Customer Reviews

Hobbes: A Biography

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

One, if not the first, in a series of biographies of European philosophers by Cambridge University Press, this volume more than holds its own and is bound to becomne the standard text on the life of Thomas Hobbes.

Deftly written and extremely well researched, this is a volume not only for the scholar of English philosophy or history, but for the well-read layman as well. Martinich presents his subject chronologically, as any good biography should, with brief stopovers for analysis of each Hobbes text both philosophically and within the historical context against which it was written. Martinich is most unusual in that he does not take his own words as the last ones on the subject; there are pages on his disagreements with other writers on interpretations of both the life and thought of Hobbes, which makes this volume both unusual and valuable to any understanding of its subject.

Pricey, but strongly recommended, especially if one has any of the other volumes in the Cambridge series. If possible, wait for the paperback . . . but not too long, for there is much about Hobbes one will miss.

A.P. Martinich is an analytic philosopher who has an emphasis on the history of political thought, and he is the author of this great biography.

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was an English philosopher, most remembered today for his seminal work of political philosophy, Leviathan: With Selected Variants from the Latin Edition of 1668. Hobbes served as a secretary to Francis Bacon for some time, and Martinich notes, "Not even his friends liked Bacon."

Martinich observes that "Although he would sharpen the argumentation and improve the presentation in later works, Hobbes adhered for the rest of his life to the basic positions presented in his first political treatise." (The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic: To Which Are Subjoined Selected Extracts from Unprinted Mss. of Thomas Hobbes). Martinich later adds that "All or almost all of the central points of Leviathan had been made by Hobbes in early books and manuscripts."

Martinich's own comments are always pertinent: e.g., "His doctrine was Calvinism without original sin." "Hobbes never lost an adolescent delight of shocking the intellectual establishment."

Hobbes was the founder of biblical criticism, and "Hobbes was the first person to argue in print that Moses was not the author of most of the Pentateuch." About Hobbes' attempt to reconcile science and religion, Martinich notes, "He failed, but I do not know of anyone who has succeeded."

This is the finest study of Hobbes' life we are ever likely to see.