Thesis advisor: Susan Shell / One of Hobbes’s most provocative claims is that he is the first to articulate a true civil science. I argue on the basis of internal and external textual evidence that De Cive sheds a unique light on this statement and deserves careful study in isolation from his other works. Hobbes argues there that Socrates initiated a sea change in politics in which a mode of governing by divine mystery falls before the withering philosophical critique of his dilettante heirs. Afterward, regimes are forced to defend their power with rational arguments, and neither statesmen nor philosophers have been able to replace the old consensus with a solid foundation. Hobbes means to be the first to do so. The new civil science Hobbes proposes, lacking any physics or psychology on which it could be based, turns out to be a science of power modeled closely on the metaphor of repairing an artifact. The craftsman must possess adequate, not complete, knowledge of the parts and their interactions to repair or improve an artifact; the civil scientist likewise can perform his craft with just a working knowledge of human beings and their interactions. Just as the artisan depends on a prior understanding of the purpose of his artifact in order to judge its quality, the civil scientist must also presuppose some goal to be achieved that is not supplied by the scientific method itself. Hobbes provides arguments that internal political stability ought to be the scientist’s goal, but these are not scientific arguments on his terms. Contrary to Hobbes’s reputation as advancing a vision of science as complete, I show that his science turns out to be progressive and open to future revision. It must nevertheless maintain the appearance of certainty, as post-Socratic political instability is above all a conflict of ideas, and that battle can only be won by science rendering the final verdict in every argument. Hobbes’s definitional method appears to yield certain conclusions, but actually admits of improved definitions and therefore improved conclusions. It preserves the appearance of certainty while accommodating change and progress in human knowledge. Civil science breaks down the commonwealth into individuals and arrives at an abstract understanding of them sufficient to achieve its goal. It then shapes those individuals so that they fit together well. Human beings need to be oriented away from problematic transcendent interests and taught to recognize cosmopolitan mutual humanity and to cease categorizing others according to prejudicial pre-scientific categories. All human interactions, down to basic familial bonds, have to be reinterpreted according to the only reliable model of human interaction: consent to dominion. Hobbes borrows the language of natural law in order to package this teaching, which he justifies primarily on grounds of narrow self-interest, but then also as moral principles and divine commands in order to satisfy different readers. So shaped, individuals can be reassembled without disturbing existing peaceful relations to produce the internally stable, rational commonwealth. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2015. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Political Science.

L’objectif de notre recherche est de préciser comment la conception novatrice de la science politique développée par Jean Bodin (1529/30-1596) dans sa Methodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem(1566 ; 1572) s’inscrit dans le cadre d’un programme humaniste de restauration juridique de la «science civile». Pour cela, nous dégageons une ligne de réflexions sur cette «science» dans les œuvres de deux de ses prédécesseurs, Guillaume Budé et François Connan, qui la développent, à l’adresse des gens de justice, en élaborant un dispositif théorique, la «méthode», destiné à unifier la théorie juridique avec la connaissance pratique. Ces réflexions les amènent à ériger un nouveau paradigme du jusnaturalisme et à rétablir le droit tout entier sur la base de la droite raison, voire sur la base de la communauté de droit dominée par la seule raison: la civitas universa. Nous montrons que lorsque cette communauté est identifiée à la société mondiale de son temps, censée être régie par le ius gentiumqui incarne la raison, Bodin confère à la «science civile» un caractère politique. Le paradigme du jusnaturalisme le conduit à envisager le passage d’un état sauvage à la société humaine juridique (la communauté de droit), mais c’est la fameuse théorie de la souveraineté (summum imperium) qui permet aux magistrats des parlements d’opérer ce passage, en définissant leur pouvoir coercitif. Nous avançons que la science politique se concrétise dans la «méthode» de lecture de l’histoire et qu’elle détermine, au-delà des limites du droit, le rôle du gouvernement de la «République» comme ce qui réalise la société politique, c’est-à-dire la civitas universa régie par le ius gentium. / Our research aims to examine how the innovative conception of “political science”, developed by Jean Bodin (1529/30-1596) in his Methodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem (1566; 1572), falls within the scope of a humanist program which restores legal science in the name of scientia civilis. We therefore propose to investigate the line of thoughts which regard the scientia civilisin the works oftwo of his predecessors, Guillaume Budé and François Connan, who develop this “science” for the sake of magistrates-judges of the Parlements by devising a “method” which intends to unify legal theory with practical knowledge. Their considerations lead them to establish a new paradigm of jusnaturalism and to re-establish, in modern times, the very notion of law on the basis of right reason, id est, on the basis of a community of laws dominated only by reason: civitas universa. We bring light to the fact that, when this community is identified with the international society of his time, supposedly ruled by the ius gentiumwhich incarnates reason, Bodin bestows upon his scientia civilis a political character. If the jusnaturalist paradigm allows him to assume the transition from a barbarous state to ahuman society, it is his famous theory of sovereignty (summum imperium) that,by defining the coercive power delegated tothe magistrates of Parlements, allowsthem to realize this transition. We propose that his “method” of reading the history enables him to materialize the political science, which determines, beyond the limits of legal science, the role thegovernment plays in realizing the human society, or in other words, the new civitas universa, governed by the ius gentium.