WEBVTT 00:02.430 --> 00:03.640 Professor Steven Smith: O.K., today, 00:03.636 --> 00:06.646 what a joy. What a joy! 00:06.650 --> 00:10.780 We start Hobbes. And he is one of the great 00:10.778 --> 00:11.678 treats. 00:11.680 --> 00:17.510 00:17.510 --> 00:22.020 Thomas Hobbes was the author of the first and, 00:22.019 --> 00:27.329 I believe, undoubtedly the greatest, work of political 00:27.330 --> 00:31.640 theory written in the English language. 00:31.640 --> 00:36.400 He was a master of English style and prose, 00:36.400 --> 00:42.750 and his work ranks among the very greatest in this or any 00:42.746 --> 00:44.896 other language. 00:44.900 --> 00:48.230 00:48.230 --> 00:54.830 Leviathan is to prose what Milton's Paradise 00:54.829 --> 00:58.439 Lost is to epic poetry. 00:58.440 --> 00:59.680 Think about that. 00:59.680 --> 01:03.260 01:03.259 --> 01:11.439 Hobbes was in many ways a perfect foil for Machiavelli. 01:11.439 --> 01:21.129 He played the part of Doctor Watson to Machiavelli's Sherlock 01:21.126 --> 01:25.166 Holmes. Hobbes, in other words, 01:25.174 --> 01:31.834 carried out what Machiavelli had helped him make possible. 01:31.830 --> 01:33.870 Machiavelli, you remember, 01:33.868 --> 01:37.288 claimed to have discovered a new continent, 01:37.291 --> 01:39.331 new modes and orders. 01:39.330 --> 01:44.600 It was Hobbes who helped to make this new continent 01:44.604 --> 01:47.124 habitable. Machiavelli, 01:47.116 --> 01:50.646 you might say, cleared the brush. 01:50.650 --> 01:54.830 He was the Lewis and Clarke or the Columbus. 01:54.830 --> 02:00.100 Hobbes built the houses and institutions. 02:00.099 --> 02:03.819 Hobbes provided us with the definitive language in which 02:03.817 --> 02:07.667 even today we continue to speak about the modern state. 02:07.670 --> 02:12.400 02:12.400 --> 02:17.700 However, and this is what I want to emphasize throughout our 02:17.701 --> 02:22.101 reading of Hobbes, he has always been something of 02:22.104 --> 02:24.714 a paradox to his readers. 02:24.710 --> 02:29.790 On the one hand, you will find Hobbes the most 02:29.793 --> 02:34.993 articulate defender of political absolutism. 02:34.990 --> 02:39.290 Hobbes in the Hobbesian doctrine of sovereignty, 02:39.286 --> 02:44.496 or the Hobbesian sovereign, to have a complete monopoly of 02:44.497 --> 02:47.877 power within his given territory. 02:47.879 --> 02:50.879 In fact, the famous frontispiece of the book, 02:50.878 --> 02:54.558 which is reproduced in your edition, although it is not 02:54.558 --> 02:56.328 altogether very clear. 02:56.330 --> 02:59.450 It is not a very good reproduction, 02:59.449 --> 03:04.399 the famous frontispiece to the original 1651 edition of 03:04.404 --> 03:08.354 Leviathan depicts the Leviathan, 03:08.349 --> 03:11.329 depicts the state, the sovereign, 03:11.328 --> 03:16.818 holding a sword in one hand and the scepter in the other, 03:16.819 --> 03:21.129 and the various institutions of the civilian and churchly 03:21.125 --> 03:24.195 ecclesiastical authority on each side. 03:24.199 --> 03:29.329 The sovereign holds total power over all the institutions of 03:29.325 --> 03:34.275 civilian and ecclesiastical life, holding sway over a kind 03:34.278 --> 03:36.448 of peaceable kingdom. 03:36.449 --> 03:40.489 Add to this, to the doctrine of indivisible 03:40.485 --> 03:44.615 sovereign power, Hobbes' insistence that the 03:44.617 --> 03:50.187 sovereign exercise complete control over the churches, 03:50.190 --> 03:56.450 over the university curricula, and over what books and 03:56.446 --> 04:00.456 opinions can be read and taught. 04:00.460 --> 04:05.440 He seems to be the perfect model of absolutism and of 04:05.442 --> 04:07.552 absolute government. 04:07.550 --> 04:11.080 You have to consider also the following. 04:11.080 --> 04:15.130 Hobbes insists on the fundamental equality of human 04:15.130 --> 04:19.590 beings, who he says are endowed with certain natural and 04:19.586 --> 04:21.446 inalienable rights. 04:21.449 --> 04:27.319 He maintains the state is a product of a covenant or a 04:27.317 --> 04:32.537 compact, a contract of a sort, between individuals, 04:32.540 --> 04:37.500 and that the sovereign owes his authority to the will or the 04:37.495 --> 04:42.455 consent of those he governs, and finally that the sovereign 04:42.458 --> 04:47.248 is authorized only to protect the interests of the governed by 04:47.254 --> 04:50.404 maintaining civil peace and security. 04:50.399 --> 04:54.409 From this point of view, it would seem that Hobbes helps 04:54.408 --> 04:58.558 to establish the language of what we might think of as the 04:58.563 --> 05:01.263 liberal opposition to absolutism. 05:01.259 --> 05:06.729 And this paradox was noted even in Hobbes' own time. 05:06.730 --> 05:12.280 Was he a defender of royalism and the power of the king, 05:12.277 --> 05:17.317 or was he a defender or an opponent of royalism? 05:17.319 --> 05:21.939 I mean, in many ways, to be sure, Hobbes was a 05:21.944 --> 05:26.984 product of his time, and what else could he be? 05:26.980 --> 05:32.200 But Hobbes lived at a time when the modern system of European 05:32.204 --> 05:37.344 states, even as we understand them today, was just beginning 05:37.341 --> 05:40.521 to emerge. Three years before the 05:40.522 --> 05:46.142 publication of Leviathan, 1651, the signing of the Treaty 05:46.143 --> 05:50.003 of Westphalia, famous peace treaty, 05:50.002 --> 05:56.792 brought an end to more than a century of religious war that 05:56.794 --> 06:02.654 had been ignited by the Protestant Reformation. 06:02.649 --> 06:07.739 The Treaty of Westphalia officially put an end to the 30 06:07.738 --> 06:13.468 Years War, but more than that it ratified two decisive features 06:13.474 --> 06:18.474 that would be given powerful expression by Hobbes. 