Hobbes

Review of Dean Mathiowetz, "Appeals to Interest: Language and the Shaping of Political Agency" by Jonathan Havercroft

by Dean Mathiowetz

Published in Perspectives on Politics, June 2012

Essentia corporis. Science and Philosophy at the time of Spinoza

by Andrea Sangiacomo

PhD Abstract - Just a DRAFT version

Thesis Defense: aproximatly, March 2013. Thesis Defense: aproximatly, March 2013.

Can Man Live Without God?

by Galven Lee

Written for the module, Issues in and around Justice, during my first semester of university at the National University of Singapore.

Call for Papers "Methods in Practice" Workshop, Manchester Workshop in Political Theory, 5-7 September 2012

by Jens Olesen

Homeros’dan Hobbes ve Ötesine: “Güvenlik” Kavramının Avrupa Geleneğindeki Boyutları

by Uluslararası İlişkiler

J. Frederik M. Arends, " Homeros’dan Hobbes ve Ötesine: “Güvenlik” Kavramının Avrupa Geleneğindeki Boyutları ", Uluslararası İlişkiler, Cilt 6, Sayı 22 (Yaz), 2009

Bu makale, güvenlik kavramının tarihsel gelişimini iki aşamada incelemektedir. İlk aşamada, Romalılar tarafından... more Bu makale, güvenlik kavramının tarihsel gelişimini iki aşamada incelemektedir. İlk aşamada, Romalılar tarafından “securitas” biçiminde kullanılmaya başlanan, kendi içinde çelişkiler taşıyan ve dini anlamlara sahip olan kavram, Orta Çağ’ın sonunda yerini “cetritudo”ya bırakmıştır. Thomas Hobbes döneminden başlayan ikinci aşamada, modern devletin büyük paradigmatik kelimelerinden biri haline gelmiştir. Güvenlik, bu aşamada, iç savaşları önleme amacına hizmet eden otoriter devletin doğuşuyla ilişkilendirilmiştir. Bu makale, Thomas Hobbes ve Antik Yunanlı tarihçi Tukidides arasındaki bağlantıyı inceleyerek başlamakta ve kavramın bazı çağdaş dönem yazarlarınca kullanılışını gözden geçirerek devam etmektedir.

Entre Carl Schmitt y Thomas Hobbes: Un Estudio del Liberalismo Moderno desde el Pensamiento de Leo Strauss

by Jose Daniel Parra

Writing Sample - Enemies of the State

by Ericka Tucker

Hobbes-Feminism-Draft

by Ericka Tucker

Contextualizing Hobbes: Quentin Skinner's Method Reconsidered

by Jens Olesen

Revised version of a paper I presented at the 5th Annual Harvard Graduate Conference in Political Theory, 28-29 October 2011.

What Hobbes and Locke Didn't Say about Women: Examining the implications of their philosophical discussions of equality

by Stacey Goguen

A version of this paper was presented on May 12, 2011 at Boston's WOGAP

Abstract:

Thomas Hobbes and John Locke presumably put a lot of thought into their lengthy works on... more Abstract:

Thomas Hobbes and John Locke presumably put a lot of thought into their lengthy works on political philosophy.  It is striking, then, that much of what they say about women and equality is not fully thought out or even always consistent. In this essay I will (I) introduce why it is somewhat peculiar that these two figures did not say more about women and equality in their respective works.

I will then in turn look at (II) Hobbes and (III) Locke in turn, examining what conceptual resources they had at their disposal and pointing out how they failed to fully use these resources to offer further arguments for the positions they presumably supported.  I conclude (IV) that seeing how these two figures mis-stepped in arguing for the equality they explicitly endorsed is important for the larger philosophical projects of examining how forms of social oppression and inequality are manifested in a culture.  Over the decades, studies of kyriarchy  and -isms (racism, sexism, classism, ableism, etc.) have brought to light that implicit bias and structures are as important--if not even more important in some facets--as conscious bigotry for supporting these social hierarchies.  It is important then, that as we assess a political philosopher s' stance towards social equality we look not only at what they explicitly claim to support, but what they end up supporting and arguing for in depth.

