O presente trabalho procura demonstrar a existência de quatro diferentes sentidos de liberdade no sistema filosófico de Hobbes: liberdade como ausência de impedimentos externos ao movimento, liberdade como direito natural de auto-preservação no estado de natureza, liberdade como esfera de ação delimitada pela lei civil e liberdade como direito legítimo de descumprir certas leis civis. Nesse sentido, os resultados da pesquisa contrariam a compreensão do conceito de liberdade em Hobbes a partir de sua apropriação pela tradição liberal, que considera apenas um desses quatro sentidos. As análises permitem ainda inferir que entre os diferentes sentidos de liberdade em Hobbes há relações de analogia e de pertencimento. / This research aims to demonstrate four different ways of understanding the concept of liberty in Hobbes\' philosophical system: liberty as an absent of external impediments to movement; liberty as the natural right of self-preservation in the state of nature; liberty as the field of action limited by the civil law; and liberty as the right to disobey some civil laws without injustice. The research\'s results contradict the liberal use of Hobbes\'s concept of liberty, due to this usage been restricted to only one of the four ways of the concept of liberty in Hobbes\' works.

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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.

Thesis advisor: David M. Rasmussen / Leviathan drawn out by its tail: The religious ideas of the second half of Leviathan Jonathan Harmon In this dissertation, I examine the religious writings of Thomas Hobbes, primarily as they occur in the second half of Leviathan (but drawing from other sources as necessary). My aim is to illustrate the continuity between Hobbes' thoughts on religion and other areas of his philosophy, especially his political theory. Hobbes' distinctive philosophical position, filtered through the lens of the Bible, is what animates the theology of the second half of Leviathan. In short: Hobbes is a materialist, a determinist, an empiricist, a nominalist, a political absolutist, and a social and intellectual elitist. He came of age in a Anglican-Calvinist context and had a humanist education. He was born on the cusp of the scientific revolution, and considered himself a scientist and a mathematician. All of these influences affect the views presented in Leviathan. Hobbes approaches the Christianity of his era hypercritically, with an eye to excising foreign and irrational influences (Greek, Scholastic philosophy, pagan religion, Catholic hierarchy) and replacing them with (ostensibly) Biblically-grounded and philosophically-robust doctrines. In effect, Hobbes is attempting to rationally reconstruct Christianity on the basis of Scripture and his own philosophical system, and his overriding concern is with political stability and the absolute authority of the sovereign. In Chapter 1, I focus on the first half of Leviathan. My discussion explores issues and controversies in the natural theology of Hobbes. Chapter 2 draws some parallels between Hobbes' determinist physics and the doctrine of predestination most often associated with Jean Calvin. Chapter 3 begins the analysis of the second half of Leviathan. I consider Hobbes' position on the relationship between reason and revelation. I consider the sources of religious belief from a Hobbesian perspective - miracles, prophecy, and scripture. Hobbes subjects all of these to rigorous epistemological critiques. In Chapter 4, I examine Hobbes' unique account of eschatology, and the purposes to which he puts it. Hobbes' account of heaven and hell, the soul and salvation, are startling to the modern reader, but actually are a idiosyncratic blend of the radical ideas of some of Hobbes' contemporaries and his own philosophical commitments. I consider some of the potential sources for these innovations in his theory, whether direct or indirect. Hobbes embraces a vision of the relationship between Church and State that emphasizes their unity and absolute subordination to the sovereign. In Chapter 5, I analyze this extended argument, highlighting Hobbes' encyclopedic attempt to demolish any argument that splits authority into temporal and spiritual realms. In Chapter 6 I consider the double question of Hobbes' religious sincerity: both as an individual and as the author of Leviathan. I consider the thoughts of the Straussian school as they apply to Hobbes. I return to the thoughts of Hobbes' contemporaries and what they believed that Hobbes was saying about religion. I compare Hobbes to Machiavelli on a major point of overlap. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy.

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This thesis has three parts. The purpose of the first part is to analyse the origin, general characteristics, context and meaning of A Dialogue. I also include a history of the editions of this work, and a discussion on how the scholars have understood it. My intention is to explore the possibility of adding to their comments some additional reasons for Hobbes??? intentions in writing A Dialogue. In order to do all this, I have to take into account two main questions: ??? First, the relation between Hobbes (his life, ideas, aspirations, enemies) and A Dialogue; and ??? Second, the specific problem posed to Hobbes by common law. These issues correspond to the three chapters of Part One of the thesis. The second part of the thesis is divided into nine chapters; it analysis the content of A Dialogue section by section, trying to explain Hobbes??? interpretation of English law and legal history. According to Hobbes, an analysis of the rational principles expressed by both common and civil (Roman) law in England shows the indivisible nature of sovereignty. History, supposedly, confirms this. In the third part of the thesis I locate Hobbes??? legal philosophy as a science, according to the same deductive principles, which he states, are applied to geometry. Hobbes intends to make jurisprudence a form of scientific knowledge to reinforce the idea that sovereignty cannot be shared. While pursuing this philosophical enterprise, Hobbes wants to square his science of politics with English legal history. Hobbes argues that in England, except for the period during the civil wars, there has always been only one absolute ruler of the country. By taking this stand, Hobbes, indirectly calls for changes in the English constitutional order, to be made by advocating the authority of the past, and not only by advocating the application of reason.

Typescript (photocopy) / 208 leaves ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Politics, 1982

Texte remanié de: Ph. D. th.--Sydney--New South Wales university. / Bibliogr. p. 211-223. Index.

Thomas Hobbes is a major thinker in the tradition of natural law theorizing, but there is much debate over where he breaks with the tradition preceding him. In this study, we argue Thomas Hobbes is best understood as a modern thinker with one foot in the older tradition of natural law exemplified by Thomas Aquinas and Francisco Suarez. / text

This thesis provides a comprehensive analysis of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s engagement with the political thought of Thomas Hobbes and Hobbism. This involves tracing Hobbes’s French reception in the first half of the eighteenth century amongst authors with whom Rousseau was familiar, thereby elucidating the context in which he responded to Hobbesian ideas and arguments. When situated in this context, many of the difficulties in understanding Rousseau’s engagement with Hobbes are overcome, and the deeply polemical character of the engagement is revealed. In particular, Rousseau’s state of nature theory sought to collapse the prevalent bifurcation between Pufendorfian sociability and Hobbesian Epicureanism in order to show that Hobbes’s natural law critics were in fact no better than Hobbes; a line of argument that Rousseau also pursued in the Social Contract. In addition, Rousseau’s invocation of Hobbes was intended to support his republican critique of doux commerce theory, by revealing that the modern defenders of commercial society rested their theories on a Hobbesian picture of man’s natural condition. This picture closely resembled the neo-Augustinian account of man’s post-lapsarian state, and by rejecting this Augustinian-Hobbesian depiction of man Rousseau was able to offer a vision of a well-ordered republic for men who were yet to be corrupted by the onset of luxury and entrenched relations of inequality. In examining Rousseau’s engagement not just with Hobbes, but also with natural law, republican and Augustinian contexts, an original interpretation of his political thought is advanced throughout the thesis. This interpretation stresses the importance and interplay of three themes, the problematical relationship between which often leads to much confusion in the scholarly literature on Rousseau: first, nature understood as a normative standard; second, free will as an inalienable gift of nature; and, third and finally, the role of the passions in general and of amour-propre in particular.