that Behemoth, due to its continuous presence on the mainland, can also be understood as the constant presence of violence. The Leviathan, on the other hand, as a sea monster mostly only exists in the background and is often not visible. Accordingly, he only appears in situations that require his presence. Nevertheless, it is always aware of the citizens and has the same deterrent effect as Behemoth.
Third and fourth part
In the now little-known third and fourth parts of Leviathan ( Of a Christian Commonwealth and Of the Kingdom of Darkness ) Hobbes is primarily concerned with questions of religious philosophy and church politics. As a rationalist, he takes the position that ethical commands that come from religious revelation are only acceptable if they also prove to be a command of reason. He holds against the revelation-based dogma belief that tradition is fallible and that false prophets are possible. Only the commandments of nature recognized by reason can count as God's will if it is thought of as kind and just according to tradition. Because only reason is equally available to everyone. As a result, Hobbes postulates the greatest possible freedom of belief and conscience. For him, the only core of Christian revelation remains the redemption through Jesus Christ, to which one can, if necessary, confess on one's deathbed for the sake of the salvation of one's soul.
In terms of ecclesiastical politics, he advocates an independent church constitution which - as was the case in the American colonies, for example - grants the individual parishes very extensive powers of self-government. He introduces himself thus on the side of the incumbent Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell , and in opposition to advocated by the monarchists traditional yet Anglican bishop system, but also to the Parliament favored, originally from Scotland coming Presbyterian , which provides for administration of the church by lay people.
In addition, he advocates an idiosyncratic theology that is shaped by his materialistic basic outlook and emphasizes - as in the more well-known first two chapters - in particular the strong position of the state . Hobbes advocates freedom of conscience , but not freedom of worship. He resolutely rejects the claim of the Catholic Church to control the consciences and religious practice of the believers independently of the states, but also to assign offices and exercise territorial rule, as he regards them as a means of political power that the Catholic Church illegally sees as a 'ghost of the Roman Empire '.
In the third and fourth parts, Hobbes' complex relationship with 'history' as a historiography and a budding scientific discipline is revealed. It is noticeable that Hobbes, who disregards history as unscientific, “treats biblical references like historical facts”. Hobbes even makes use of a "pseudo-historical didactic system for contemporary readers" - this "with the aim of using the religious absolute to legitimize the absoluteness of sovereignty and to link the two through the bond of historicity".
Impact history
Criticism of the nobility and the church
Hobbes' model of the state belongs to the political theory of absolutism. It differs from the traditional approaches such as those developed by the French thinker Jean Bodin , however, in the acceptance of a social contract . The absolutist concept of sovereignty is based on a justification methodological liberalism. It is no longer the divine right that gives the monarch his legitimation, but an - albeit irrevocable - agreement of the subjects. Accordingly, Hobbes' Leviathan, despite the intended strengthening of the state, met with considerable criticism from the monarchs.
The Anglican Church and the Presbyterians also resented Hobbes' advocacy for an independent church constitution , but above all his heterodox, materialistic theology. Under the protectorate of the Cromwells, Hobbes was therefore mainly exposed to hostility of a private nature; in particular, many of his friendships broke.
The situation was to worsen for him after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660: the zeal for persecution came less from the new King Charles II , who maintained secret contact with the French and above all Catholic King Louis XIV during his reign, but more from traditional Anglican and Presbyterian circles, especially the new ministers Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon and Gilbert Sheldon , who accused Hobbes of atheism and heresy . In order to be able to hold him accountable, a legislative proposal was even introduced into parliament in 1666, albeit unsuccessfully, to make heresy a criminal offense again. Thanks to influential friends such as the Earl of Arlington , who was Minister of the Cabal administration , Hobbes managed to survive the intrigues against him unscathed.
liberalism
Hobbes' model of the state was also exposed to criticism from a different direction, from the state theorists of the liberalism that grew stronger in the period that followed . While the idea of the social contract was taken up many times, the overpowering position of the sovereign met with rejection.
