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A Course with Professor Thomas Patrick Burke
April 16 to June 4, 2008
Listen to the audio recording:
Session 1 - Introduction & Reading Leviathan, Chapters X, XI and XIII
Session 2 - Part 1 & Part 2
Session 3 - Part 1 & Part 2
Session 4 - Part 1 & Part 2
Session 5 - Part 1 & Part 2
Session 6 - Part 1 & Part 2
Session 7 - Part 1 & Part 2
Session 8 - Part 1 & Part 2
Thomas Hobbes is considered by some the greatest political philosopher
to have written in the English language. His work Leviathan,
published in 1651 during the English Civil War, is a realistic,
down-to-earth appraisal of human society which is thoroughly relevant
to the times we live in. The natural state of the human race left to
itself is a war of all against all, in his view, and the only remedy
for this condition is a physical power, an effective government, which
will "keep them all in awe." Hobbes's philosophy is a constant
antidote to the wishful thinking it is so easy for us to engage in.
Whereas Locke bases government on the protection of our rights, Hobbes
bases it on the necessity of peace. He takes the new science of
Galileo, Descartes and Harvey as a given and builds his theory of
society on that. The result is a consistent materialism; but it is one
that does not prevent him from believing in God. Every serious writer
of political philosophy since Hobbes has been compelled to take his
work into account, and so it forms a necessary foundation for the study
of goverment. Hobbes writes with a fine dry wit, which makes him
enjoyable to read even when one disagrees. |
