New book: Hobbes and the Democratic Imaginary

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Holman, Christopher (2022): Hobbes and the Democratic Imaginary.

Description
At a time when nearly all political actors and observers—despite the nature of their normative commitments—morally appeal to the language of democracy, the particular signification of the term has become obscured. Hobbes and the Democratic Imaginary argues that critical engagement with various elements of the work of Hobbes, a notorious critic of democracy, can deepen our understanding of the problems, stakes, and ethics of democratic life. Firstly, Hobbes’s descriptive anatomy of democratic sovereignty reveals what is essential to the institution of this form of government, in the face of the conceptual confusion that characterizes the contemporary deployment of democratic terminology. Secondly, Hobbes’s critique of the mechanics of democracy points toward certain fundamental political risks that are internal to its mode of operation. And thirdly, contrary to Hobbes’s own intentions, Christopher Holman shows how the selective redeployment of certain Hobbesian categories could help construct a normative ground in which democracy is the ethical choice in relation to other sovereign forms.

New article: Thomas Hobbes’s Translation of ‘The Plague of Athens’: A First Critical Edition

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Hoekstra, Kinch and Iori, Luca (2022): Thomas Hobbes’s Translation of ‘The Plague of Athens’ (Thuc. 2.47.2-54): A First Critical Edition, in: Histos. The Online Journal of Ancient Historiography 16 (2022), p. 166-213.

Abstract
The article provides a sample presentation of the critical edition in progress of Thomas Hobbes’s translation of Thucydides, Eight Bookes of the Peloponnesian Warre (London, 1629). The specimen of the edition is Thucydides’ narration of the ‘Plague of Athens’, accompanied by an introduction that sets Hobbes’s edition in its historical context, considers his method of translation, and lays out some distinctive requirements for editing an early modern text. A note on the text explains the format and the editorial principles of the specimen.

Latest Issue of Hobbes Studies

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Hobbes Studies, Volume 35, Issue 2 (Nov 2022)

Articles

Book Reviews

The first Italian translation of Hobbes’s Autobiographies

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Hobbes, Thomas (2022): Vita di Thomas Hobbes di Malmesbury. Le due autobiografie latine, transl. and ed. by Luca Tenneriello. Milan: Mimesis.

Description
The book collects the first Italian translations of Hobbes’s two Latin autobiographies: the renowned Vita Carmine Expressa, written in 1672, and the little-known Vita, drawn up in prose from the 1660s onwards. The works have been translated and edited by Dr. Luca Tenneriello, Sapienza University of Rome. The volume shows Hobbes’s life and thought in his own words, “a crumb of Hobbes’s mind” (micam salis hobbiani), like a last will and testament for posterity.

New article: Taylor and Hobbes on toleration

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Okada, Takuya (2022): Taylor and Hobbes on toleration, in: History of European Ideas, https://doi.org/10.1080/01916599.2022.2080375

Description
The English Revolution saw fierce controversy over religious toleration. While this controversy was usually associated with parliamentarians and Puritans, major contributions to the debate were also made by a few thinkers from the royalist side: Jeremy Taylor and Thomas Hobbes. Despite their prominence in the toleration debate, however, the intellectual context of the English Revolution in which their distinctive views of toleration were formed remains unclear apart from Hobbes’s association with the Independents. Here, I suggest the potential importance of Taylor and Hobbes for understanding each other. While studies of Hobbes and Taylor have developed in relative isolation from each other, I show that their views of toleration have various features in common, and that these features are rarely found in their celebrated predecessor William Chillingworth or in major Puritan tolerationists. In several key respects, moreover, Hobbes and Taylor were more similar than Hobbes and the Independents. This research also helps to clarify the contribution to the toleration controversy at that time by the two leading thinkers. Furthermore, the similarities between Taylor and Hobbes, as shown in this paper, may contribute to better understanding the reception of Hobbes in the Restoration toleration debate.