06:18.470 --> 06:24.050 First, the Treaty declared that the individual sovereign state 06:24.053 --> 06:29.273 would henceforth become the highest level of authority; 06:29.269 --> 06:32.989 you might say, putting an end once and for all 06:32.992 --> 06:37.462 to the universalist claims of the Holy Roman Empire. 06:37.459 --> 06:41.699 Each state was to be sovereign and to have its own authority. 06:41.699 --> 06:44.639 And secondly, that the head of each state 06:44.637 --> 06:48.457 would have the right to determine the religion of the 06:48.455 --> 06:51.805 state, again thus putting an end to 06:51.807 --> 06:55.917 the claims of a single universalist church. 06:55.920 --> 07:00.270 This is what the Treaty of Westphalia put into practice 07:00.273 --> 07:05.133 and, among other things, what Hobbes attempted to 07:05.127 --> 07:11.907 express in theory in his book: the autonomy and authority of 07:11.907 --> 07:17.767 the sovereign and the sovereign's power to establish 07:17.768 --> 07:23.428 what religious doctrine or what, even more broadly, 07:23.427 --> 07:28.117 what opinions are to be taught and held within a community, 07:28.120 --> 07:29.950 within a state. Who was Hobbes? 07:29.950 --> 07:32.900 Let me say a word about him. 07:32.899 --> 07:38.419 Hobbes was born in 1588, the year that the English naval 07:38.418 --> 07:44.638 forces drove back the invasion of the famous Spanish Armada. 07:44.639 --> 07:48.759 He grew up in the waning years, the last years, 07:48.758 --> 07:52.698 of the Elizabethan era, and he was a boy when 07:52.697 --> 07:57.797 Shakespeare's most famous plays were first performed. 07:57.800 --> 08:02.320 Hobbes, like many of you, was a gifted student, 08:02.315 --> 08:04.765 and he went to college. 08:04.769 --> 08:09.359 His father, who was a local pastor from the southwest of 08:09.362 --> 08:14.212 England, sent him to Oxford, although he went at the age of 08:14.205 --> 08:16.765 14. And after he graduated, 08:16.765 --> 08:20.885 he entered the service of an aristocratic family, 08:20.887 --> 08:25.347 the Cavandish family, where he became a private tutor 08:25.354 --> 08:26.904 to their son. 08:26.900 --> 08:29.940 08:29.939 --> 08:34.849 His first book was a translation of Thucydides' 08:34.853 --> 08:41.373 History of the Peloponnesian War, which he completed in 08:41.368 --> 08:44.438 1629; Thucydides, the great historian 08:44.443 --> 08:48.263 of the Peloponnesian War, who we mentioned before when we 08:48.260 --> 08:49.760 talked about Plato. 08:49.759 --> 08:54.289 Hobbes was a gifted classical scholar. 08:54.289 --> 08:59.029 He spent a considerable amount of time on the European 08:59.028 --> 09:02.068 continent with his young tutee, Mr. 09:02.068 --> 09:06.328 Cavandish. And while he spent time in 09:06.330 --> 09:11.310 Europe, he met Galileo and Rene Descartes. 09:11.309 --> 09:17.679 It was during the 1640s, the period that initiated the 09:17.676 --> 09:24.126 great civil wars in England, and the execution of the king, 09:24.128 --> 09:29.348 Charles I, that Hobbes left England to live in France, 09:29.350 --> 09:30.960 while the fighting went on. 09:30.960 --> 09:35.000 He left England with many of the royal families, 09:35.000 --> 09:39.470 the aristocratic families, who were threatened by the 09:39.471 --> 09:44.631 republican armies organized by Cromwell and that had executed 09:44.630 --> 09:48.440 the King. In fact, the three justices, 09:48.440 --> 09:52.220 the three judges, who were in charge of the 09:52.220 --> 09:56.190 judicial trial of Charles I, King Charles, 09:56.190 --> 10:01.280 the one who lost his head, those three judges later found 10:01.276 --> 10:03.946 a home where? In New Haven. 10:03.950 --> 10:08.150 They came to New Haven, the three judges, 10:08.149 --> 10:11.719 Judge Whaley, Goff, and Dixwell. 10:11.720 --> 10:12.820 Does that sound familiar? 10:12.820 --> 10:16.440 Yes. New Haven was in part started 10:16.440 --> 10:19.500 by, founded by, members of the, 10:19.503 --> 10:23.793 you might say, the republican opposition to 10:23.792 --> 10:27.572 royalty and to the English king. 10:27.570 --> 10:29.740 And any way, Hobbes, however, 10:29.738 --> 10:33.148 was deeply distressed by the outbreak of war, 10:33.146 --> 10:37.786 and he spent a great deal of time reflecting on the causes of 10:37.793 --> 10:40.353 war and political disorder. 10:40.350 --> 10:43.460 His first treatise, a book called De Cive, 10:43.458 --> 10:46.568 or De Cive, depending on how you pronounce 10:46.566 --> 10:48.686 it, On the Citizen, 10:48.687 --> 10:52.317 was published in 1642, and it was a kind of draft 10:52.324 --> 10:56.954 version of Leviathan that was published almost a decade 10:56.946 --> 10:59.806 later, again in 1651. 10:59.809 --> 11:03.699 Hobbes returned to England the same year of the book's 11:03.695 --> 11:08.015 publication, and spent most of the rest of his long life, 11:08.019 --> 11:13.909 Leviathan was written well into his 60s. 11:13.910 --> 11:17.470 He was 63 when it was published. 11:17.470 --> 11:22.320 He spent the rest of his long life working on scientific and 11:22.315 --> 11:24.035 political problems. 11:24.039 --> 11:27.109 He wrote a history of the English Civil Wars, 11:27.107 --> 11:30.797 called Behemoth, which remains a classic of the 11:30.802 --> 11:34.012 analysis of the causes of social conflict. 11:34.009 --> 11:38.739 And as if this were not enough, near the very end of his life, 11:38.741 --> 11:42.931 he returned to his classical studies translating all of 11:42.930 --> 11:45.800 Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. 11:45.799 --> 11:53.599 He died in 1679 at the age of 91. 