It was objected in particular that the Leviathan must be a human creation and the sovereign must ultimately also be a human being (or a college of human beings). Since he is also driven by the passions inherent in his nature and so he is also a "wolf" to his fellow human beings, the assumption that he serves "good" and does not abuse his power seems naive. This corresponds to the individual's lack of protection against the Leviathan (cf. Juvenal : Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?, “Who will watch over the guards?”).
In this respect, comprehensive protection of the individual against arbitrariness and abuse of power by the state appeared to be necessary. John Locke and John Stuart Mill postulated basic rights that protect the individual, such as the guarantee of property or freedom of expression and speech , while Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Charles de Montesquieu postulated the control of the sovereign through democratic mechanisms and the separation of powers .
Against the irrevocability of the social contract, once it has been concluded, it has been argued that if the rationality of the individual makes the union to the Leviathan possible, this rationality must also enable the conclusion of temporary defense agreements.
Instrumental rationality
The reason , strongly emphasized by Hobbes, that drives people to conclude the social contract is a purely instrumental rationality. It only gives people the means to achieve a specific purpose, namely the protection of their lives and property. Hobbes also knows a natural distinction between “good” and “bad”, but this is completely superimposed by the human instinct for self-preservation and has no practical relevance without enforcing authority.
The political theory of Thomas Hobbes breaks with the classical Aristotelian doctrine of politics in central points. The close connection between politics or positive law and morality, between the raison d'être and conviction of the individual, is abolished in favor of an analysis of the necessities of an optimal state order based on the model of natural science.
"The engineers of the right order can disregard the categories of moral conduct and limit themselves to the construction of the circumstances under which people, like natural objects, are forced to behave in a calculable manner."
The separation of state and society is already established here. The 'material' and basis of legitimation of politics is the individual isolated in the 'state of nature' who is driving conflicting interests into a war, each against each other. Not his natural disposition to social organization - as in the classic concept of the zoon politikon - but the fear of the life-threatening insecurity of the "state of nature" drives people into socialization.
The claim to knowledge of Hobbes's theory of politics goes far beyond that of the classical conception. It aims to “once and for all specify the conditions of the correct state and social order”.
The radically autonomous individual
The starting point of Hobbes' social philosophy is the idea of a radically autonomous individual who is primarily in competition with others for status and for material goods. Even Marx points out the latter day individualistic human image of the development of a society of free competition on the dependence.
"[...] the epoch that generates this point of view, that of the isolated individual, is precisely that of the most developed social [...] relations to date. Man is in the most literal sense a zoon politikon, not just a sociable animal, but an animal that can only isolate itself in society. "
The "state of nature" of man in Thomas Hobbes meets the "nature" of man in the 17th century in England. CB Macpherson tries to prove that Hobbes himself did not write the abstractions from the social situation to 'man in a state of nature', or at least not primarily with the intention of describing the way of life of primitive peoples, but in the awareness that the competition developed logically up to civil war have, with the exception of certain social regulatory mechanisms that limit this competition.
The abstraction - interpreted in this way - does not result in an anthropological concept of the human being in today's sense, but the concept of the 'civilized' individual as the simplest functional element of a mechanically imagined society. For Macpherson, proof of this is that the greed for possession and power as the main elements of war 'everyone against everyone' are not simply the natural disposition of every human being for Hobbes, but only become general under the compulsion of social competition. Nevertheless, some interpreters consider the concept of the autonomous bourgeois subject, theoretically constituted by Hobbes, to be "in its abstractness, in principle, cannot be overtaken."
“There is no question that this rationale of individual autonomy turned society into a chaos of unleashed interests; no one saw this more clearly than Hobbes. However, it is also clear that this idea of autonomy has remained the great engine of liberal constitutions to this day. "
In his lectures on the philosophy of the Renaissance, the philosopher Ernst Bloch characterized Hobbes' conception of the isolated, wolfish individual as applicable to the state and society of his time, while at the same time criticizing the generalization of these properties of the concrete historical man into the prototype of man in general. This turns the criticism of the society of his time into a justification for the authoritarian state.
