Thomas Hobbes 1588 – 1679

Thomas Hobbes was a 17th-century English philosopher whose 1651 book Leviathan is one of the founding texts of modern political philosophy and social contract theory. Writing during and after the English Civil War, he argued that in the natural condition of mankind, without an overarching political authority, life would be solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. He held that rational individuals would consent to absolute sovereignty as the price of escaping this condition. His broader philosophical system, set out in works including De Cive and De Corpore, is mechanistic and materialist, treating thought and society as motions of matter governed by natural laws. His political thought provoked sustained replies from Locke, Rousseau, and the long line of social contract theorists who followed.