/lit/ - Literature

>>12170872
the first few pages. hell of boring.

yesh
i know hobbes. well.

>>12170978
i wrote an extended answer for a hobbes thread like 6 months ago on whether hobbes' commonwealth is possible in a secular society but the thread 404'd before i could post it. anyone want me to dump it here?

>>12171004
ye

Not only did I disagree with Hobbes' conclusions, I find his assumptions (his arguments based entirely in Christian perspective) essentially worthless. The only value this tract served to me is to "know thy enemy". This is a classic example of mental circus tricks being used to justify the march of Christian dominance across the globe. I can't think of any written text that I despise more, except perhaps Mein Kempf.

Hobbes is my least favorite philosopher. He embodies everything I despise in Western thought. If I met Hobbes in the street I would flash him my tits and then slap him in the face and call him a pervert.

>>12171010
OKay, here we go. I can't actually remember what i say in it but i'm sure it's good.

>Is Hobbes' vision of the Common-Wealth compatible with a secular society?
>Bearing in mind most of his main ideas are set out in chapter 42 (in the "of a Christian Common-Wealth" section) is it possible to have a sovereignty-based state without an overtly Christian dogma underpinning its structure?

Firstly, I’m not sure why you would think that most of Hobbes’ main ideas on “the common-wealth” are set out in chapter 42. But it’s an interesting question nonetheless. This may be a little meandering but I do think that to answer this question we need to have a broad understanding of Hobbes and his project first. In short, I do think that Hobbes’ conception of sovereignty is compatible with a secular society, however it is unlikely that Hobbes believed that such a society could exist. His goal was the subordination of religious authority under civil authority through the joining of both. Hobbes’ arguments for natural law is essentially a way of giving civil power a religious authority beyond the possibility of church interference by claiming them to be the “dictates of God through nature” (De Cive, 6). Contractualism is likewise used to secure civil authority above religious. The commonwealth is just the contract between all members of the society to lay down their arms and submit to a sovereign. The sovereign is just the representative of the people through this contract. Though the laws of nature drive people to make this contract, and though these laws of nature are said to be the product of God, they are ultimately just “a Precept, or generall Rule, found out by Reason, by which a man is forbidden to do, that, which is destructive of his life, or taketh away the means of preserving the same” (Leviathan, Chap. XIV, 91). Such Laws are deduced by reason, not divine instruction, and as such do not necessarily require a Christian, or even religious, dogma. They should rather be seen as the essential laws for the upkeep of peace and society.

>>12171039
>>>/w/hy was Hobbes writing Leviathan?
Hobbes’ writings were a reaction to the English Civil War of 1642, which forced him to flee to France where he begun writing his famous treatise. The War itself was one between King Charles I and the Parliament, which resulted in the tumult with Oliver Cromwell and the third civil war to reinstate the monarchy. After the dust had settled ~200,000 people had died in England and Scotland, and many more in Ireland. During this time there was much looting and pillaging of crown and church lands, and general chaos reigned. At the core of this dispute was a struggle for power between the Parliament and the King—the Parliament thinking that the King was going to destroy the institution of the Parliament, and the King thinking that the Parliament was trying to destroy the institution of the King by curtailing his capacity to govern without their consent. Hobbes wrote a book on his analysis of the wars, called ‘Behemoth, or The Long Parliament’, where he outlines what he considered the major causes of the war (do note that Hobbes was an avowed royalist and had always worked under the aristocracy of England) The most important were:
>The Presbyterian’s desire for religious power
>The Parliament’s desire for sovereign power
>The opinion that England was a Mixed Monarchy
It is from these criticisms that we can see the roots of many of Hobbes arguments. Most important for our topic however, is the focus on the role of the Presbyterians and other religious factions on propagating the war. What Hobbes hoped to achieve with Leviathan was to amend the problems that he saw to be the cause of Civil Strife, based on his appraisal of the war. This meant affirming the absolute power of the sovereign, justifying why the sovereign has power and what the citizen’s obligations are to them, and to subordinate religion to civil powers in the realm of civil affairs. In fact, for this last reason, Hobbes was accused of being an atheist in his time (even though he clearly wasn’t).

