Thomas Hobbes
A pessimistic genius who argued that only a powerful sovereign could save humanity from a brutal, anarchic state of nature.
1588–1679 (age 91)·English philosopher and political theorist·Birthday: April 5
Biography
Living through the turmoil of the English Civil War, Thomas Hobbes became obsessed with the problem of order. A brilliant scholar of classics and mathematics, he served as a tutor in the aristocratic Cavendish family, which gave him access to Europe's greatest minds. His masterwork, 'Leviathan', published in 1651, was a shocking and systematic materialist argument. He depicted humanity's natural condition as a 'war of every man against every man', where life was 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short'. To escape this horror, he argued, people must surrender their rights to an absolute sovereign—a Leviathan—whose power would guarantee security and make civil society possible. While his advocacy for absolutism was controversial, his social contract theory and mechanistic view of man as matter in motion laid the groundwork for modern political science and philosophy.
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Thomas's Life & Times
The world at every milestone
1588Born
1593Started school
1601Became a teenager
1604Could drive
1606Could vote
1609Turned 21
1618Turned 30
1628Turned 40
1638Turned 50
1648Turned 60
1658Turned 70
1668Turned 80
1679Died at 91
Key Achievements
- Authored 'Leviathan' (1651), one of the most influential works of Western political philosophy, foundational to social contract theory.
- Developed a materialist philosophy that applied the principles of geometry and motion to human psychology and society.
- Produced early English translations of Thucydides' 'History of the Peloponnesian War' and Homer's epic poems.
- His work systematically challenged the divine right of kings, arguing political authority derived from a contract among the governed, not from God.
Did You Know?
He was born prematurely when his mother heard of the approaching Spanish Armada, leading him to later joke he was born with 'fear and twins'.
He calculated that he was born on April 5, 1588, which was Good Friday, a fact he considered auspicious.
He engaged in a famous, decades-long debate on mathematics with John Wallis, a founder of the Royal Society.
King Charles II, whom Hobbes had tutored in mathematics, granted him a pension and protected him from heresy charges.
“The condition of man... is a condition of war of everyone against everyone.”
