Thomas Hobbes Thomas Hobbes April 5, 1588 – December 4, 1679
Thomas Hobbes was an English politician and philosopher. Born into a family of priests in Wiltshire, England. He studied at Oxford University in his early years, and later worked as an aristocratic tutor and traveled to the European continent. He created the complete system of mechanical materialism, stating that the universe is the sum of all mechanically moving, extended objects. He proposed the "state of nature" and the origin of the state, pointing out that the state was formed by people making contracts in order to comply with the "natural law", and was an artificial robot that opposed the divine right of the monarch and advocated absolute monarchy. He likened the Pope to the Devil and the monks to the ghosts, but advocated the use of the "state religion" to discipline the people and maintain "order."
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > Shengbanghe: Hobbes's "Leviathan" trial</h1>
London in 1651 had become a "fog capital", and the thick smog produced by the uncontrolled burning of coal flooded the world city. It has just undergone a revolution, like a ship leaving the port and sailing into the vast sea, with a long way to go. It sounded its fog flute and paddled forward, struggling to find the shimmering light of the distant lighthouse.
In this year, a major event occurred in the intellectual circles of London, announcing the birth of a great book. The author is the famous thinker Hobbes, and the title of the book is Leviathan. The Leviathan is a monster in European mythology.
Legend has it that God created mountains and seas in five days, and on the sixth day he pinched out Leviathan and Bessie Tapirs out of clay. Leviathan is a female and Bessie Tapir is a male. At the end of the world, they are forced to separate, Leviathan hides in fear into the abyss under the fountain, and Bessie Tapir wanders sadly in the Dandyn Desert.
Hebrew mythology says that leviathan is a "coiled thing", a large snake that curls up and waits to pounce on food. In the Bible, Leviathan is described as a giant crocodile, covered in hard scales, full of sharp teeth, with flames from its mouth and nose, and spikes hidden under its abdomen. It is terrifying, powerful, and powerful. This is easily reminiscent of the totem of Chinese , the dragon.
Why did Hobbes name a giant beast as the title of the book? People are confused, confused, and have a curiosity to find out, and more importantly, the emerging British Revolution, which is a national initiative of "unprecedented ancients", and the turbulent situation after the revolution urges people to find a prescription for the people of Ji Shi'an. As a result, intellectuals, including many ordinary citizens, once they found that there were celebrities talking, they could not wait to rush to the bookstore, rushed to buy the books he wrote, and saw it at a glance, so that "Luoyang paper is expensive" for a while.
The author, Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), was an English philosopher, political thinker, and said to have been a materialist. He left many books in his lifetime, especially Leviathan, which is known as the founding work of Western political science.
The famous British Revolution became the background for the writing of this book. Around 1640, England went through a journey of blood and fire. Charles I was in power, stubborn, and the interests of the new civic class were repeatedly violated, and social conflicts intensified. The first was that the Scots, dissatisfied with the rule of King Charles I, revolted. In order to raise the funds desperately needed to suppress the uprising, the king hastily restored the parliament that had been closed for many years in 1640. This gave the burgher class and the new nobles, who had been under the oppression of the crown for many years, an opportunity to use parliament as a position to wage an indomitable public opinion war against the king.
They shouted slogans of limiting the king's power and abolishing the king's monopoly, and called on the king and his ministers to submit all activities to the supervision of the people. Seeing that his indomitable power was being challenged, the king quickly organized his army to attack the parliamentary army. The Parliamentary Army launched a counter-offensive, and the curtain of revolution was drawn.
In 1643, Cromwell recruited cavalry in the east of England and launched the Battle of Marston's Wasteland and the Battle of Nassibi to defeat the King's army. In 1649, Charles I was sent to the guillotine. The collapse of the monarchy in England entered the republican era of Cromwell's rule.
In 1653, Cromwell dissolved Parliament and imposed dictatorship. Cromwell died, and the British were leaderless and fell into a state of disorder. In 1660, the old dynasty was restored, the frenzied counterattack, the people were forced to revolt, and Britain was in chaos.
The end of the "revolution" in England and the restoration of social normalcy marked by the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688. Prior to this, the Catholic James II ruled the British government. The Parliamentary Whigs and others opposed James II's succession to his newborn son, while advocating the succession of James II's daughter Mary and son-in-law William, sparking protests.
