Ad
related to: thomas hobbes war of all against all elements text examples free images
Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
In his Notes on the State of Virginia (1785), Thomas Jefferson uses the phrase bellum omnium in omnia ("war of all things against all things", assuming omnium is intended to be neuter like omnia) as he laments that the constitution of that state was twice at risk of being sacrificed to the nomination of a dictator after the manner of the Roman Republic.
But to be outside of a political community is to be in an anarchic condition. Given human nature, the variability of human desires, and need for scarce resources to fulfill those desires, the state of nature, as Hobbes calls this anarchic condition, must be a war of all against all. Even when two men are not fighting, there is no guarantee that ...
De Cive ('On the Citizen') is one of Thomas Hobbes's major works. The book was published originally in Latin from Paris in 1642, followed by two further Latin editions in 1647 from Amsterdam . The English translation of the work made its first appearance four years later (London 1651) under the title Philosophicall rudiments concerning ...
Although Thomas Hobbes's childhood is unknown to a large extent, as is his mother's name, [8] it is known that Hobbes's father, Thomas Sr., was the vicar of both Charlton and Westport. Hobbes's father was uneducated, according to John Aubrey , Hobbes's biographer, and he "disesteemed learning."
Beginning from a mechanistic understanding of human beings and their passions, Hobbes postulates what life would be like without government, a condition which he calls the state of nature. In that state, each person would have a right, or license, to everything in the world. This, Hobbes argues, would lead to a "war of all against all".
These concepts are mutually reinforcing and feature across his most prominent works. For example, in The Elements of Law, Hobbes claims that the benefits given to the general public under a commonwealth are “incomparable”. [3] This overlaps with his discussion of justice in the same text, which is used in a political context. [3]
The English philosopher's analysis about the state of nature resonates today, but if anything he wasn't pessimistic enough.
Hobbes argued that natural inequalities between humans are not so great as to give anyone clear superiority; and thus all must live in constant fear of loss or violence; so that "during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against ...