The Commonwealth as a Person in Hobbes's Leviathan

by Arto Tukiainen

O Conceito de Soberania: constantemente referido ao Leviatã

by Bruno Motta de Vasconcellos

Does Hobbes give the sovereign too much power?

by Matthew Machowski

Podcasts from the Politics of Interpretation conference on itunes; report on the conference (attached)

by Jens Olesen

Podcasts from an interdisciplinary conference organized by Jens Olesen, which was held at the Department of Politics and International Relations on 23 and 24 September 2011. The conference was funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation, the Department of Politics and International Relations, the Mind Association, the Centre for Political Ideologies (CPI), and Princeton University Press.

For more information about the conference, please refer to the following website: http://www.politics.ox.ac.uk/materials/events/update4_finalprogramme_oxfordconference.pdf

Details of the recordings:

Podcast 1) Chair: Jens Olesen (Oxford). Speaker: Professor Michael Freeden... more Details of the recordings:

Podcast 1) Chair: Jens Olesen (Oxford). Speaker: Professor Michael Freeden (Oxford) Ideology Between Method and Meaning: The Gateway to the Political

2) Hermeneutics (Chair: Dr Reidar Maliks, Oxford)
Speakers: Dr Carsten Dutt (Heidelberg): On the Very Concept of Interpretation Professor Dieter Teichert (Konstanz/Lucerne): Hermeneutics: the Political,Politics, and Political Science,
Professor Jean Grondin (Montréal): Are There Political Consequences of Hermeneutics? Impromptus on the Modest ,Political Competence of Philosophy, Professor Paul H. Fry (Yale): Gadamer vs. Hirsch—Are There Consequences?

3) Contextualist Approaches (Chair: Professor Janet Coleman, LSE/NYU) Speakers: Professor Mark Bevir (Berkeley): The Contextual Approach: Then and Now, Professor John G. Gunnell (Albany/UC Davis): Challenging the Received View of
Thought and Language: Wittgenstein on Intention, Interpretation, and Context, Dr Michael L. Frazer (Harvard): The Ethics of Interpretation in Political Theory and Intellectual History

4) Feminist Interpretations (Chair: Professor Lois McNay, Oxford). Speakers:Dr Elizabeth Frazer (Oxford): Feminism and Interpretivism Revisited Professor, Terrell Carver (Bristol): Feminist Curiosities and Gender Troubles:
Power, Politics, Metaphor, Dr Pamela Anderson (Oxford): The Politics of Interpretation in French Feminist Philosophy

5) Deconstruction (Chair: Professor Mark Bevir, Berkeley). Speakers: Professor Joshua Foa Dienstag (UCLA): Interpretation, Language and Authority, Dr Lasse Thomassen (London): Aporia: The End of Politics?, Dr James Martel (San Francisco): Hobbes and Spinoza on the Hebrew Republic and the Deconstruction of Sovereignty

6) Postgraduate Student and Early Career Panel (Chair: Dr James Martel, San Francisco). Speakers: Jens Olesen (Oxford) On Derrida’s ‘Double Reading’ and the Politics of Deconstruction, Dr Charles Devellennes (Kent) Political Non-Methodology, JanaLee Cherneski (Oxford) Method and (Mis-)Application: Two Readings of Joseph Schumpeter, Dr Philipp von Wussow (Leipzig) Leo Strauss on ‘Cultural’ and ‘Political’ Writing

7) Philosophy, Law & Interpretation (Chair: Professor James Connelly, Hull). Speakers: Professor Al P. Martinich (Texas): Ideal Interpretation of Political Texts, Professor Terence Ball (Arizona): Lincoln’s Hermeneutics

8) Strauss and Esoteric Reading (Chair: Dr Michael L. Frazer, Harvard). Speakers: Professor David Weinstein (Wake Forest/Leipzig): Using and Abusing the Canon, Professor James Connelly (Hull): The Biter Bit, The Writer Writ: Some
Straussian Ironies.