As a result, William led his troops into England, and the soldiers did not bloodshed, forcing James II to step down. Thus the nearly half-century struggle between the British Parliamentarians and the Royals came to an end, and the Parliamentarians have since sat in the British country.
For some time after the outbreak of the British Revolution, Hobbes slept restlessly, often late at night. He sat with a blue light, flipping through the old volumes, afraid that the large amount of text he had written before would be censored and he would not be able to escape the scourge. In the late autumn of 1640, Hobbes packed his bags, fled England, and crossed the sea to Paris, where he stayed for 11 years.
In 1650, Hobbes wrote a paper, the central idea and basic structure of Leviathan, which was initially presented in this paper. Obviously, at the beginning of the preparation of Hobbes's Leviathan, the British Archipelago was already in turmoil, swords and swords, all of which gave him a great impact, all kinds of spiritual responses, trepidation, horror, opposition and approval, the slightest wisp, into words, compiled into his book.
Generally speaking, people will have three attitudes in the face of sudden social changes, one is fear and opposition, against the current social movement, because this movement brings them danger and harm, they either throw themselves into the camp of opposition, stubborn resistance, or flee from danger, choose branches, and confront the domestic trend.
The second attitude is joy and approval, and those who hold this attitude see social change as a godsend for liberation, and they are enthusiastic and excited to become the leading party of emerging forces, throwing themselves into new trends and opposing old forces.
The third attitude is indifferent to the social changes that have already taken place, lukewarm and lukewarm. People with such an attitude become the "proms" of the wandering society.
Hobbes chose the first attitude. At that time, the Position of the British was clear, with a royalist on the one hand, on the side of King Charles I, and on the other side, a parliamentary faction, firmly opposed to the king. On the surface, Hobbes remained neutral, but in his heart he had the idea that the overthrow of the monarchy was not necessary, and that stability and order were britain's preferred policies. He fled England, which was undergoing the baptism of revolution, and made a wordless confession of the revolution.
Hobbes, who came to Paris, joined with his exiled British royalist compatriots to exchange ideas and pour out his heart, and this environmental atmosphere prompted Hobbes to complete the writing of Leviathan. He used the book to explain the importance of government and the impact of political chaos and war on the country. Hobbes seems to be the product of the author's "complicity" with the royalists.
However, the course of events was unexpected, and the publication of the book angered the royalists, causing Hobbes's relationship with the royalists to break down. The reason is that the book puts forward a unique "contract theory" and opposes the inherent jurisprudence of "divine right of kings", implying that it is a false myth, and the holy king who accepts the "authorization" of God is reduced to a secular monarch who "signs" with the people. The original divine image of the king was weakened, and the spiritual aura on the "crown" was dimmed.
At the same time, the atheistic atmosphere of the book also surprised the anglican members of the royalist faction, and in turn angered the Catholic French. Hobbes was unable to remain in Paris and fled back to London in the winter of 1651. He had no choice but to "surrender" to the anti-king faction that held power in the country, and from then on he lived in seclusion in a small street in London, Ford Lane, Dumen Xieke, and lived in seclusion.
It is often said that the English Revolution, which is elegant, calm and conservative compared to the French Revolution, is not a "revolution" in the full sense of the word, but can only be regarded as a reform movement. In fact, such a comment is not accurate, since this movement from the beginning to the end is a combination of countless military operations, a bloody war between the Parliamentary Army and the King's Army, and since this movement has pulled the King down and sentenced him to death, how can this movement be a reform of "gentleness and frugality", and should be a "revolution" without compromise.
Hobbes's Leviathan was written in roughly chronologically with the English Revolution. The process from conception to writing to publication of Leviathan is precisely the whole process from the outbreak to the end of the revolution. Hobbes wrote Leviathan in Paris. In 1647 Hobbes had a serious illness and was bedridden for 6 months, but after a little recovery, he picked up a pen again. The entire book was completed in 1650, and a new book was listed in mid-1651. The title is long: "Leviathan, or the Substance, Form, and Power of the Church State and the Civil State."
The cover art in the first edition of this book is unique and rich in meaning. A tall and powerful man stands facing, wearing a crown, strong and majestic, he is the image of the king and the symbol of the country. He clutched his sword in his right hand, and the blade flashed, showing his invincible power. The scepter is held in the left hand, and the majesty is majestic, showing supreme power.