11:53.600 --> 11:58.860 From the various portraits and descriptions of Hobbes, 11:58.863 --> 12:03.733 we can tell he was a man of considerable charm, 12:03.730 --> 12:06.860 and I wish that in the book we had had his picture, 12:06.857 --> 12:09.357 a reproduction of his portrait, on it. 12:09.360 --> 12:14.250 But I just want to read one brief passage from his 12:14.250 --> 12:19.440 biographer, a man named John Aubrey, who knew him. 12:19.440 --> 12:22.070 It was written during Hobbes' lifetime. 12:22.070 --> 12:25.590 Aubrey wrote about Hobbes: "He had a good eye and that of 12:25.593 --> 12:28.493 hazel color, which was full of life and spirit, 12:28.488 --> 12:29.808 even to the last. 12:29.809 --> 12:33.479 When he was earnest in discourse, these shone, 12:33.479 --> 12:38.289 as it were, a bright- as if a bright live coal within it. 12:38.290 --> 12:40.370 He had two kinds of looks. 12:40.370 --> 12:43.120 When he laughed, was witty, in a merry humor, 12:43.118 --> 12:46.548 one could scarce sees his eyes, and by and by, 12:46.545 --> 12:51.515 when he was serious and positive, he opened his eyes 12:51.521 --> 12:53.811 round. He was six foot high and 12:53.812 --> 12:54.932 something better." 12:54.929 --> 12:58.169 So that was very tall in the seventeenth century. 12:58.169 --> 13:01.009 "He was six foot high and very better. 13:01.009 --> 13:04.649 He had read much, if one considers his long life, 13:04.649 --> 13:08.819 but his contemplation was much more than his reading. 13:08.820 --> 13:14.600 He was want to say that if he had read as much as other men, 13:14.597 --> 13:19.197 he should have known no more than other men." 13:19.200 --> 13:24.260 So his point was he had read a lot, but what was most important 13:24.259 --> 13:25.809 was his thinking. 13:25.809 --> 13:30.529 If he had read as much, he would know as little. 13:30.529 --> 13:34.089 Gives you a little sense of Hobbes' spirit, 13:34.088 --> 13:39.088 his humor, the wry wit that becomes apparent on almost every 13:39.086 --> 13:43.576 page of this book, but you have to be a careful 13:43.578 --> 13:45.918 reader. Hobbes was deeply 13:45.918 --> 13:49.188 controversial, as you might suspect, 13:49.190 --> 13:51.340 during his lifetime. 13:51.340 --> 13:57.040 Leviathan was excoriated by almost every reader of the 13:57.035 --> 13:59.335 text. To the churchmen, 13:59.336 --> 14:01.836 he was a godless atheist. 14:01.840 --> 14:05.780 To the republicans, he was tainted with monarchy, 14:05.777 --> 14:08.857 or monarchism. And to the monarchists, 14:08.858 --> 14:12.318 he was a dangerous skeptic and free thinker. 14:12.320 --> 14:15.660 Hobbes, again, along with Machiavelli, 14:15.658 --> 14:20.528 was one of the great architects of the modern state. 14:20.529 --> 14:23.559 And to some degree, he even seems to speak, 14:23.561 --> 14:27.031 he seems even more characteristically modern than 14:27.025 --> 14:29.655 Machiavelli. I mean, consider just some of 14:29.662 --> 14:32.332 the following. Machiavelli speaks of the 14:32.327 --> 14:35.667 prince, while Hobbes speaks of the sovereign, 14:35.666 --> 14:39.836 that is a kind of impersonal or in Hobbes' language, 14:39.840 --> 14:44.890 artificial power created out of a contract. 14:44.890 --> 14:49.180 Hobbes' method seems scientific. 14:49.179 --> 14:54.439 It seems formal and analytical in contrast to Machiavelli's 14:54.440 --> 14:59.520 combination of historical commentary and reflection drawn 14:59.519 --> 15:02.149 from personal experience. 15:02.149 --> 15:05.999 While Hobbes, excuse me, while Machiavelli 15:06.000 --> 15:11.260 often spoke of the sublime cruelty of men like Scipio and 15:11.259 --> 15:14.159 Hannibal, Hobbes speaks the more 15:14.160 --> 15:18.210 pedestrian language, the language of power-politics, 15:18.210 --> 15:23.470 where the goal is not glory and honor, but self-preservation. 15:23.470 --> 15:30.430 And Machiavelli's emphasis upon arms is considerably attenuated 15:30.431 --> 15:33.801 by Hobbes' emphasis on laws. 15:33.799 --> 15:40.049 Hobbes, in other words, tried to render acceptable, 15:40.049 --> 15:46.179 tried to render palatable, what Machiavelli had done by 15:46.181 --> 15:51.441 providing a more precise and more legal and institutional 15:51.444 --> 15:54.644 framework for the modern state. 15:54.639 --> 15:58.469 So let's think a little bit about what it was that Hobbes 15:58.469 --> 16:00.589 was attempting to accomplish. 16:00.590 --> 16:05.820 16:05.820 --> 16:10.660 Hobbes, like Machiavelli, was an innovator, 16:10.656 --> 16:16.986 and he was self-consciously aware of his innovations. 16:16.990 --> 16:19.970 And like Machiavelli, who said in the fifteenth 16:19.965 --> 16:23.645 chapter of The Prince that he would be the first to 16:23.653 --> 16:26.373 examine the effectual truth of things, 16:26.370 --> 16:30.510 as opposed to the imaginings of them, Hobbes wrote that civil 16:30.505 --> 16:34.085 science, that is what he called political science, 16:34.090 --> 16:38.650 civil science, was no older than my book De 16:38.646 --> 16:42.236 Cive. Modern political science, 16:42.244 --> 16:46.124 he said, began with this book of 1642. 16:46.120 --> 16:49.460 What did he think of as his novelty? 16:49.460 --> 16:54.090 What was new? What was revolutionary about, 16:54.093 --> 16:57.983 or innovative, about Hobbes' political 16:57.975 --> 17:01.635 science? Hobbes clearly saw himself, 17:01.643 --> 17:06.113 in many respects, as founding a political science 17:06.113 --> 17:11.423 modeled along that of the early founders of the scientific 17:11.420 --> 17:14.820 revolution. Galileo, I have already 17:14.816 --> 17:18.546 indicated that Hobbes had met, William Harvey, 17:18.547 --> 17:22.027 Rene Descartes; a handful of others who were 17:22.029 --> 17:25.439 part of what we think of as the modern scientific 17:25.440 --> 17:28.290 revolutionaries. And like these other 17:28.294 --> 17:31.984 revolutionaries who had overthrown, you might say, 17:31.979 --> 17:35.589 the Aristotelian paradigm in natural science, 17:35.589 --> 17:41.809 Hobbes set out to undermine the authority of Aristotle in civil 17:41.813 --> 17:46.033 science, in political and moral science. 