>>12171042
>>>/h/obbes on religion and the sovereign.
Because Hobbes saw religious pretences to civil power as a primary cause of war in commonwealths, he sought to essentially break the power of religious institutions in society by subordinating them to the state. In his appraisal of the Civil War he notes that many of the anti-royalist, what he considers seditious, rhetoric rose from the preaching’s of priests on Sundays and the squabbles of university scholars as to one’s obligations to God. Hobbes saw this as a unique problem of Christianity, wondering “How we can have peace with this as our religion, I cannot tell” (Behemoth, D1, 57). Having people who think their obligation is foremost to God, or foremost to God’s messenger in Rome, or foremost to someone else who claims to be his messenger, or claims to have the correct interpretation, is, to Hobbes, to diminish the sovereignty of the civil power and split it between two power bases. This is one of the other major causes of civil strife; Hobbes states again and again in all his works that “Man cannot serve two masters”, that is, that the division of the sovereign power is impossible. Hobbes also understood that much of the power of the Sovereign came in the belief of their legitimacy—a fact demonstrated when Charles I couldn’t raise much of an army against the Parliament. Because of this power of opinion, and Christianity’s propensity to theological conflicts, Hobbes saw it as necessary that “the one man or council to whom sovereign power has been committed by the commonwealth, also has the right both the decide which opinions and doctrines are inimical to peace and to forbid their being taught” (De Cive, VI, 80) and in reference to this idea states “There is virtually no dogma either in religion or the human sciences, from which disagreements may not arise and from them conflicts, quarrelling and eventually, war. This is not because the dogma is false, but because of human nature […] One cannot prevent such disagreements from happening. However, by use of sovereign power they can be kept from interfering with the public peace.” (De Cive, VI, 80-81). Hobbes’ concerns were never about whether the doctrines being taught were correct or not, whether the theological issues were legitimate or not, but rather that they must conform with the public peace. The cover of Leviathan gives is a demonstration of this: The Leviathan, a representation of the sovereign, wields the sword AND the sceptre—both civill and ecclesiasticall power—in the assurance of peace.

>>12171050
>>>/n/atural law and the social contract.
I stated earlier that Hobbes’ project was to subordinate the religious powers to the civil, and this is demonstrated in his two foremost arguments: The idea of Natural Law and the idea of the Social Contract. In the state of nature life is ugly, brutish, and short. So generally, not a pleasant state to be in. Because of this, in the interest of his own safety (the greatest urge of all men), Man will use his faculty of Reason to discover the rules necessary as to avoid conflict. These are the ‘Laws of Nature’ and are to be followed by all when there is an opportunity to without sacrificing one’s livelihood. The first of these Laws is that “every man, ought to endeavour Peace, as far as he can hope of obtaining it” which leads to the second Law: “that a man be willing, when others are so too, as farre-forth, as for Peace, and defence of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty, as he would allow other men against himself” (Leviathan, XIV, 92). Hobbes thus demonstrates that the formation of the state is founded on Reason and for the purpose of security. Hobbes attributes natural law as divine law, as “reason, which is the law of nature itself, has been given to each and every man directly by God as a Rule for his actions” (De Cive, IV, 58). This isn’t a new idea, you can find it in Aquinas’ work, but the application is novel. This is the only way that God can communicate his Laws to man without the explicit use of a Prophet.