New article on Equity and Inequity in Thomas Hobbes’s Dialogue

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Corbin, Thomas (2022): On Equity and Inequity in Thomas Hobbes’s Dialogue, in: The Southern Journal of Philosophy, https://doi.org/10.1111/sjp.12471

Description
The concept of equity is clearly important in Thomas Hobbes’s philosophy. In his writings he repeatedly employs it in significant load bearing ways, particularly in the areas of civil law and governance. Equity is, however, not directly addressed in a sustained way in his core works and—perhaps even more frustratingly—it is often applied in ways which ask more questions about the concept than they answer. This presents an impediment to accurately understanding what equity really means to Hobbes. His late Dialogue Between a Philosopher and a Student of the Common Laws of England (1681) seems to offer a solution to this challenge. This work contains extensive discussion on equity, including on the application of equity in relationship to absolute rule. However, equity in the Dialogue is not always the same as what we see in Hobbes’s core works. The question is, did Hobbes change his mind on equity? This article argues no. Hobbes did not change his mind on equity; rather, within the Dialogue he is engaging with a common understanding of the term as it existed in English law. Consequently, Hobbes’s discussions here should not inform us about how equity fits into his philosophy.

Chapter on “Hobbes and Pretenders to God’s Kingdom” in the new book: Apocalypse without God

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Jones, Ben (2022): Apocalypse without God: Apocalyptic Thought, Ideal Politics, and the Limits of Utopian Thought, published by Cambridge University Press, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009037037

Description
This chapter examines how Hobbes tempers apocalyptic thought to advance his political philosophy. What troubles Hobbes about such thought is its potential to spur continuous upheaval. Apocalyptic thought anticipates perfection – a divine kingdom that will wipe away corruption. The failure to realize utopian hopes breeds endless dissatisfaction, disruption, and instability in politics. But rather than abandon apocalyptic ideals, Hobbes co-opts them. Specifically, he reinterprets the doctrine of the kingdom of God to make it safe for politics. He arrives at an interpretation that denies, at present, all claims to represent God’s kingdom by prophets and sects challenging the sovereign’s authority. For now, the kingdom of God can only take one form – what Hobbes calls the natural kingdom of God. Importantly, the Leviathan-state is a manifestation of the natural kingdom of God. By identifying God’s kingdom with the Leviathan-state, Hobbes transforms a Christian doctrine used to justify rebellion into one bolstering the sovereign’s authority.

New Book: Hobbes Against Friendship: The Modern Marginalisation of an Ancient Political Concept

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Slomp, Gabriella (2022): Hobbes Against Friendship. The Modern Marginalisation of an Ancient Political Concept. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95315-7

Description
This book explores why and how Thomas  Hobbes – the 17th century founder of political science – contributed to the modern marginalisation of ‘friendship’, a concept that stood in the foreground of ancient moral and political thought  and that is  currently undergoing a revival. The study shows that Hobbes did not question the occurrence of friendship; rather, he rejected friendship as an explanatory and normative principle of peace and cooperation. Hobbes’s stance was influential because it captured the spirit of modernity- its individualism, nominalism, practical scepticism, and materialism. Hobbes’s legacy has a bearing on contemporary debates about civic, international and global friendship. 

New article: Hobbes, Constant, and Berlin on Liberty

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Cromartie, Alan (2022): Hobbes, Constant, and Berlin on Liberty, in: History of European Ideas, https://doi.org/10.1080/01916599.2022.2056330

Description
Isaiah Berlin’s ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’ regards both Hobbes and Constant as supporting the negative version. Both took a favourable view of the freedom to live as one pleases. But this shared preference arose from radically different overall philosophies. Hobbes’s support for freedom as ‘the silence of the laws’ reflected his view of happiness as preference-satisfaction. Constant’s support for freedom as a sphere of absolute rights was supplemented by support for active citizenship and connected with belief in ‘perfectibility’ that was itself linked to religion. These theories involve altogether different understandings of the image of an ‘area’ preserved from interference. Berlin takes over from Constant an appeal to human nature without the idea of progress that had supported it.

New Hobbes Studies Special Issue dedicated to the career and work of Professor Johann Sommerville

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Hobbes Studies, Special Issue (March 2022)

Articles

Book Reviews