Of mushrooms and method: History and the family in Hobbes’s science of politics

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

5 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Hobbes’s account of the commonwealth is standardly interpreted to be primarily a theory of contract, whereby the archetypal manner of forming a political community is via an act of mutual agreement between suspicious individuals of equal power. By examining Hobbes’s theories of the pre-political family, and what he says about the role of real history in the development of political societies, I conclude that this standard interpretation is untenable. Rather, Hobbes’s conception of commonwealth ‘by institution’ is a hypothetical model used to illustrate the mechanics of sovereignty, and to reconcile men to the conditions of subjection to absolute political power. In practice, all sovereignty is originally by ‘acquisition’. Realizing this casts serious doubt on the possibilit y that Hobbes is a fundamentally democratic thinker. In turn, we are invited to reconsider the history of political thought after Hobbes, in particular by seeing his theory of the family and of history as a genealogical ancestor of Scottish Enlightenment political theory.
Original languageUndefined/Unknown
Pages (from-to)98-117
Number of pages20
JournalEUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL THEORY
Volume14
Early online date12 May 2014
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2015

Cite this