17:46.029 --> 17:51.239 Hobbes set himself up as the great anti-Aristotle, 17:51.241 --> 17:55.071 the great opposition to Aristotle. 17:55.069 --> 17:59.339 Consider just the following passage from Leviathan 17:59.343 --> 18:02.933 with one of my favorite titles from the book, 18:02.930 --> 18:07.570 a chapter called "Of Darkness from Vain Philosophy and 18:07.567 --> 18:09.577 Fabulous Traditions." 18:09.579 --> 18:12.539 In that chapter, chapter 46, Hobbes writes: 18:12.536 --> 18:16.546 "There is nothing so absurd that the old philosophers have 18:16.547 --> 18:18.797 not some of them maintained. 18:18.799 --> 18:22.559 And I believe that scarce anything could be more absurdly 18:22.558 --> 18:26.248 said in natural philosophy than that which is now called 18:26.250 --> 18:30.200 Aristotle's Metaphysics, nor more repugnant to 18:30.199 --> 18:34.919 government than much that he had said in his Politics, 18:34.920 --> 18:38.290 nor more ignorantly than a great part of his 18:38.288 --> 18:43.278 Ethics." So there, you see Hobbes laying 18:43.283 --> 18:45.413 down a challenge. 18:45.410 --> 18:50.000 What was it that he claimed to find so absurd, 18:49.996 --> 18:53.866 repugnant and ignorant in Aristotle? 18:53.870 --> 18:57.610 18:57.609 --> 19:02.469 Why did he--what did he--what was he trying to un-throne, 19:02.468 --> 19:04.548 dethrone in Aristotle? 19:04.550 --> 19:07.790 19:07.789 --> 19:12.449 Hobbes is typically concerned with the foundations of this new 19:12.450 --> 19:17.340 science, getting the building blocks right from the beginning. 19:17.339 --> 19:20.409 The opening chapters of Leviathan, 19:20.406 --> 19:24.776 which I have only assigned a few, but the opening chapters 19:24.776 --> 19:29.146 present a kind of political physics where human beings are 19:29.146 --> 19:33.516 reduced to body and the body is further reduced to so much 19:33.516 --> 19:35.506 matter and motion. 19:35.509 --> 19:40.839 Human beings can be reduced to their movable parts much like a 19:40.836 --> 19:41.706 machine. 19:41.710 --> 19:44.730 19:44.730 --> 19:48.300 "What is life?" he asks, rhetorically in the 19:48.303 --> 19:51.433 introduction. "What is life but a motion of 19:51.434 --> 19:54.814 the limbs? What is the heart but a spring, 19:54.812 --> 19:59.022 or reason but a means of calculating pleasures and 19:59.021 --> 20:01.751 pains." He sets out to give a 20:01.748 --> 20:05.658 deliberately and thoroughly materialistic and 20:05.664 --> 20:09.584 non-teleological physics of human nature. 20:09.579 --> 20:13.529 In fact, a French disciple of Hobbes in the next century, 20:13.534 --> 20:17.334 a man named La Mettrie, wrote a treatise very much 20:17.330 --> 20:22.330 following in the lines of Hobbes called L'Homme Machine, 20:22.329 --> 20:24.919 or literally, Man a Machine. 20:24.920 --> 20:30.770 This is the way Hobbes' new science of politics appears to 20:30.773 --> 20:37.353 begin, and that new beginning is intended to offer in many ways a 20:37.346 --> 20:42.786 comprehensive alternative to Aristotle's physics, 20:42.790 --> 20:45.490 or Aristotle's politics. 20:45.490 --> 20:50.270 Aristotle, remember, argues that all action is 20:50.274 --> 20:53.894 goal-directed, is goal-oriented. 20:53.890 --> 20:58.700 All actions aim at preservation or change, at making something 20:58.701 --> 21:02.331 better or preventing it from becoming worse. 21:02.329 --> 21:05.729 Hobbes believed, on the other hand, 21:05.726 --> 21:11.616 that the overriding human fact, the overriding motivation of 21:11.621 --> 21:15.601 human behavior, is largely negative, 21:15.598 --> 21:21.208 not the desire to do good, but the desire to avoid some 21:21.208 --> 21:23.848 evil. Aristotle, for Hobbes, 21:23.852 --> 21:28.222 had simply seen the world through the wrong end of the 21:28.218 --> 21:30.458 telescope. For Aristotle, 21:30.457 --> 21:33.957 human beings have a goal or a telos, 21:33.959 --> 21:38.549 which is to live a life in community with others for the 21:38.545 --> 21:41.125 sake of human flourishing. 21:41.130 --> 21:45.010 But for Hobbes, we enter into society not in 21:45.009 --> 21:49.519 order to fulfill or perfect our rational nature, 21:49.519 --> 21:52.769 but rather to avoid the greatest evil, 21:52.774 --> 21:57.704 namely death or fear of death, at the hands of others. 21:57.700 --> 22:01.940 Politics, for him, is less a matter of prudential 22:01.935 --> 22:07.305 decisions of better and worse, than it is, you might say, 22:07.305 --> 22:12.295 an existential decision of choosing life or death. 22:12.299 --> 22:16.429 For Hobbes, in many ways, as for Machiavelli, 22:16.432 --> 22:20.942 it is the extreme situation of life and death, 22:20.940 --> 22:24.950 of chaos and war, that come to serve as the norm 22:24.945 --> 22:28.775 for politics and political decision-making, 22:28.780 --> 22:31.860 22:31.859 --> 22:37.179 fundamental alternative or challenge to Aristotle. 22:37.180 --> 22:40.930 And furthermore, Hobbes not only criticized, 22:40.925 --> 22:43.795 you might say, the foundations, 22:43.799 --> 22:46.829 the motivational and psychological foundations, 22:46.829 --> 22:50.319 of Aristotle's theory of politics and human nature, 22:50.319 --> 22:57.719 he blamed the influence of Aristotle for much of the civil 22:57.722 --> 23:00.582 conflict of his age. 23:00.579 --> 23:05.929 Aristotle, who was increasingly being embraced by civic 23:05.931 --> 23:11.581 republicans in England of his time had been brought up, 23:11.579 --> 23:14.969 according to Hobbes, on Aristotle's teaching that 23:14.967 --> 23:17.647 man is by nature a political animal. 