>>12171057
The social contract is a product of the laws of nature, especially the first two. As such, the contract that forms the foundation of a commonwealth is based on reason rather than any explicit divine mandate. Under Hobbes’ definition of a contract, both parties must recognise the contract for it to be valid. What Is important about this for our question is that this definition of a contract precludes the possibility of Man making contract with God. Hobbes notes this in Leviathan, saying “To make contract with god is impossible, but by Mediation of such as God speaketh to, either be Revelation supernaturall, or by his Lieutenants that govern under him, and in his Name: For otherwise we know not whether our Covenant be accepted, or not. And there-fore they that Vow anything contrary to any law of Nature, Vow in vain; as being a thing unjust to pay such Vow. And if it be a thing commanded by the Law of Nature, it is not the Vow, but the Law that binds them” (Leviathan, XIV, 97). So what Hobbes is doing here is precluding any possible religious authority claiming sovereign power. One cannot claim sovereignty by right of God above the civil sovereign, or claim that the civil sovereign’s laws are contrary to divine laws, because there cannot possibly be any contract between and individual and God, and hence no laws or obligations. So, the Laws of Nature are the only way we can know God’s will; those laws just so happen to force the subject to respect the Civil sovereign and their laws; and that the sovereign authority is a product of divine law. Hobbes very much has the view of giving unto Caesar what is Caesars.

>>12171063
>>>/i/s Hobbes Vision of the Common-Wealth compatible with secular society?
With all that out of the way, the direct question can be addressed. It is very clear that Hobbes’ conception of a Commonwealth presupposes a Christian society, that shouldn’t be surprising. However, I don’t see how it necessitates a Christian society, or dogma per say. The lawes of nature, which are the foundation of the commonwealth, are deduced by reason. And while this reason is presupposed to be of divine inspiration, the point of it exists beyond it’s origin—it is merely the rules necessary to peace in a society from the reference point of security. I do think that the splitting of Leviathan into essentially two parts, the civil and religious, is an intentional separation of these powers. The contractualism of Hobbes doesn’t require a Christian dogma either. Hobbes’ demonstration of his willingness to subordinate the religious powers and laws to civil power and laws I think is evidence that Hobbes’ primary concern was simply with peace and security in a state, no matter how it was achieved. Hobbes makes practically no reference to scripture in the first half of Leviathan, which is odd for the time (note: even the “champion of secularism”, Locke, uses far more theological arguments than Hobbes ever does). That a “Commonwealth” and a “Christian Commonwealth” are entirely separate parts should tell you a lot about the necessity of Christian dogma to Hobbes’ project. The Leviathan in the book of Job is the “ruler over the children of pride” and there is no power on earth that compares with him, which is exactly what Hobbes conceived the state to be—above to possibility of challenge on earth.

>>12171073
That said, there is a single paragraph that would suggest otherwise. The idea only appears once in De Cive, is completely absent from Leviathan and Behemoth, but does make a lot of sense in Hobbes’ systematic thinking:
>“Now what we call the laws of nature are nothing other than certain conclusions, understood by reason, on what is to be done and not to be done; and a law, properly and precisely speaking, is an utterance by one who by right commands other to do or not to do. Hence, properly speaking, the natural laws are not laws in so far as they proceed from nature. But in so far as the same laws have been legislated by God in the Holy Scriptures, as we shall see in the next chapter, they are properly called by the name of laws; for Holy Scripture is the utterance of God, who issues commands in all things with the highest right.” (De Cive, III, 56-57)
So, this would imply that Hobbes’ laws of nature are only valid AS LAWS within a Christian Cosmology. But, it wouldn’t prevent a secular commonwealth being formed according to the rules of nature, as long as there IS a Christian God. I’m not sure if that counts as an overt Christian dogma underpinning it, interpret it as you will.

Annnnd, that's it.

>>12171018
-Your opinion is worth less than nothing
-Seek psychiatric help
-Learn proper English
-Begone, thot

>>12171082
thanks i'll read it tomorrow maybe

>>12171082
Copypasta'd this into .txt to read later. Should I put a name to this? I will read through and maybe write a refutation/rebuttal to thjs work in my own time.

>>12171018
so epic

parts one and two of leviathan was pretty good but this third part is kinda dry,i think his knowledge of the bible is amazing and every now and then he says something that i never learned in sunday school/confirmation.

>>12171082
I think this is a poor reading of Leviathan, as it's too straight-faced. The Leviathan is meant to evoke horror and the sense of alien. It is fundamentally a work underpinned by esoterics, despite his constant appeal to reason.

