Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Thomas Hobbes and the Politics of Religion
/in Events, Features, Society News /by Laurens van Apeldoorn‘Thomas Hobbes and the Politics of Religion’ is the inaugural research project of the European Hobbes Society. It examines the relation between Hobbes’s political and religious thought, and, in particular, the various strategies he devised for overcoming the threats to social and political stability posed by religion. See here for more information.
The project comprises two workshops. The first was held at King’s College London in April 2015, and featured some exceptional papers by a mix of seasoned Hobbes experts and some of the most exciting up-and-coming young scholars in the field (programme here). The second workshop will be held at Leiden University College, The Hague, in September 2015, and the programme is looking just as impressive (programme here). We plan to publish a collected volume following the two workshops … so hopefully there will be more news about this before too long.
Noel Malcolm’s edition of Leviathan: a review of the reviews
/in Discussion, Features, New Publications /by Adrian BlauReviews reviewed:
Deborah Baumgold, English Historical Review vol. 128 issue 535, 2013
Adrian Blau, Journal of Early Modern Studies vol. 2 no. 2, 2013
Jeffrey Collins, Modern Intellectual History vol. 12 no. 1, 2015
Rachel Foxley, The Review of English Studies vol. 65 issue 271, 2014
John Gray, The New Statesman, September 2012
Kinch Hoekstra, Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 76 no. 2, 2015
Sarah Mortimer and David Scott, Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 76 no. 2, 2015
William Poole, The Library, vol. 14. no. 4, 2013
David Runciman, Times Literary Supplement, February 2013
Patricia Springborg, British Journal for the History of Philosophy vol. 22 no. 2, 2014
Blair Worden, Literary Review, December 2012
with responses to some of the reviews by Noel Malcolm, Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 76 no. 2, 2015
Noel Malcolm’s magnificent edition of Leviathan features a one-volume introduction and two volumes of Leviathan, with the 1651 English and 1668 Latin versions printed side-by-side. All reviewers agree that this edition is a superb achievement. David Runciman praises ‘Malcolm’s extraordinary scholarly range and precision’ – scholarship ‘of the highest level’, writes Rachel Foxley, leading Deborah Baumgold to coin a new adjective: ‘Malcolmian’. This edition is an ‘immense improvement on the nineteenth-century Molesworth collections’, she adds. Blair Worden describes Malcolm’s edition as ‘a glory … that sets quite new standards of editorial scholarship’. John Gray calls it ‘an astonishing achievement of the highest scholarship’. Patricia Springborg ‘cannot imagine that this edition will ever be technically surpassed’, although she does suggest that the 2003 Schuhmann and Rogers edition of Leviathan has more merits than Malcolm implies.
What sets Malcolm’s edition apart is the ‘meticulous detective work’ described by Jeffrey Collins. Malcolm is Read more →
Welcome to the European Hobbes Society!
/in Society News /by Laurens van ApeldoornWelcome to the first post on the new website of the European Hobbes Society. The EHS is an international, interdisciplinary research network focusing on the thought of Thomas Hobbes. “European” refers to our origins, not our destination: the EHS grew out of meetings at the Political Theory Workshops in Manchester, UK, from 2008 to 2011, and has since met at Marburg (Germany), King’s College London (UK), Leuven (Belgium) and Amsterdam (Netherlands). Our meetings have been attended by scholars from all over the world and anyone with an interest in the life or work of Thomas Hobbes may join. Go to the registration page for more information.
Book: Rousseau and Hobbes: Nature, Free Will, and the Passions
/in Member Publications, New Publications /by Publication OfficerRobin Douglass, Rousseau and Hobbes: Nature, Free Will, and the Passions, Oxford University Press, 2015
About this book: Robin Douglass presents the first comprehensive study of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s engagement with Thomas Hobbes. He reconstructs the intellectual context of this engagement to reveal the deeply polemical character of Rousseau’s critique of Hobbes and to show how Rousseau sought to expose that much modern natural law anddoux commerce theory was, despite its protestations to the contrary, indebted to a Hobbesian account of human nature and the origins of society. Throughout the book Douglass explores the reasons why Rousseau both followed and departed from Hobbes in different places, while resisting the temptation to present him as either a straightforwardly Hobbesian or anti-Hobbesian thinker.