Thomas Hobbes

1588-1679. English philosopher and cult figure.

Thomas Hobbes was born on 5 April 1588 in Malmesbury, Wiltshire as the son of a local clergyman. Around 1602, Hobbes started studying at Oxford at Magdalen Hall. After his graduation in 1608, he was hired by the Cavendish family, an aristocratic and influential family.

In 1640, Hobbes finished his first book The Elements of Law. He started to take an interest in political philosophy. His work of 1642, De Cive, was his first book that took up political issues. Hobbes left England to live in Paris in 1640 due to him being associated with the Royalists.

While living in France, Hobbes kept company with Marin Mersenne, a French philosopher and mathematician. In 1646, Hobbes was invited to become the teacher for mathematics of Charles, Prince of Wales, later to become Charles II who had gone into exile to France.

When Hobbes published his most famous work Leviathan in 1651, he was accused of being an atheist as he criticised the church in his book. As Hobbes did not argue for a divine right of kings, but promoted absolute rule created by a contract, the Restoration establishment did also not appreciate the treatise (it acquired cult status among young courtiers like John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester). In 1683, The Leviathan was publicly burned at Oxford University.

In 1652, Hobbes returned to England. Owing to his contacts with Charles II, he got a pension after the Restoration in 1660. In the late 1660s he wrote Behemoth; or, The Long Parliament which dealt with the history of civil wars. It was published posthumously in 1682.

Thomas Hobbes died on 4 December 1679 at Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire.

Sources:

Duncan, Stewart. "Thomas Hobbes." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Standford University, 11 Mar. 2009. [1]

Longer Biography available on Luminarium.org [2]

Kersting, Wolfgang: Thomas Hobbes. Hamburg: Junius 2004.

Röd, Wolfgang: Der Weg der Philosophie. Hamburg: C.H. Beck, 1996.