Leviathan

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was born in Malmesbury. Entering Magdalen Hall, Oxford, in 1603, he took his degree in 1608 and became tutor to the eldest son of Lord Cavendish of Hardwick, afterwards the Earl of Devonshire; his connection with this family was life-long. His first interest was in the classics, and his first published work a translation of Thucydides, in 1628. An interest in science and philosophy soon developed, heightened by extended travels in Europe in 1629-31 and 1634-37. This led to his great project of a political science. His first verson of this, The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic, was privately circulated in 1640, when Parliament was hotly disputing the king’s powers, and Hobbes fled to Paris, where he stayed for eleven years.A second version, De Cive, was published in 1642, and the third, Leviathan—the crowning achievement of his political science—in 1651. It was so influential that it came under widespread attack and was in danger of condemnation by the House of Commons. Hobbes perforce lived quietly and published little more on political matters. At the age of eighty-four he composed an autobiography in Latin verse, and within the next three years translated the whole of Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad.

出版者:Penguin Classics

作者:Thomas Hobbes

页数:736

出版时间:1982-02-25

价格:GBP 8.99

装帧:Paperback

isbn号码:9780140431957

图书标签:霍布斯政治哲学Hobbes政治学哲学政治利维坦Politics

“During the time men live without a common Power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called Warre”

Written during the turmoil of the English Civil War, Leviathan is an ambitious and highly original work of political philosophy. Claiming that man’s essential nature is competitive and selfish, Hobbes formulates the case for a powerful sovereign—or “Leviathan”—to enforce peace and the law, substituting security for the anarchic freedom he believed human beings would otherwise experience. This worldview shocked many of Hobbes’s contemporaries, and his work was publicly burnt for sedition and blasphemy when it was first published. But in his rejection of Aristotle’s view of man as a naturally social being, and in his painstaking analysis of the ways in which society can and should function, Hobbes opened up a whole new world of political science.

Based on the original 1651 text, this edition incorporates Hobbes’s own corrections, while also retaining the original spelling and punctuation, to read with vividness and clarity. C. B. Macpherson’s introduction elucidates one of the most fascinating works of modern philosophy for the general reader.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

读后感

在第三十二章“论基督教体系的政治原理”中，霍布斯首先强调自然理性是上帝的传谕之道的一部分，而传谕之道中的其他部分——超乎理性的东西——尽管无法被自然理性证明或证伪，但其实本质上与自然理性之间不存在冲突。超越理性的东西与理性的东西之间的看似矛盾，只可能是因为...  

没看原著之前，在一些材料那里了解到，霍布斯主张人性本恶，在没有国家维持秩序之前的“自然状态”里，“人对人是狼”，什么规则都没有，只有弱肉强食，丛林法则。当时我想，霍布斯究竟多弱智才会把人类描述得如此猪狗不如，要知道自然界中最凶残的动物都不至于会与同类处在长...  

霍布斯的逻辑 《利维坦》这本书是霍布斯描述的一种关于“国家”的构想。他的逻辑是：1、基于人性，如果没有强力的约束，人类一定会陷入无休止的暴力内乱；2、人们当然会遵循自然法，其中第二自然法似乎特别重要：“在别人也愿意这样做的条件下，当一个人为了和平与自卫的目的认...  

为什么要读霍布斯？ 随着各种国家理论，更合理的契约理论的提出，很多人认为霍布斯没有再被阅读的需要了。但是情况远远不是这样，从学科史的角度来看，要想了解一种思想，需要了解这个思想的发端和发展过程。理解契约理论的开端，才能更好地理解契约理论——而霍布斯正是作为这...  

用户评价

就读过的章节言，感觉霍布斯最精彩，也似乎最可信的部分，在于他用一种'工具理性'为国家的正当性作辩护—假如我们要走出互相提防的囚徒困境，那么便要设立一个国家；人性是否'本恶'并非重点，重点是自然状态下我们没有理由相信他人的善意—这似乎确实是一个可以被普遍接受的促使我们设立国家的理由。但令我难以信服的是，'工具理性'是否足以支撑'利维坦'的结构及(出于同样的自利条件)臣民应无条件服从统治的论证？霍布斯似乎还需要一系列的经验性主张都成立才能构成利维坦建立之后我们无条件服从的理由(否则就会重回自然状态！)，而这些主张是否成立需要实证研究支持(而很多根据我们已有的经验证明是错误的)—这大概也是那些'反直觉'的论证不那么精彩的原因。从中可以体会到用'工具理性'作论证进路的优点和局限

MacPherson的导言有点意思

封面很有意思，真的很anti Aristotle。但同时methodology又还是很Aristotle啦。

Sovereign; natural state (evil and hostile); state of war;

I authorise and give up my right of governing myself to this man, or to this assembly of men, on this condition; that thou give up, thy right to him, and authorise all his actions in like manner.