>>12171128
I have no intention of tripfagging so just put anon. I also don't have access to my copies of Hobbes at the moment and won't for at least a month, so any reply to the rebuttal will have to wait at least that long.

>>12170872
Started it, stopped because it was garbage

>>12171018
a thersites appears and gets swiftly put in his place by an odysseus>>12171087

>>12171195
I don't think so. Hobbes was fascinated with geometry and wanted to make politics a "science" in the same vein. This is why he begins Leviathan with an outline of human nature as very mechanistic and determined; he's setting up constants on which he can build his "science of the state." While I do think that Leviathan, for lack of a better word, was Propaganda to prevent further civil strife, I don't think it is esoteric at all.

juj

>>12170872
nope.

>>12171018
>Not only did I disagree with Hobbes' conclusions
I also diasgree with his premises. His whole philosophy stands and falls with the bad nature of human beings which is debatable

No, I only read relevant literature. Try Zizek

>>12171039
>>12171004
>>12171042
>>12171050
>>12171057
>>12171073
>>12171082
>>12171205
>>12171727
fuck off anime freak

>>12171018
wtf I love Hobbes now

based animeposter

>>12171790
In those 9 posts alone I have brought more quality into the universe than you have or ever will. As we speak I am conducting a black-propaganda campaign to raise the commodity of anime images on this board. Through making ABSOLUTELY EXCELLENT posts with anime images attached, and terrible posts with frogs attached, I am slowly raising to rhetoricity of the smug anime girl to levels unseen in this sites history. Everyday I am molding your mind to the contours of anime, priming that little brain of yours to get a dopamine hit the second an anime creeps into the edge of your vision. The day of the moe is coming, nerd, so you better start watching K-ON if you want ANY hope of posting on this board in the future. Your days are numbered.

Yes.
He takes the evolutionary process of civilization in hand.
Anyone who doesn't embrace this work after trying it is not even human.

>>12171790
THIS

>>12171760
>"bad nature"
>dumbing things down this much
why did you even try

>>12171073
>secular society
oxymoron

>>12172194
we will never bow to racism and sexism

Yeah I read it all. Now what

>>12171991
No
>>12171790
Based

>>12171018
isn't this a goodreads review?

>>12172521
Yeah

>>12171760
nothing is able to be discussed if we don't take some predispositions as true. Otherwise discussions breakdown into meaningless debates over the definitions of common phrases and words. Accept the premise for a "assuming that this is the case" and go from there. Stop being pedantic.

So for Hobbes the Natural Laws arise from reason (reason as a divine faculty aparently). I always tought it was emotional factors like "empathy" that prompted the laws.

>>12170872
sorry i dont read satanic shit

>>12171790
THIS tbqh
>>12172194
kys I will never read a post with anime as the picture.

>>12172753
patriarchy: slain

>>12170872
My European History teacher in high school had Leviathan and Machiavelli’s The Prince as assigned reading.

Nice writing anon, ill save it for myself.

Bump

>>12171018
>This is the top review
Just awful

>>12172625

mr.hobbes starts with defining the words and terms he uses throughout the book,he also goes off on the etymology of words.his knowledge of the bible the greeks and english is impressive

bump

>>12172194

I'd rather lose my eyes and have microsoft sam read me these comments than take borderline monoloid chinese pedo cartoon posters seriously.

>>12172753
It's barely been a week and already the niggerspeak is creeping back. God help us.

>>12172194
Keep up the good fight brother.

>>12170872
The first two books. I can appreciatte the effort it took him to come up with all of that shit, but his reasoning is literally fedora tier on so many levels it's almost infuriating.

>>12176339
i think his reasoning is sound.look at what happened when achilles challenged agamemnon's sovereignty or all the revolts and rebellions in history and the constant deposing of emperors in rome.like hobbes said its often best to just weather the storm when a mad king comes into power then to civil war

>>12176978
His reasoning is a mathematical equation. Pure abstraction.