23:17.650 --> 23:21.200 This was, again, the thesis of the classical 23:21.197 --> 23:25.897 republicans according to which we are only fully human, 23:25.900 --> 23:30.750 or we only become fully human, when we are engaged in 23:30.750 --> 23:34.950 political life, in ruling ourselves by laws of 23:34.947 --> 23:39.397 our own making. This was a doctrine that Hobbes 23:39.401 --> 23:44.161 attributes to many of the teaching, much of the teaching 23:44.159 --> 23:47.099 at the universities of his age. 23:47.099 --> 23:50.569 And it is precisely this desire to be self-governing, 23:50.574 --> 23:54.544 you might say to rule directly, to have a direct part in 23:54.544 --> 23:57.784 political rule, that Hobbes saw as one of the 23:57.779 --> 24:00.279 great root causes of civil war. 24:00.279 --> 24:05.419 And his answer to Aristotle and to the classical republicans of 24:05.424 --> 24:10.654 his age, was his famous doctrine of what we might call "indirect 24:10.652 --> 24:14.492 government," or what perhaps would be more 24:14.491 --> 24:19.341 familiar to us by the term "representative government." 24:19.339 --> 24:24.539 The sovereign is not, for Hobbes, the people or some 24:24.541 --> 24:30.251 faction of the people ruling directly in their collective 24:30.253 --> 24:33.083 capacity. The sovereign is, 24:33.075 --> 24:38.345 for Hobbes, the artificially reconstructed will of the people 24:38.353 --> 24:41.963 in the person of their representative. 24:41.960 --> 24:45.770 The sovereign representative acts, you might say, 24:45.772 --> 24:50.302 like a filter for the wills and passions of the people. 24:50.299 --> 24:55.569 The sovereign is not the direct expression of my will or your 24:55.568 --> 25:00.918 will, but rather an abstraction from my natural desire to rule 25:00.924 --> 25:03.294 myself. In other words, 25:03.288 --> 25:07.388 instead of seeking to participate directly in 25:07.391 --> 25:11.921 political rule, Hobbes wants us to abstain from 25:11.923 --> 25:17.173 politics by agreeing to be ruled by this artificial man, 25:17.170 --> 25:20.510 as he calls it, this artificial person or 25:20.507 --> 25:25.177 representative that he gives the name "the sovereign." 25:25.180 --> 25:28.830 "For by art", he says in the introduction, 25:28.828 --> 25:33.368 "For by art is created that great Leviathan called a 25:33.367 --> 25:38.197 commonwealth or a state, which is but an artificial man, 25:38.200 --> 25:42.580 though of greater stature and strength than the natural for 25:42.580 --> 25:46.280 whose protection and defense it was intended." 25:46.279 --> 25:49.129 The sovereign, he says, or Leviathan, 25:49.133 --> 25:53.653 this great artificial man, the sovereign is something more 25:53.652 --> 25:57.142 like what we would call today an office, 25:57.140 --> 26:01.770 rather than a person, as when we speak of the 26:01.769 --> 26:04.399 executive as an office. 26:04.400 --> 26:08.910 And it is simply the person who inhabits the office, 26:08.913 --> 26:14.053 although that might be somewhat questionable in some of our 26:14.046 --> 26:16.786 recent executive decisions. 26:16.789 --> 26:21.309 But for Hobbes, Hobbes creates this office of a 26:21.308 --> 26:24.548 political called the sovereign. 26:24.549 --> 26:29.459 Now, his language in that sentence that I just read from 26:29.462 --> 26:32.412 the introduction, "For by art", 26:32.410 --> 26:36.490 again, "is created that great Leviathan called a commonwealth 26:36.488 --> 26:40.438 or a state." When Hobbes uses the term "art" 26:40.437 --> 26:46.527 there, "For by art is created," that term is deeply revealing of 26:46.529 --> 26:50.979 his purpose. Again, for Aristotle, 26:50.977 --> 26:56.257 by contrast, art presupposes nature. 26:56.259 --> 27:00.719 Or in other words, nature precedes art. 27:00.720 --> 27:05.200 Nature supplies the standards, the materials, 27:05.201 --> 27:08.971 the models, for all the later arts, 27:08.970 --> 27:12.070 the city being by nature, man by nature, 27:12.067 --> 27:14.527 nature provides the standard. 27:14.529 --> 27:19.669 Nature precedes art and human artifice or human making. 27:19.670 --> 27:23.270 But for Hobbes, think of this by contrast, 27:23.271 --> 27:26.611 art does not so much imitate nature, 27:26.609 --> 27:31.509 rather art can create a new kind of nature, 27:31.514 --> 27:36.424 an artificial nature, an artificial person, 27:36.418 --> 27:39.338 as it were. Through art, 27:39.344 --> 27:43.164 again, is created the great Leviathan. 27:43.160 --> 27:47.600 Through art properly understood and by "art," of course, 27:47.595 --> 27:50.575 I mean something like human making, 27:50.579 --> 27:54.009 human ingenuity, human artfulness, 27:54.007 --> 27:58.887 through art we can begin not just to imitate, 27:58.890 --> 28:03.640 but we can transform nature, make it into something of our 28:03.640 --> 28:06.680 own choosing. "Art" here is not to be 28:06.680 --> 28:10.110 understood also as the antithesis of science, 28:10.105 --> 28:13.915 as when we speak of the arts and the sciences. 28:13.920 --> 28:18.060 Rather, science is the highest form of art. 28:18.059 --> 28:21.409 Science is the highest kind of human making. 28:21.410 --> 28:26.420 Science, or what Hobbes simply calls by the name "reason," is 28:26.418 --> 28:30.758 simply the fullest expression of human artfulness. 28:30.759 --> 28:35.879 "Reason," he says in chapter 5, "reason is not a sense and 28:35.882 --> 28:40.052 memory born with us, reason is not born with us, 28:40.050 --> 28:44.840 nor gotten by experience only," he says, "but is attained by 28:44.836 --> 28:48.436 industry, first in the act imposing of 28:48.442 --> 28:52.962 names and secondly, by getting a good and orderly 28:52.955 --> 28:56.765 method." Think of those terms. 