In addition, there is a video podcast of Professor Rosen's (Boston) presentation on "Straussian Hermeneutics", which can be watched here (on the bottom of the page): http://www.politics.ox.ac.uk/index.php/podcasts/the-politics-of-interpretation-a-the-interpretation-of-politics.html

Publicity, Privacy, and Religious Toleration in Hobbes's Leviathan

by Arash Abizadeh

What motivated an absolutist Erastian who rejected religious freedom, defended uniform public worship, and deemed the... more What motivated an absolutist Erastian who rejected religious freedom, defended uniform public worship, and deemed the public expression of disagreement a catalyst for war to endorse a movement known to history as the champion of toleration, no coercion in religion, and separation of church and state? At least three factors motivated Hobbes’s 1651 endorsement of Independency: the Erastianism of Cromwellian Independency, the influence of the politique tradition, and, paradoxically, the contribution of early-modern practices of toleration to maintaining the public sphere’s religious uniformity. The third factor illustrates how a key function of the emerging private sphere in the early-modern period was to protect uniformity, rather than diversity; it also shows that what was novel was not so much the public/private distinction itself, but the separation of two previously conflated dimensions of publicity – visibility and representativeness – that enabled early-modern Europeans to envisage modes of worship out in the open, yet still private.

Hobbes on the Causes of War: A Disagreement Theory

by Arash Abizadeh

Hobbesian war primarily arises not because material resources are scarce, nor because humans ruthlessly seek survival... more Hobbesian war primarily arises not because material resources are scarce, nor because humans ruthlessly seek survival before all else, nor because we are naturally selfish, competitive, or aggressive brutes, but because we are fragile, fearful, impressionable, and psychologically prickly creatures susceptible to ideological manipulation, whose anger can become irrationally inflamed by even trivial slights to our glory. The primary source of war, according to Hobbes, is disagreement, because we read into it the most inflammatory signs of contempt. Both cause and remedy are therefore primarily ideological: the Leviathan’s primary function is to settle the meaning of the most controversial words implicated in social life, minimize public disagreement, neutralize glory, magnify the fear of death, and root out subversive doctrines. Managing interstate conflict, in turn, requires not only coercive power, but the soft power required to shape characters and defuse the effects of status competition.

Divorcing Power and Reason: Spinoza and the Founding of Modern Law

by Benoit Frydman

published in 25 Cardozo Law Review (2003), 607-625

This paper explains how Spinoza contributed to turning our conception of the law and the methods of its interpretation... more This paper explains how Spinoza contributed to turning our conception of the law and the methods of its interpretation upside down. His contribution has been essential and twofold: (1) Spinoza was partly responsible for the destruction of the “legal model of thought” (ratio more juridico), which prevailed until the 16th century (and sometimes later) not only in legal matters but in most areas of scientific knowledge; (2) Spinoza also played a major role in the shaping of modern law, which rests upon the summa divisio between, on one hand, natural law, embedded in natural reason and discovered more geometrico, and, on the other hand, positive law, which expresses the will of the sovereign power and rests upon its sole authority. This division, I will argue, is neither eternal nor self-evident, but an effect of the strategy followed by Spinoza and a few others in their arduous struggle against traditional powers and religious authorities.

La Naissance de l'Auteur: Origines Politique et Juridique d'un Concept Littéraire

by Benoit Frydman

published online in International Journal for the Semiotics of Law
DOI: 10.1007/s11196-011-9228-7

Si le concept d’auteur est une notion centrale de la littérature et de la théorie littéraire, il s’agit d’abord d’une... more Si le concept d’auteur est une notion centrale de la littérature et de la théorie littéraire, il s’agit d’abord d’une notion juridique qui a été mobilisée par les philosophes modernes, en particulier Hobbes et Spinoza, dans le but politique et scientifique de lutter contre le régime traditionnel des autorités et de défendre la liberté de pensée contre les interprétations normatives des docteurs de la loi et de la religion. L’article remonte aux origines politiques et juridiques de l’auteur-législateur moderne et retrace sa marche vers la Souveraineté.

Skinner on Hobbes and Republican Liberty

by Drazen Pehar

a brief discussion review of a recent book on Hobbes
(from Amazon.co.uk)

The Mask and Agamben: the Transitional Juridical Technics of Legal Relation

by Connal Parsley