Leviatan

The work is one of the foundational works of modern political thought. In it, Hobbes analyses human nature in order to show on what foundations political power rests. The work culminates in a polemic with Cardinal Bellarmine on the relationship between secular and spiritual power. Translated by K. Berka. From the estate prepared for publication by J. Chotaš, Z. Masopust and M. Barabas. Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), after graduating from Oxford University, entered the service of the noble family of Cavendish (Earls of Devonshire), where he worked as a domestic tutor and secretary. His relationship with the aristocratic family was fatal to his life: it gave him access to intellectual and political circles both in England and continental Europe, but also caused him to become politically involved with the Royalist Party on the eve of the English Civil War, forcing him to flee the country. He then lived in exile in Paris for eleven years. After the publication of Leviathan, however, he broke with the Royalist exile and returned to England under the protection of Cromwell. After the restoration of the monarchy in England, the king granted him a pension for life, but later forbade him to publish. Hobbes's seminal work, Leviathan (1651, Latin 1668), is significant in three respects. First, for its methodological ideal: political philosophy should break with Aristotelianism and emulate modern natural science. Human society should be investigated in the same way that Galileo investigated nature. Second, in its content: the Leviathan is the foundational work of modern political philosophy. Hobbes' contribution to political anthropology, to the theory of political commitment, to the theory of natural rights, to the theory of the social contract and to the relationship between secular and spiritual power is still unmissable today, as we can see in the works of I. Kant, M. Oakeshott, H. Arendt, C. Schmitt or L. Strauss. Third, Leviathan is a pioneering work in the field of English philosophical terminology. Thanks to his philological erudition, Hobbes contributed to the establishment of English as a philosophical language. The present volume is a completely new translation of Hobbes's major work into English after seventy years, and contains for the first time a complete translation of the 1651 English edition. 

Czech edition