Hobbes

Summary

Dominique Pagani most often returns to Hobbes through the formula "man is a wolf to man": force reigns over society and governs human relations, while the regulating State limits the damage1. He sets it against Spinoza's formula, whose second term, in his view, contains the first2. He also links Hobbes with Callicles, for whom force is the organising principle3, and notes that Hobbes appeals to force while also demanding legitimacy4. He describes him as a thinker of isolated, competing men who unite only under constraint5, and points out that Hobbes has no radical break between the state of nature and the civil state6. He places him among the seventeenth-century English empiricists, recalls his objections to Descartes, and takes him as an example of the complexity of English thought. Finally, he notes that Hobbes has been put on the agrégation syllabus for the first time.

1. 1#1.5 Between crisis and war: philosophising?10 Dec 2015 · 1:13:27
2. 2“What threatens societies are the men and women who benefit from the exploitation of others”12 Mar 2019 · 1:42:54
3. 3Mythology and truth8 Aug 2015 · 24:48
4. 4Introduction to the upcoming workshops23 Mar 2020 · 52:48
5. 5M. Clouscard's reply to C. Morilhat (part 2)10 Sept 2019 · 55:00
6. 6What is to be done? 2/329 Jan 2016 · 26:05

Summary produced automatically from 17 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.