>>12176978
Ding! Ding! Ding!
And guess what?
Now some more history.

>>12176978
>Event >multiple centuries
>Deaths not given as a percentage of total population or per 100,000
>No baselines
>Congocaust isn't just a dumb meme predicated on exactly one bad source

sub-Pinker-tier

>>12177051
that book looks like it would be fuckin awesome

>>12177096
>fuckin awesome
leave

>>12177046
Nestor the prince of Pylos with all sincerity and goodwill addressed them thus: "My friends," said he, "princes and councillors of the Argives, if any other man of the Achaeans had told us of this dream we should have declared it false, and would have had nothing to do with it. But he who has seen it is the foremost man among us; we must therefore set about getting the people under arms."

iliad scroll 2

3000 years ago based nestor knew to listen to his king even if was just a flimsy dream

odysseus also speaks in scroll 2

; we cannot all be kings; it is not well that there should be many masters; one man must be supreme- one king to whom the son of scheming Saturn has given the sceptre of sovereignty over you all."

>>12177046
hobbes reasoning is the same as based nestors and odysseus.hobbes even translated iliad into english

>>12177208
>>12177223
>hobbes Leviathan is basically "we must have a king"
Wow, what a way to prove that you actually didn't read the book

>>12177309
Let's outline some of the remarks made in the book
>you cannot have any sort of conflicting powers, balancing is retarded, because it will always INEVITABLY devolve into both powers blocking themselves and nothing will work
>you cannot break any contract, because if you break a contract, then everyone will, and society will be chaos
>there cannot be free expression, because people are stupid and malevolent, and word is poison, so any society with free speech is DOOMED to chaos

>>12177321
It's literally a mathematical argument. Have you read the book? He actually tries to emulate Aristotle while insulting him and he starts to describe feelings and concepts as additions of other things. It is full blown autism of the boring kind.

>>12177325
And lets not even get started on the concept of human emotion as impulses that flow through the body unless something stops them, for the love of god, what horeseshit.

>>12177309
>>12177321
>>12177325
>>12177334
All one btw, just sperged, I dislike that book so much

>>12177337
>It is full blown autism to just sperg like that

>>12171018
fuckin idiot lmao

>>12171311
Thersites is the true hero of the Iliad, you stupid fuck

>>12177321
>>you cannot have any sort of conflicting powers, balancing is retarded, because it will always INEVITABLY devolve into both powers blocking themselves and nothing will work

this is why rome would put a dictator in charge to deal with conflicting powers

>>12177390
Congress will delay the government shutdown deadline by about two weeks after the death of President George H.W. Bush.
Lawmakers plan to extend funding through Dec. 21.
Disagreements over whether to fund President Donald Trump's proposed border wall had raised the prospect of a government shutdown.

Your initial reaction to this book yields more insight than any personality test or psych eval ever could.

>>12170872
No, and why the fricking heck would I?

>>12177321
>there cannot be free expression, because people are stupid and malevolent, and word is poison,

"Check your glib tongue, Thersites," said be, "and babble not a word further. Chide not with princes when you have none to back you. There is no viler creature come before Troy with the sons of Atreus. Drop this chatter about kings, and neither revile them nor keep harping about going home. We do not yet know how things are going to be, nor whether the Achaeans are to return with good success or evil. How dare you gibe at Agamemnon because the Danaans have awarded him so many prizes? I tell you, therefore- and it shall surely be- that if I again catch you talking such nonsense, I will either forfeit my own head and be no more called father of Telemachus, or I will take you, strip you stark naked, and whip you out of the assembly till you go blubbering back to the ships."

>>12177390
Did you read what Hobbes says? He doesn't say that there is a possibility that powers enter in conflict, he doesn't say that we need a safeguard against that, he literally says that there is no way that a checks system can operate because it will block itself automatically. It is presented as an equation: since people do things to their advantage, then a congress cannot work, what kind of logic is that.
>>12177475
How about presenting an argument? Or should I repond pompously citing what Plato had to say about Homer and the poets?