28:56.769 --> 29:00.839 "Reason," and again, he uses this synonymously with 29:00.840 --> 29:05.970 other terms, like science or art, is not simply born with us. 29:05.970 --> 29:10.260 It is not simply a genetic endowment, nor is it simply the 29:10.258 --> 29:14.168 product of experience, which Hobbes calls by the name 29:14.171 --> 29:17.201 "prudence." But rather reason, 29:17.198 --> 29:21.518 he says, is attained by industry, by work, 29:21.521 --> 29:26.921 and it is developed first, he says, by the imposing of 29:26.921 --> 29:30.741 names on things, the correct names on things, 29:30.736 --> 29:35.936 and second by getting a good and orderly method of study. 29:35.940 --> 29:41.660 Reason consists in the imposition of a method for the 29:41.660 --> 29:43.970 conquest of nature. 29:43.970 --> 29:48.470 By science, Hobbes tells us, he means the knowledge of 29:48.474 --> 29:51.114 consequences, and especially, 29:51.109 --> 29:54.589 he goes on to say, "when we see how anything comes 29:54.586 --> 29:57.776 about, upon what causes and by what manner, 29:57.779 --> 30:02.269 when like causes come into our power, we can see how to make it 30:02.265 --> 30:03.925 produce like effect." 30:03.930 --> 30:07.940 We can see how to make it produce like effects. 30:07.940 --> 30:12.690 Reason, science, art is the capacity to 30:12.685 --> 30:18.675 transform nature by making it, imposing on it, 30:18.680 --> 30:23.070 a method that will produce like effects after similar 30:23.065 --> 30:26.255 consequences. There is, in other words, 30:26.257 --> 30:30.107 a kind of a radically transformative view of reason 30:30.113 --> 30:33.483 and knowledge and science, political science, 30:33.476 --> 30:35.976 civil science, running throughout Hobbes' 30:35.979 --> 30:38.679 work. Reason is not about simple 30:38.675 --> 30:42.305 observation, but rather, it is about making, 30:42.307 --> 30:44.757 production, or as he says, 30:44.763 --> 30:49.863 "making like consequences produce the desired effects." 30:49.859 --> 30:53.039 We can have a science of politics, Hobbes believes. 30:53.039 --> 30:57.329 We can have a civil science, because politics is a matter of 30:57.325 --> 30:59.355 human making, of human doing, 30:59.359 --> 31:01.029 of human goings on. 31:01.030 --> 31:03.510 We can know the political world. 31:03.509 --> 31:08.149 We can create a science of politics because we make it. 31:08.150 --> 31:10.280 It is something constructed by us. 31:10.279 --> 31:14.199 Hobbes' goal here, as it were, is to liberate 31:14.197 --> 31:19.627 knowledge, to liberate science from subservience or dependence 31:19.628 --> 31:23.778 upon nature or by chance, by fortuna, 31:23.780 --> 31:29.010 by turning science into a tool for remaking nature to fit our 31:29.014 --> 31:33.494 needs, to impose our needs or satisfy 31:33.493 --> 31:37.313 our needs through our science. 31:37.309 --> 31:39.849 Art, and especially the political art, 31:39.851 --> 31:43.561 is a matter of reordering nature, even human nature, 31:43.559 --> 31:47.919 first according to Hobbes, by resolving it into its most 31:47.915 --> 31:51.555 elementary units, and then by reconstructing it 31:51.558 --> 31:55.358 so that it will produce the desired results, 31:55.359 --> 32:00.009 much like a physicist in a laboratory might. 32:00.009 --> 32:04.359 This is Hobbes' answer to Machiavelli's famous call in 32:04.355 --> 32:07.215 chapter 25 to master fortuna, 32:07.224 --> 32:10.344 to master chance or luck, fortune. 32:10.339 --> 32:13.119 But you might say, Hobbes goes further than 32:13.115 --> 32:16.255 Machiavelli. Machiavelli said in that famous 32:16.263 --> 32:19.493 chapter 25, that the prince, if he is lucky, 32:19.490 --> 32:23.380 will master fortuna about half the time, 32:23.384 --> 32:25.844 only about 50% of the time. 32:25.839 --> 32:29.429 The rest of human action, the rest of statecraft, 32:29.427 --> 32:33.007 will be really left to chance, luck, contingency, 32:33.014 --> 32:36.734 circumstances. Hobbes believes that armed with 32:36.729 --> 32:39.629 the proper method, with the proper art, 32:39.633 --> 32:44.193 or scientific doctrine, that we might eventually become 32:44.194 --> 32:47.354 the masters and possessors of nature. 32:47.349 --> 32:50.959 And I use that term "masters and possessors of nature," a 32:50.960 --> 32:54.820 term not of Hobbes' making, but of Descartes from the sixth 32:54.817 --> 32:58.467 part of the Discourse on Method, because I think it 32:58.472 --> 33:01.232 perfectly expresses Hobbes' aspirations, 33:01.230 --> 33:05.380 not only to create a science of politics, but to create a kind 33:05.375 --> 33:09.205 of immortal commonwealth, which is based on science and 33:09.211 --> 33:12.181 therefore based on the proper civil science, 33:12.179 --> 33:15.699 and therefore will be impervious to fluctuation, 33:15.700 --> 33:21.120 decay, and war and conflict, which all other previous 33:21.118 --> 33:24.138 societies have experienced. 33:24.140 --> 33:27.350 You can begin to see, in other words, 33:27.353 --> 33:31.283 in Hobbes' brief introduction to his book, 33:31.279 --> 33:36.919 as well as the opening chapters, you can really see the 33:36.916 --> 33:42.656 immensely transformative and really revolutionary spirit 33:42.657 --> 33:46.607 underlying this amazing, amazing book. 33:46.610 --> 33:56.480 33:56.480 --> 33:57.610 So where do we go from here? 33:57.610 --> 34:01.020 34:01.019 --> 34:05.949 We turn from methodology and science to politics. 34:05.950 --> 34:13.090 34:13.090 --> 34:16.810 What is Hobbes' great question? 