Book description
The Leviathan is the vast unity of the State. But how are unity,
peace and security to be attained? Hobbes's answer is sovereignty, but
the resurgence of interest today in Leviathan is due less to its
answers than its methods. Hobbes sees politics as a science capable of
the same axiomatic approach as geometry: he argues from first
principles to human nature to politics.
This book's appeal to the twentieth century lies not just in its
elevation of politics to a science, but in its overriding concern for peace.
Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1679) is an English philosopher and political
theorist, one of the first modern Western thinkers to provide a secular
justification for the political state. Regarded as an important early
influence on the philosophical doctrine of utilitarianism, Hobbes also
contributed to modern psychology and laid the foundations of modern
sociology. C. B. MacPherson was Professor of Political Economy at the
University of Toronto.