Let's focus on the clothes the giants are wearing, and we will be amazed to find that they are covered with fine lines like the scales of giant pythons. This fine stripe is a personal figure with a nose and eyes, and it crawls densely all over the giant's body. Where the giant stands is a rolling mountain, a castle on the hill, and a street market at the bottom of the hill, which is the land he rules. This giant is the Leviathan.
The bottom of the cover painting looks like a large bookshelf. On the left side of the "bookshelf", the royal power is expounded, and the palace, crown, weapons, and images of the battlefield are displayed. On the right side of the "bookshelf", the canon is expounded, and the church, the papal hat, and the articles related to the sacrifice are displayed. In the middle of the "bookshelf" hangs a pennant with the title of the book written on it.
From this cover painting, one can grasp the ideas expressed in Leviathan: the "authoritarian theory" of the power ruling the state, the "contract theory" that expounds the nature of the state, the "enlightened monarch" theory, and the "loyalty theory" of obedience to the state.
In his book, Hobbes explains the concept of the "state of nature", which is called Mao Zedong, and he uses easy-to-understand words to explain the origin of the state in the first place. "Country" is indeed a monster that makes people afraid. However, in order to avoid the mutual strife, chaos and mutual killing of selfish desires in the "state of nature", people had no choice but to invite out "monsters", establish authoritarianism, and establish a state.
Hobbes was a statist and a power theorist, in today's parlance, an authoritarian. This "authoritarian" is called the king, also called "Leviathan". It is majestic and powerful, inviolable, it is entrenched in the mountains, rivers and villages of a country, because of its existence, society can be peaceful, the economy can develop, and the people can be happy.
He adhered to the will to power of blood and fire, opposed all anarchy and contempt for authority and power, and believed that such ideas were harmful and useless, and would only bring turmoil to the country, bring turmoil to society, bring obstacles to development, and finally trap the people in water and fire.
His body is full of sentient beings, and he is showing that this giant is not a Chinese emperor who claims that "the world is under heaven", but a collection of the will of thousands of people, or a contract with the people, a signatory who vows to serve them. In this way, this cover painting tells a truth that belonged to the stone at that time: the theory of "divine right of kings" is wrong.
Hobbes said in his Leviathan that the power of kings, the authority of kings, did not come from God's grant, but from a "contract," a contract with the people that must be kept and honored. The contract states that the people give the naturally vested powers they have to the Leviathan, and that the Leviathan should protect the people.
For the Leviathan (the state), people fear it, but they can't do without it. The more vicious it is, the more people feel at ease, and the deterrent power it has become a guarantee of peace and tranquility. This is a bit like Chinese attitude towards Zhong Kui, the more fierce Zhong Kui is, the more reassuring people are. The difference is that the former is a real being, while Zhong Kui is a fictional immortal.
In his book, Hobbes emphasized that people cannot break the "contract" signed with the state. The enjoyment of peace is the right of the people, obedience to the state is the duty of the people, rights and obligations complement each other, merge into one, and cannot be separated. Hobbes also acknowledged that the Leviathan monster could not do whatever it wanted, and that the people monitored it and put it in a cage. When it no longer protects the people, the contract it has made with the people lapses.
It goes without saying that Hobbes's work is not a "liberal" work, not so much "liberalism" as "statism" and "conservatism", but it is strange that because the book "pioneered" the theory of contract, which is the core element of European liberal thought, liberals also have great respect for Hobbes, seeing him as the vanguard and flag-bearer in the "freedom queue".
It is even said that without Hobbes's Leviathan, there would be no Locke's Theory of Government, nor would there have been Rousseau's Theory of the Social Contract. In addition, Hobbes's downplaying of Shinto doctrine and the "approximation" of materialist thought were also passed down as an important intellectual legacy to later Enlightenment thinkers and further developed. With these two points, Hobbes theoretically surpassed Machiavelli and others who wrote The Monarch and reached new heights of thought.
Hobbes's doctrine has many self-contradictions, he admits that he is timid, a little shy, often talking and spitting, and this just stimulates the interest of posterity in his research, and the number of people who care about him has increased for hundreds of years.
Article Source: Love Thoughts
Author: Sheng Banghe