The separation of state and society
Macpherson lists a number of necessary social premises for Thomas Hobbes's theory. The idea of a society in which everyone competes with everyone assumes that neither work nor wages are assigned authoritatively, that all individuals orientate themselves towards their personal advantage and that contractual conditions are enforced by the state. Furthermore, the workforce must have become a commodity, and land must have become private property. Some individuals would then be able to force even those who are satisfied with their standard of living to make new efforts with every attempt [...] to increase theirs .
The transformation of the traditional class society, in which constant competition between all members of society is unthinkable, into a "property market society" (Macpherson) was at least partially completed in England in the 17th century. Almost half of all residents were pure wage earners; their relationships, regulated by wages, were largely anonymously shaped by the market. The paternal relationship between landlord and tenant was abolished by the conversion of land into capital.
From this situation of free competition Hobbes developed the function of the state as a guarantor of peace and property, compliance with treaties, the creation of regulated zones for the free pursuit of private benefit. Habermas points out that with this conception of a zone of the liberal bourgeois society free of state influence, at the same time the liberal content is at the disposal of the authoritarian form of securing it:
"The dialectic is only fulfilled in the fact that the judgment as to whether these orders correspond with the expectations of the social contract must be left to the sovereign alone."
With reference to Carl Schmitt's interpretation of Hobbes, Iring Fetscher points to the historical fate of conservative attempts to establish a liberal bourgeois society under the protection of an authoritarian state.
"The development in this direction, initiated or at least favored by conservative order thinkers, almost never stopped at authoritarian bureaucratic rule, but pushed beyond it to totalitarian rule."
Problems of the justification of norms in Hobbes
Hobbes rejects traditional and theological justifications of norms. He criticizes moral philosophical considerations as not being systematisable and ineffective. For him, justice and injustice are categories that are meaningless outside of positive law, since they are not anchored in the 'mechanics' of man. He does not consider the consequences of human needs to be morally meaningful to criticize outside of society, since the claims of all are equal and legitimate.
Hobbes tries to derive the norms of social coexistence from the self-interests of the individual, the ought from being. His argumentation is based on a contradiction in self-interest: acting aimed at immediate success obviously does not guarantee security of life and property for anyone, so that reason has to consent to a state association out of forward-looking self-interest, renouncing some of the immediate possibilities. Since the life instinct has the power of a natural law for each individual, this decision must also be made with 'natural necessity'.
The force that is supposed to persuade the individual not to use direct opportunities to satisfy his self-interest again and again is the force of the overpowering sovereign who enforces adherence to the positively established social norms beyond the once concluded or enforced 'social contract' . Reasonable consideration is therefore relieved of functions compared to morality as a doctrine of principles, since compliance with the norms is institutionally guaranteed. However, it can legitimize and support this in crisis situations, for example.
Macpherson rejects general moral-philosophical objections to the weaknesses of a purely useful-oriented morality, namely that it is not in a position to control the establishment of the immediate interests and desires of the individual in the concrete individual situation, with reference to such weaknesses in an ethics of principles .
Jürgen Habermas points out, however, that the relationship between theory and practice cannot be understood as a 'natural law transition' without contradictions. If the transition has actually taken place, the theory loses the character of the ought. At the moment when it is necessary to actually justify a social change through the insight of the citizens (“social contract”), the “impotence of a thinking that abstracts from the difference between disposing and acting” turns out.
According to Habermas, the problem of "mediating a simple, inflexible, cold generality with the absolutely tough brittleness and stubborn punctuality of real self-confidence", "that moment of inaccessibility in the communication between speaking and acting citizens", which is included in Hobbes' contract concept, goes beyond the scope a theory of absolutist violence that assumes the total availability of human action.
According to Macpherson, the failure of the Hobbesian efforts to legitimize an absolute monarchy is primarily due to the misconception of society as being completely dissociated into individuals. In fact, the main agents of the English civil war would have already faced each other in formations whose own power makes more sense of political emancipation than the existential fear of the isolated individual.
