Thomas Hobbes

`the state of men without civil society (which state we may properly call the state of nature) is nothing else but a mere war of all against all.'' Thomas Hobbes was the first great philosopher to write in English. His account of the human condition, first developed in The Elements of Law (1640), which comprises Human Nature and De Corpore Politico, is a direct product of the intellectural and political strife of the seventeenth century. It is also a remarkably penetrating look at human nature, and a permanently relevant analysis of the fears of self-seeking that result in the war of `each against every man''. In The Elements of Law Hobbes memorably sets out both the main lines of his general philosophy, later augmented in De Corpore (1655), and the moral and political philosophy later made famous in Leviathan (1651). Copies of Human Nature and De Corpore Politico, until 1889 printed as separate works, are rare antiques or scarcely less rare scholarly texts; this is the first complete popular edition. It is here supplemented by chapters from De Corpore and Three Lives, two from Hobbes''s original Latin. These have never before been published together in English. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

'The life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short'Written during the chaos of the English Civil War, Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan asks how, in a world of violence and horror, can we stop ourselves from descending into anarchy? Hobbes' case for a 'common-wealth' under a powerful sovereign - or 'Leviathan' - to enforce security and the rule of law, shocked his contemporaries, and his book was publicly burnt for sedition the moment it was published. But his penetrating work of political philosophy - now fully revised and with a new introduction for this edition - opened up questions about the nature of statecraft and society that influenced governments across the world. Edited with a new introduction by Christopher Brooke

Thomas Hobbes a 17. századi filozófia egyik kulcsfigurája. Mesterműve, az 1651-ben írt Leviatán, a modern államelméletek alapműve. Leviatán a közakaratot képviselő állam, mégpedig az ésszerű polgári állam modellje, amelynek hatalma korlátlan, de csak addig, amíg valóban képes megvédeni azokat, akiknek a nevében és megbízásából fellép. Hobbes fejtegetéseiben a védelem és az engedelmesség kölcsönös összefüggéseit igyekszik részrehajlás és hajbókolás nélkül feltárni, mert ezek feltétlen szem előtt tartását az ember természetes mivolta, valamint a természeti és a pozitív isteni törvények egyaránt megkövetelik.