34:16.809 --> 34:21.979 What was important when reading, starting out with a new 34:21.984 --> 34:26.594 book, asking yourself, what question is the author 34:26.594 --> 34:28.574 trying to answer? 34:28.570 --> 34:29.970 What is the question? 34:29.969 --> 34:34.469 And it is not always easy to answer, because sometimes they 34:34.469 --> 34:39.199 do not always make their deepest or most fundamental questions 34:39.201 --> 34:40.831 altogether clear. 34:40.830 --> 34:43.980 34:43.980 --> 34:47.050 In the case of Leviathan, 34:47.050 --> 34:52.100 I would suggest to you, Hobbes' central question is, 34:52.102 --> 34:55.472 what makes authority possible? 34:55.470 --> 34:59.370 34:59.370 --> 35:02.560 What is the source of authority? 35:02.559 --> 35:08.309 And you might say, what renders it legitimate? 35:08.309 --> 35:12.429 Maybe the question is, what makes legitimate authority 35:12.425 --> 35:16.365 possible? This is still a huge question 35:16.369 --> 35:22.549 for us when we think about nation building and building new 35:22.547 --> 35:27.657 states, how to create a legitimate authority. 35:27.659 --> 35:30.959 Obviously, there is a tremendous issue with this in 35:30.961 --> 35:34.401 Iraq today. People there and here struggle 35:34.401 --> 35:38.791 with what would constitute a legitimate authority. 35:38.789 --> 35:42.969 Perhaps we should airlift copies of Leviathan to 35:42.974 --> 35:47.554 them, because that is the issue that Hobbes is fundamentally 35:47.547 --> 35:51.717 concerned with. His question goes further. 35:51.719 --> 35:57.139 How can individuals who are biologically autonomous, 35:57.135 --> 36:03.715 who judge and see matters very differently from one another, 36:03.719 --> 36:07.899 who can never be sure whether they trust one another, 36:07.899 --> 36:12.159 how can such individuals accept a common authority? 36:12.159 --> 36:15.799 And, again, that is not just what constitutes authority, 36:15.797 --> 36:18.307 but what makes authority legitimate. 36:18.309 --> 36:21.709 That remains not only the fundamental question for Hobbes, 36:21.708 --> 36:26.458 but for the entire, at least for the entire social 36:26.463 --> 36:32.073 contract tradition that he helped to establish. 36:32.070 --> 36:34.540 You might say, of course the question, 36:34.541 --> 36:37.951 what renders authority legitimate, is only possible, 36:37.947 --> 36:41.417 or is only raised when authority is in question. 36:41.420 --> 36:44.370 That is to say, when the rules governing 36:44.365 --> 36:47.985 authority have broken down in times of crisis, 36:47.989 --> 36:50.529 and that was certainly true in Hobbes' time, 36:50.530 --> 36:52.480 a time of civil war and crisis. 36:52.480 --> 36:56.850 What renders authority legitimate or respectable? 36:56.849 --> 37:01.929 And to answer that question, Hobbes tells a story. 37:01.929 --> 37:07.359 He tells a story about something he calls "the state of 37:07.360 --> 37:10.980 nature," a term he did not invent, 37:10.980 --> 37:15.420 but with which his name will always and forever be 37:15.415 --> 37:19.575 associated, the idea of the state of nature. 37:19.579 --> 37:23.599 "The state of nature" is not a gift of grace or a state of 37:23.601 --> 37:29.091 grace from which we have fallen, as in the biblical account of 37:29.091 --> 37:35.061 Eden, nor is the state of nature a political condition, 37:35.059 --> 37:38.899 as maintained in some sense by Aristotle, when he says the 37:38.895 --> 37:40.775 polis is by nature. 37:40.780 --> 37:45.300 The state of nature for Hobbes is a condition of conflict and 37:45.298 --> 37:45.748 war. 37:45.750 --> 37:48.860 37:48.860 --> 37:53.520 And by a "state of nature" he means, or by a state of war, 37:53.520 --> 37:58.260 he means a condition where there is no recognized authority 37:58.262 --> 38:01.372 in his language to keep us in awe, 38:01.370 --> 38:05.230 no authority to awe us. 38:05.230 --> 38:08.140 Such a condition, a state of war, 38:08.144 --> 38:13.614 may mean a condition of open warfare, but not necessarily. 38:13.610 --> 38:17.720 It can signify battle, but Hobbes says it can also 38:17.722 --> 38:22.772 signify the will to contend, simply the desire or the will 38:22.772 --> 38:27.312 to engage in conflict, renders something like a state 38:27.314 --> 38:30.124 of nature. A state of war can include, 38:30.123 --> 38:32.663 in other words, what we might call a "cold 38:32.664 --> 38:35.774 war," two hostile sides looking at 38:35.767 --> 38:41.067 each other across a barrier of some type, not clear or not 38:41.074 --> 38:44.244 certain what the other will do. 38:44.239 --> 38:48.099 So the state of nature is not necessarily a condition of 38:48.103 --> 38:51.053 actual fighting, but what he calls a "known 38:51.053 --> 38:52.883 disposition to fight." 38:52.880 --> 38:56.420 If you are known or believed to be willing to fight, 38:56.417 --> 38:58.357 you are in a state of war. 38:58.360 --> 39:04.540 It is a condition for Hobbes of maximum insecurity where in his 39:04.541 --> 39:08.331 famous formula "life is solitary, poor, 39:08.329 --> 39:11.419 nasty, brutish, and short." 39:11.420 --> 39:15.400 Perhaps he should have said fortunately short. 39:15.400 --> 39:20.140 This is the natural condition, the state of nature, 39:20.135 --> 39:24.105 the state of war that Hobbes attributes to, 39:24.113 --> 39:28.663 again, the fundamental fact of human nature. 39:28.660 --> 39:32.450 39:32.449 --> 39:36.709 Now, his claim that the state of nature is the condition that 39:36.705 --> 39:39.325 we are naturally--the state of war, 39:39.329 --> 39:42.849 rather, is a condition that we are naturally in, 39:42.852 --> 39:47.992 is to say, among other things, that nature does not unite us 39:47.994 --> 39:51.314 in peace, in harmony, in friendship, 39:51.307 --> 39:53.197 or in solidarity. 