International Relations Theory
Hobbes' view of the world and man can be seen as the cornerstone of the realistic and neo-realistic school of international relations . In the absence of superordinate authority, these consider international relationships analogous to relationships between people under conditions of the natural state.
The realistic school argues with the power interest of all states and the superposition of any moral interests by the state interest. The German term ' Realpolitik ', which was used in several languages in reference to Bismarck's foreign policy of the 19th century , is often cited in this context . This term denotes, among other things, the dominant way of thinking in American foreign policy during the Cold War and was particularly expressed under Secretary of State Henry Kissinger .
Prisoner's Dilemma and Business Ethics
Modern justice researchers like Wolfgang Kersting see a direct connection between the rational desirability of collective self- restriction advocated by Hobbes and the prisoner's dilemma, which is important for economics . Parallels to this can also be found in Karl Homann's business ethics .
He argues as follows: The prisoner's dilemma (mostly referred to by Homann as the dilemma structure) illustrates, as a game-theoretical model, the influences on actors in strategic interdependence. The actors face two alternative courses of action: defection and cooperation . From an individual point of view, defection has the greatest benefit; but this is on the condition that the other players cooperate. Since the dilemma structure is a symmetrical game, this incentive to defection applies to every player. So everyone will decide against the cooperation and what appeared to be the optimal decision from an individual perspective leads to a Pareto-inferior allocation . This outcome can only be prevented by a higher authority, a so-called institution (see New Institutional Economics ), which punishes the alternative of defection and thus makes cooperation appear preferable.
For Homann, such a dilemma structure is the determining factor in social interaction contexts. Among other things, he cites private property as an example of an institution without which free trade would not be possible. If this assurance of the right to ownership and the right to exchanged goods were missing, the exchange would not take place (defect), since there would be no certainty about the reliability of the exchange partner (cooperation). Homann therefore sees the main actor in the enforcement of restrictions in the state, which he therefore also calls the institution of the institutions . This is reminiscent of Hobbes' demand for a strong state with a monopoly of force.
Remarks
- ↑ Interpretation from Tobias Bevc: Political Theory. UVK, Konstanz 2007, p. 62, ISBN 978-3-8252-2908-5 . The biblical passage is given on the title page as 41:24.
- ↑ For the interpretation of the title design cf. also: Reinhard Brandt: The title page of the Leviathan. In: Wolfgang Kersting (Ed.): Thomas Hobbes. Leviathan or matter, form and power of an ecclesiastical and civil state (= classic interpretation. Volume 5). Berlin 2008, pp. 25–45.
- ↑ Cf. Leviathan, Introd. II; quoted from: Möbus, Gerhard: Politische Theorien. Volume II, pp. 296-98: "Laws and treaties in and of themselves cannot annul the state of war of all against all; for they consist of words, and mere words cannot arouse fear."
- ↑ GAJ Rogers: Hobbes, history and wisdom . In: GAJ Rogers / Tom Sorell (eds.): Hobbes and History . Routledge, London, New York 2000, pp. 73–81, here: p. 79 .
- ↑ Christoph Kammertöns: Pseudo-historical narrative patterns in Thomas Hobbes? - The "remarkable amount of history" in the Leviathan between real history and legitimation-creating myths . Ed .: FernUniversität in Hagen. deposit_hagen publication server of the university library, Hagen 2020, p. 2 , doi : 10.18445 / 20200328-113611-0 , urn : nbn: de: hbz: 708-dh10483 .
- ↑ Ibid., P. 70.
- ↑ Jürgen Habermas: Theory and Practice. Frankfurt am Main 1971/4, p. 50.
- ↑ CB Macpherson: The Political Theory of Possession Individualism. From Hobbes to Locke. Frankfurt am Main 1967, p. 35 ff.
- ↑ CB Macpherson: The Political Theory of Possession Individualism. From Hobbes to Locke. Frankfurt am Main 1967, p. 58 f.
