Hobbes context

Question 1

hobbes backrgoudn

Answer 1

tutor translator ad phil
fled to paris unsafe
royalist later

Question 2

fled to paris

Answer 2

1640s unsafe critic palrimanetarian/pro royalist
 1648 hobbes wrote letter to earl of Devonshire detail how unsafe to return to eng
 1640 long parliament succeed short, long parliament broght down king advisers, Charles control over ary, pass triennial act, remove royal prerog clal paliraments
 Whilst in paris hoped to return to eng, sougt to sdistance himself from overt royalist partisanship despiye person al connections to the aristocracy eg cavenidsh family

Question 3

royalists later

Answer 3

 Reintegrate himself w royalist elites present manuscript copy leviathan to chalres ii then in paris
* Banished from court- informed marquess of ormonde king not receive him

Question 4

when start levitahn

Answer 4

o Likely starte din 1649
 Royalist cause disarray execution of chalres 1 jan 1649
 So toe line hence change in review and conc

Question 5

publishing of hobbes leviathan

Answer 5

o Published 1651
o Published w gov license but controverisla reception
 Stationers register leviathan officially licensed by eng gov 1651 approval philemon stephens and purtan minister john downham
 Suggests leitahn viewed ideologically acceptable- not dangerous- by interregnum authroities

Question 6

distribution hobbes leviathan

Answer 6

 Substantial expensive volume
 So many did not buy as ideas similar to de cive – saturated market with lots own works
 First print 1000 copies
 No second edition unil late 1660s
 But copying and libraries in intellectual circles

Question 7

leviathan censorship

Answer 7

 Calls suppression
 Atheism and political absolutism
 Narrowly escaped formal condemnation by cofe thogh works restricted

Question 8

hobbes backlash

Answer 8

filmer first
religious backlash
politcial climate

Question 9

filmer

Answer 9

(Observations Concerning the Original of Government, 1652), a staunch royalist:
- Filmer rejected Hobbes’s contract theory and attack on paternal authority.
- Claimed kings derive authority from God via the father, not the people (drawing on Genesis and Aristotle).
- Argued Hobbes was incoherent and subversive — too secular, too liberal in theory, and too authoritarian in practice.

Question 10

lebiathn religious backlash

Answer 10

o * Leviathan was seen as heretical for its treatment of religion:
o It denied the independent authority of the Church.
o Treated religious belief as psychological phenomena subject to state regulation.
o Denounced the Catholic Church as a “Kingdome of Darknesse.”
o * This deeply offended both Royalists and Presbyterians, who viewed Hobbes as an enemy of revealed religion.

Question 11

political climaye backlash

Answer 11

o Destroying soveriegn power
 Breaking of social contract as failed prevent war and kingen courage factionalism
* And too controlling 1629-40
 But also undermining social contract if not abided by
o Power vaccum civil war- too much liberty?
o Broke social

Question 12

purpose of leviathan

Answer 12

• Didactic history
• Teach and warn of the dangers of not respecting the soveiegn and potential return to state of nature
• Hence need balance/toe line

Question 13

immediate repsomses to lebiathan

Answer 13

robert payne to gilbert sheldon may 1651
universities and natural philosophers

Question 14

robert payne

Answer 14

to Gilbert Sheldon (May 1651)
* First report on Leviathan acknowledged Hobbes’s reuse of De Cive and suggested he seemed to favour the present (Commonwealth) government.
* Payne noted Hobbes despised criticism and wanted Leviathan to be read in universities, suggesting confidence and ambition for intellectual influence.

Question 15

universities and natural phil

Answer 15

Oxford)
* Hobbes faced hostility from university circles, especially for his anti-clerical and anti-Aristotelian tone.
* Though he hoped for support from figures like Ralph Bathurst at Oxford, who encouraged further publication, Hobbes’s religious views had already drawn disapproval.

Question 16

royalist and court reception

Answer 16

charles ii refused see him
edward hyde earl of clarendon

Question 17

edward hyde

Answer 17

• Found Leviathan deeply troubling, despite Hobbes’s professed reverence for civil government.
• Believed the book’s ideas were so subversive that any European government would punish the author severely.

Question 18

charles ii refused to see him

Answer 18

• Hobbes’s presentation of Leviathan to Charles II (his former pupil) backfired: the King refused to see him, likely under pressure from Anglican courtiers who objected to Hobbes’s heterodoxy and critiques of the Church.

Question 19

hobbes critics phil

Answer 19

john bramhall
henry more

Question 20

bramhall

Answer 20

(1594–1663) – Archbishop of Armagh
* Hobbes’s most persistent philosophical opponent.
* Attacked Hobbes’s materialism and determinism in The Catching of Leviathan (1658) and earlier debates.
* Their long-running dispute over free will vs. necessity is recorded in texts like Hobbes’s Of Liberty and Necessity(1654).
* Bramhall accused Hobbes of atheism and undermining Christian doctrine

Question 21

henry more

Answer 21

(1614–1687) – Cambridge Platonist
* Condemned Hobbes’s mechanical philosophy as soulless and impious.
* In The Immortality of the Soul (1659), More attacked Hobbes’s rejection of immaterial substance.
* More saw Hobbes’s worldview as morally and spiritually dangerous.

Question 22

republican and liberal critics

Answer 22

james harrington
algernon sidney

Question 23

james harrigton who was he

Answer 23

1611–1677) – Author of The Commonwealth of Oceana (1656)J

Question 24

James harrington

Answer 24

• Promoted a republican vision of government based on mixed constitutions and property distribution.
• Explicitly rejected Hobbes’s absolutism, viewing it as tyrannical and unnatural.
• Harrington emphasized civic virtue and balance of powers, against Hobbes’s singular sovereign.

Question 25

algernon sidney who way he

Answer 25

1623–1683) – Republican martyr

Question 26

sidney

Answer 26

* Though he didn’t directly name Hobbes often, Sidney’s Discourses Concerning Government (written 1680–83) is a point-by-point rejection of Hobbesian political theory. * Sidney upheld natural rights, resistance to tyranny, and popular sovereignty, all of which Hobbes rejected.

Question 27

too lne backfired

Answer 27

* While Hobbes defended absolute monarchy, many Royalists distrusted him: o His support for absolute sovereignty was rooted in security rather than divine right, which undermined traditional royalist ideology (e.g. thinkers like Robert Filmer). o His submission to the English Commonwealth in the 1650s damaged his royalist credibility. * Clarendon (Edward Hyde), Charles II’s chief minister, saw Hobbes’s ideas as politically dangerous and morally corrosive.

Question 28

descartes influence

Answer 28

Descartes, Hobbes believed that philosophy should begin with clear first principles and proceed by logical deduction. - * Hobbes’s De Corpore (1655) and Leviathan (1651) both attempt to build political science from first principles, much as Descartes built physics and metaphysics. - Hobbes and Descartes both used mechanical analogies to describe humans (the body as a machine). - eviathan, the soul, reason, and will are not metaphysical faculties but bodily processes. - * Like Descartes, Hobbes in Leviathan stresses the need for clear definitions and a methodical use of reason.

Question 29

diff to descartes

Answer 29

- * However, Hobbes is more skeptical: he argues that words can deceive, and that truth is linguistic clarity, not metaphysical intuition.

Question 30

relgious turmoil climate

Answer 30

* The war had religious roots: disputes between Anglicans, Puritans, Presbyterians, and Catholics. * Leviathan offers a radically Erastian view: the sovereign must control religion to prevent civil war. * Hobbes was accused of heresy and atheism, largely for subordinating theology to political authority.