Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes (5 April 1588 – 4 December 1679) was an influential English philosopher, best known for his work in political philosophy. Influenced by the political realism of Machiavelli and the exposition of Newtonian physics concerning motion at his time, Hobbes proposed, in Leviathan, a mechanistic view of human nature and a form of justification of absolutist governance, conditional upon the monarch's ability to preserve order. While arguing for an absolutist monarchy he rejected and argued vigorously against the "divine right of kings"; his justification for monarchy was based solely on the empirical scientific knowledge of his time.

Hobbes was born in Westport, a town in Wiltshire, the second son of a clergyman. He was a scholar in Latin and Greek, having been educated at Grammar school in the west of England and later at Oxford. After graduation he became a companion and tutor to the first Earl of Devonshire and thus given the use of a large private library and the company of many important noblemen, writers and amateur scientists.

In 1610 the young Earl and Hobbes toured France and Italy together, and on the trip Hobbes learned about the new astronomy being touted by Kepler and Galileo. On his return to England Hobbes settled down to his classical studies in the Earl's household until his death in 1625. During this period Hobbes became known as a respectable classicist and for a few years acted as secretary and translator for Francis Bacon. In 1629 Hobbes was in Geneva and became fascinated with geometry. For most of the period 1634–1650 Hobbes lived in Paris so as to avoid his religious enemies and the English Civil War. He was the tutor to the future English King Charles II. There Hobbes was a member of the circle of anti-Aristotelian philosophers that included Descartes, a philosopher with whom Hobbes fundamentally disagreed.

As a political philosopher, Hobbes was concerned with the role that governments played in the ordering of society. Although he supported a monarchical government and opposed the separation of powers, he is generally considered one of the first social-contract theorists of the modern era. He wrote his most famous work, Leviathan, in 1651; it brought him notoriety as being anti-clerical and insufficiently in favour of the English monarchy.