- ↑ See Willms, The political ideas from Hobbes to Ho Tschi Minh, Stuttgart 1972/2, p. 32
- ^ In: Ernst Bloch, Complete Edition. Volume 12, Frankfurt am Main 1977, pp. 296-298.
- ↑ CB Macpherson: The Political Theory of Possession Individualism. From Hobbes to Locke. Frankfurt am Main 1967, p. 74.
- ↑ cf. CB Macpherson: The Political Theory of Possession Individualism. From Hobbes to Locke. Frankfurt am Main 1967, p. 74 ff .; Ingrid Fetscher, edited by Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Berlin 1966, introduction, p. XLVIII
- ^ The Leviathan in Thomas Hobbes' theory of the state, Hamburg 1938
- ↑ CB Macpherson: The Political Theory of Possession Individualism. From Hobbes to Locke. Frankfurt am Main 1967, p. 86 f.
- ↑ Jürgen Habermas: Theory and Practice. Frankfurt am Main 1971/4, p. 131.
- ↑ Jürgen Habermas: Theory and Practice. Frankfurt am Main 1971/4, p. 132.
- ↑ Jürgen Habermas: Theory and Practice. Frankfurt am Main 1971/4, p. 79.
- ↑ For details on this position and on the criticism of this presentation, see Joachim Bühler: Thomas Hobbes in international relations. (2007), pp. 8-40; Dieter Hüning: Inter arma silent leges. Natural law, state and international law with Thomas Hobbes. In: Rüdiger Voigt (Ed.): The Leviathan. Baden-Baden 2000, pp. 129–163 [State understanding, ed. by Rüdiger Voigt, vol. 1]
- ↑ Homann, Karl and Suchanek, Andreas. 2005. Economics - An Introduction. 2nd edition, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, ISBN 3-16-146516-4 .
expenditure
German translations
- Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan or matter, form and power of an ecclesiastical and bourgeois state. Part I and II, review and conclusion (= Suhrkamp Study Library , Volume 18). Edited by Lothar R. Waas. Suhrkamp, Berlin 2011 (translated by Walter Euchner), ISBN 978-3-518-27018-9 .
- Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan or matter, form and power of an ecclesiastical and bourgeois state. Translated by Walter Euchner. Published by Iring Fetscher. Neuwied 1966 (= Politika. Volume 2). New edition: Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1996 (= Suhrkamp-Taschenbuch Wissenschaft , Volume 462), ISBN 3-518-28062-7 .
- Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan. First and second part (= Reclams Universal Library , Volume 8348). Reclam, Stuttgart 1938, 1970, 1980, 1996 (translated by Jacob Peter Mayer), ISBN 3-15-008348-6 .
- Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan. Matter, form and power of a church and state community (= Philosophical Library , Volume 491). Published by Hermann Klenner. Meiner, Hamburg 2004 (translated by Jutta Schlösser), ISBN 3-7873-1303-6 .
- Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan. A selection (English / German). Edited by Jürgen Klein. Reclam, Stuttgart 2013 (translated by Holger Hanowell), ISBN 978-3-15-018595-7 .
- Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan, or the ecclesiastical and civil state . Hendel, Halle 1794.
English original
- Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan. Revised Student Edition (= Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought ). Published by Richard Tuck. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1996, ISBN 978-0-521-56797-8 .
- Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan (= Oxford World's Classics ). Published by JCA Gaskin. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2009, ISBN 978-0-19-953728-0 .
- Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan. Or The Matter, Forme, & Power of a Common-Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civill . Edited by Ian Shapiro. Yale University Press, New Haven 2010, ISBN 978-0-300-11838-4 .
literature
- Horst Bredekamp : Iconography of the State. The Leviathan and the Consequences. In: Critical Justice. Year 2000, pp. 395-411.
- Horst Bredekamp: Thomas Hobbes, The Leviathan. The archetype of the modern state and its counterparts. 1651-2001. 2nd Edition. Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-05-003758-X . (On the iconography of the frontispiece).