>>12177499
plato had a lot to say about free expression people are stupid, and word is poison

>>12177513
Yes, and also about making your own arguments instead of trying to present stuff via proxy.

>>12177499
plato loved homer even though he spoke of censoring it.i get a chuckle when he says that athena would never tell pandarus to shoot menelaus

>>12177516
Also, the outline of Hobbes's argument of free speech is
>emotions, feelings whatevers are impulses that move through your body
>since they have inertia, you can only stop them by opposing force
That is the basis to say that something akin to "human beings are uncontrollable beasts", So then it goes
>people are stupid
>tricks of speech convince people
>people use tricks of speech to bring wrongthink
>people will inevitable be corrupted by that
>society will go to shit because of that

It is a pure abstraction. Literally 'logos' of the worst kind.

>>12177516
my keyboard is fucked up so im using on screen keyboard so im not being as articulate as i should be

>>12177539
I'll check the thread tomorrow.

t.sudaca

>>12177535
>>people are stupid
>>tricks of speech convince people
>>people use tricks of speech

all true

>>12171057

hobbes sums up the second part with... I recover some hope, that one time or other, this writing of mine, may fall into the hands of a Soveraign, who will consider it himselfe, (for it is short, and I think clear,) without the help of any interested, or envious Interpreter; and by the exercise of entire Soveraignty, in protecting the Publique teaching of it, convert this Truth of Speculation, into the Utility of Practice.

so yeah an abstraction but i liked this book,i learned a lot from it and a lot of it is based as fuck and deals in reality

>>12171082
Nice! I enjoyed that, and may even read Leviathan now. Thanks, anon!

>>12172194

Bump

i wish more people would talk about this

>>12170872
tried to read it when I was 14, though it was a book about a giant.

>>12177417
Care to extrapolate?

>>12170872
yes
he was right about literally everything

>>12177535
hobbes says ''The Greeks have but one word Logos, for both Speech and Reason; not that they thought there was no Speech without Reason; but no Reasoning without Speech:''

leviathan is full of red pills like this....

For as for Witches, I think not that their witch craft is any reall power; but yet that they are justly punished, for the false beliefe they have, that they can do such mischiefe, joyned with their purpose to do it if they can; their trade being neerer to a new Religion, than to a Craft or Science.

>>12177545
The issue is not that any of those points can or cannot happen; you need to make sense of his argument as a totality. The point is all of those things will happen inevitably in such an overwhelming way that no society can handle having free speech, ergo you need and overriding power to regulate it (and that overriding power must be one person). And, lets make this clear, he puts this argument foward as a rule of humanity, that can only be refuted inside his logical system, Ergo, if he were correct, then no society could last without 'a person' regulating speech, and history is full of examples that refute him.

>>12182272
And they also used logos as a way to say "law", "order", and a bunch of other stuff. Hell, Heraclitus uses logos with a "war" aception. So what?

>>12182384
Oh, and to add a weight. Hegel said that iusnaturalism were abstractions. He was fucking right. The best argument I read of him on such matters is
>you talk about man in the state of nature as a concept, that such man does not exist
>you want to see man in state of nature?
>it is a stage of human history, you can find it in subsaharan Africa

>>12182384
whats your point? the same can be said of platos republic.the republic continues to teach people and leviathan has the same ability to teach.the republic and leviathan aren't some flimsy works to be dismissed.

>>12182443
Well, I do not endorse the political proyect of Plato, that's for sure. What I would say, yes, is that I find Plato's arguments to be way more 'organic' and profound than Hobbes's. The Leviathan reads like a mathemathician stepped on humanities and tried to solve the world; as I said in >>12176339, I can appreciatte the effort it took him to come up with all of that shit, but his reasoning is literally fedora tier on so many levels it's almost infuriating.

>>12182474
"Let no one ignorant of geometry enter" was engraved at the door of Plato's Academy,

>>12182495
And?

this man has great insight concerning hobbes leviathan.starts at 2.30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obFPLRuP41w&t=88s

>>12182558
thanks