39:53.199 --> 39:56.039 If nature is a norm, it does not, 39:56.039 --> 40:01.629 again, mandate or incline us to peace, friendship and solidarity 40:01.630 --> 40:05.610 with others. Only human art or science or 40:05.611 --> 40:09.911 art, human contrivance, can bring about peace. 40:09.910 --> 40:12.170 Conflict and war are primary. 40:12.170 --> 40:15.480 Peace is derivative. 40:15.480 --> 40:19.090 In other words, for Hobbes, authority and 40:19.092 --> 40:24.242 relations of authority do not arise naturally among us, 40:24.239 --> 40:27.439 but are rather, again, like civil science 40:27.435 --> 40:30.945 itself, the product of contrivance or art. 40:30.949 --> 40:37.549 So the question for us remains, which deeply challenged readers 40:37.548 --> 40:41.568 in Hobbes' own time, what makes Hobbes' story, 40:41.574 --> 40:44.744 as I am calling it, his story about the state of 40:44.741 --> 40:48.521 nature being a condition of war, what makes it plausible? 40:48.519 --> 40:52.469 What makes it believable as an account of, again, 40:52.468 --> 40:55.428 the condition we are naturally in? 40:55.430 --> 40:59.540 40:59.539 --> 41:04.809 Why should we believe Hobbes' story and not some other story? 41:04.810 --> 41:12.280 41:12.280 --> 41:18.640 I just want to say a word about that before closing. 41:18.639 --> 41:21.899 From one point of view, reading Hobbes, 41:21.898 --> 41:26.868 his account of the state of nature seems to derive from his 41:26.871 --> 41:30.491 physics of motion and rest, in the opening chapters of 41:30.493 --> 41:31.163 Leviathan. 41:31.159 --> 41:34.119 He begins the work, you remember, 41:34.116 --> 41:38.546 with an account of human nature, account of human 41:38.552 --> 41:43.452 psychology, as a product of sense and experience. 41:43.449 --> 41:47.059 We are bodies in motion, and who cannot help but obey 41:47.055 --> 41:50.725 the law or the physics of attraction and repulsion. 41:50.730 --> 41:54.030 We are bodies in constant motion. 41:54.030 --> 41:58.260 He seems, in other words, to have a kind of materialistic 41:58.257 --> 42:02.407 psychology in which human behavior exhibits the same, 42:02.409 --> 42:06.229 as it were, mechanical tendencies as billiard balls 42:06.229 --> 42:08.979 that can be understood as obeying, 42:08.980 --> 42:14.390 again, geometric or causal processes of cause and effect. 42:14.390 --> 42:18.320 Right? The state of nature is not seen 42:18.317 --> 42:22.727 by him as an actual historical condition in some ways, 42:22.730 --> 42:27.480 although he occasionally will refer to what we might think of 42:27.480 --> 42:32.230 as anthropological evidence to support his views on the state 42:32.231 --> 42:35.231 of nature. But the state of nature, 42:35.234 --> 42:39.664 for him, is rather a kind of thought experiment after the 42:39.655 --> 42:42.335 manner of experimental science. 42:42.340 --> 42:43.720 It is a kind of thought experiment. 42:43.719 --> 42:47.879 It consists of taking human beings who are members of 42:47.880 --> 42:50.760 families, of estates, of kingdoms, 42:50.760 --> 42:54.810 and so on, dissolving these social relations into their 42:54.812 --> 42:57.592 fundamental units, namely the abstract 42:57.589 --> 43:00.029 individuals, and then imagining, 43:00.029 --> 43:03.159 again, in the manner of a chemist or a physicist, 43:03.161 --> 43:07.011 how these basic units would hypothetically interact with one 43:07.011 --> 43:09.261 another, again almost like the 43:09.263 --> 43:12.473 properties of chemical substances in some ways. 43:12.469 --> 43:18.239 How would we behave in this kind of thought experiment? 43:18.239 --> 43:24.419 That would be one way of reading that Hobbes seems to, 43:24.418 --> 43:30.828 wants us to think about the state of nature as akin to a 43:30.829 --> 43:33.859 scientific experiment. 43:33.860 --> 43:37.160 Hobbes is the, again, the great founder of 43:37.158 --> 43:39.728 what we might call, among others, 43:39.732 --> 43:44.802 is the experimental method in social and political science. 43:44.800 --> 43:47.870 And there is a reason, perhaps a reason for this, 43:47.866 --> 43:49.766 too. And I will end just on this 43:49.771 --> 43:52.881 note. When Hobbes was a young man, 43:52.881 --> 43:57.931 he worked as a private secretary for a short time, 43:57.929 --> 44:03.879 a private secretary to another very famous Englishman by the 44:03.879 --> 44:08.459 name of Francis Bacon, the great founder of what we 44:08.455 --> 44:12.995 think of as the experimental method, the method of trial and 44:12.997 --> 44:16.587 error, of experience and experiment, 44:16.592 --> 44:21.502 and arguably Hobbes was influenced in many ways by 44:21.495 --> 44:26.995 Bacon's own philosophy of experience and experiment. 44:27.000 --> 44:31.770 And Hobbes took Bacon's method in some ways applying it to 44:31.772 --> 44:36.972 politics, tried to imagine, again, the natural condition of 44:36.971 --> 44:40.461 human beings, and what we are by nature, 44:40.458 --> 44:46.098 by a process of abstraction, and abstracting all of the 44:46.098 --> 44:52.828 relations and properties that we have acquired over history, 44:52.829 --> 44:54.929 through custom, through experience, 44:54.929 --> 44:58.079 stripping those away like the layers of an onion, 44:58.079 --> 45:01.959 and putting us almost, as it were, in an experimental 45:01.961 --> 45:07.131 test tube or under a microscope, seeing how we would under those 45:07.132 --> 45:11.042 conditions react and behave with one another. 45:11.039 --> 45:15.609 I will leave it at that, although I will start next week 45:15.610 --> 45:20.510 by showing how that view of Hobbes is only at best partially 45:20.512 --> 45:23.782 correct. So anyway, have a wonderful 45:23.782 --> 45:29.002 weekend with your parents here, and I will see you next week.