- Eberhard Braun , Felix Heine, Uwe Opolka: Political Philosophy - A Reading Book. rowohlts enzyklopädie, 1984 (last 8th edition 2002) ISBN 3-499-55406-2 , expanded new edition 2008, ISBN 978-3-499-55700-2
- Joachim Bühler: Thomas Hobbes in International Relations - On the Existence of an Interstate State of Nature in Political Philosophy by Thomas Hobbes , Saarbrücken 2007, ISBN 3-8364-4559-X
- David Dyzenhaus, Thomas Poole (Eds.): Hobbes and the Law. Cambridge 2012.
- Georg Geismann , Karlfriedrich Herb (Hrsg.): Hobbes on freedom. Würzburg 1988, ISBN 3-88479-337-3 .
- Jean Hampton: Hobbes and the Social Contract Tradition. ISBN 0-521-36827-8 , Cambridge University Press, 1988.
- Otfried Höffe: Thomas Hobbes. Munich 2010.
- Dieter Hüning: Freedom and rule in the legal philosophy of Thomas Hobbes. Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-428-09046-2 .
- Dieter Hüning (Ed.): The long shadow of the Leviathan. Hobbes' political philosophy after 350 years , Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-428-11820-0
- Christoph Kammertöns: Pseudo-historical narrative patterns in Thomas Hobbes? - The "remarkable amount of history" in the Leviathan between real history and legitimation-creating mythization, Hagen 2020 (doi: https://doi.org/10.18445/20200328-113611-0 ).
- Wolfgang Kersting : Thomas Hobbes for an introduction. 5th, supplemented edition. Junius, Hamburg 2016, ISBN 978-3-88506-673-6 .
- Wolfgang Kersting (Ed.): Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan or substance, form and violence of an ecclesiastical and bourgeois state, classic interpretation. Volume 5, 2nd, edited edition, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-05-004446-0 (detailed cooperative commentary).
- Eva Odzuck: Thomas Hobbes' body-based liberalism. A critical analysis of the Leviathan. Duncker and Humblot, Contributions to Political Science, Volume 184, Berlin, ISBN 978-3-428-14748-9 ( table of contents ).
- Talcott Parsons : The Structure of Social Action. A Study in Social Theory with Special Reference to a Group of Recent European Writers , New York 1937.
- Jon Parkin: Taming the Leviathan. The Reception of the Political and Religious Ideas of Thomas Hobbes in England 1640–1700, Cambridge 2007.
- Alexander von Pechmann: The sovereign as »bearer of the persona«. On the construction of the social contract in Thomas Hobbes' »Leviathan« , in: Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung, 59 (Apr. – Jun.2005) 2, pp. 264–283 (available online at: https://www.jstor.org/ stable / 20484550? read-now = 1 & refreqid = excelsior% 3Abe1e9283122e46539a1bc9f01839520a & seq = 1, accessed on April 28, 2020).
- GAJ [Graham Alan John] Rogers, Tom Sorell (Eds.): Hobbes and History , London / New York 2000.
- Martin Rybarski: Anthropology as a cornerstone in Thomas Hobbes' state theory in contrast to the Aristotelian , Munich 2010, ISBN 3-640-59809-1
- Carl Schmitt : The Leviathan in the theory of the state of Thomas Hobbes. The sense and failure of a symbol , Hamburg 1938.
- Patricia Springborg (Ed.): The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes' Leviathan , Cambridge / New York 2007, ISBN 978-0-521-54521-1
- Leo Strauss : The Political Philosophy of Hobbes , Oxford 1936.
- Ferdinand Tönnies : Thomas Hobbes. The man and the thinker , 1926 (= reprint 1971).
- Lothar R. Waas: Commentary, in: Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, or substance, form and violence of an ecclesiastical and bourgeois state, part I and II , ed. with a comment by Lothar R. Waas, Suhrkamp Study Library 18, Berlin 2011, pp. 363–703.
- Bernard Willms : Thomas Hobbes - Das Reich des Leviathan , Munich 1987.
Web links
- online version of the University of Adelaide
- Literature on Leviathan in the catalog of the German National Library