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fernaissante's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
tense
slow-paced
3.25
draxin's review against another edition
challenging
informative
sad
medium-paced
2.0
Tried to read it for uni, gave up after it made me enraged
youngserfs's review against another edition
I picked this up hoping for an interesting read on philosophy or political philosophy, and what I found was more of a historical text on the political and philosophical landscape of Hobbes' time.
Unfortunately for Hobbes, most of his assertions on human nature are long debunked by the development of sociology, so anything based on his initial assertions is likely to be misled.
Most of what the text is detailing is also fairly in line with the political status quo of his day rather than giving us any insights into something more abstract abiut his time.
All in all, it's not bad to be able to read the perspective of a political centrist of the 17th century, it just wasn't what I'm after.
Unfortunately for Hobbes, most of his assertions on human nature are long debunked by the development of sociology, so anything based on his initial assertions is likely to be misled.
Most of what the text is detailing is also fairly in line with the political status quo of his day rather than giving us any insights into something more abstract abiut his time.
All in all, it's not bad to be able to read the perspective of a political centrist of the 17th century, it just wasn't what I'm after.
cronosmu's review against another edition
4.0
Lugar común, pero no por ello falso, es afirmar que la impronta política y filosófica Hobbes representa uno de los vértices del pensamiento occidental, y eso incluye su deliciosa rabia intelectual contra el aristotelismo (crítica ante todo lingüística que, esgrimida en el siglo XVII, predecía las miserias del discurso posmoderno), su vulgar teología protestante, la solución a la disyuntiva entre el poder temporal y el espiritual (Hobbes, desde luego, subordina lo trascendente a la materia), la tesis contractualista y el pesimismo antropológico de quien asume que la condición humana entraña una guerra sin cuartel. Ideas con las que, en su mayoría, estoy lejos de coincidir. Con todo, y ya que este no es un sitio académico sino una mera red social donde pavoneamos nuestras afinidades literarias, no puedo dejar de manifestar cuánto disfruto de la lucidez de este señor que ya en su novena década de vida, por puro ocio, tradujo del griego al inglés la Iliada y la Odisea.
Si la escolástica se escondía tras la opacidad de sus giros verbales, si más adelante los idealistas alemanes y sobre todo Hegel ocultarían a la filosofía tras las nebulosas de la palabra, Hobbes fue consecuente con aquel ímpetu estético, y acaso también moral, que lo impelía a trazar ríos cristalinos con la azada de su pensamiento. En Hobbes no hay mayor ambigüedad. Es la suya, y sobre todo en estos tiempos de bien pensar, una franqueza incómoda porque arranca el velo de pureza que recubre la idea del ser humano hasta desnudarlo y mostrar su más descarnada apariencia.
Si la escolástica se escondía tras la opacidad de sus giros verbales, si más adelante los idealistas alemanes y sobre todo Hegel ocultarían a la filosofía tras las nebulosas de la palabra, Hobbes fue consecuente con aquel ímpetu estético, y acaso también moral, que lo impelía a trazar ríos cristalinos con la azada de su pensamiento. En Hobbes no hay mayor ambigüedad. Es la suya, y sobre todo en estos tiempos de bien pensar, una franqueza incómoda porque arranca el velo de pureza que recubre la idea del ser humano hasta desnudarlo y mostrar su más descarnada apariencia.
cvs3701's review against another edition
2.5
Again… I know I read this. I know we talked about it in heavy detail, yet I cannot tell you a single thing about this book
shroudofthesea's review against another edition
2.0
unlike my first entry on this shelf, i really don't think i'm ever going to invest the time and energy to read the rest of this in the future. hobbes sort of says the same thing over and over in so many ways, and the thing he's saying is based on an extremely simplified & eurocentric view of ~human nature~. might come back to this review to say something more coherent after i have to write a paper on this lmao but we'll see
mcsnide's review against another edition
3.0
An intriguing book that may well be the first true book on political science, Leviathan is Hobbes's defense of authoritarianism. Steeped in the religious arguments of the day, and with the English Civil War never far from mind, he makes an impassioned defense of the civil government's priority over the church. He then takes it a step farther to argue that the best form of government is monarchy.
At times, his lines of reasoning seem silly or even incoherent to a 21st-century Western reader, immersed as we are in the norms of democracy. To contemporary readers, though, it must have been a tour-de-force as he "proved" the reasonableness of the "contract" between an absolute monarch and his subjects. The good monarch's responsibility was to protect the subject from Warre (yeah, the Old English gets to you after a while), while the subject's responsibility was complete obedience and allegiance to the king. His views of justice and legislative power are so far removed from modern norms that they're difficult to even explain, but Nixon was a kindred spirit when he said, "When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal."
Long story short: authoritarians should find much to love in this book; invidualists and lovers of personal liberty, not so much.
At times, his lines of reasoning seem silly or even incoherent to a 21st-century Western reader, immersed as we are in the norms of democracy. To contemporary readers, though, it must have been a tour-de-force as he "proved" the reasonableness of the "contract" between an absolute monarch and his subjects. The good monarch's responsibility was to protect the subject from Warre (yeah, the Old English gets to you after a while), while the subject's responsibility was complete obedience and allegiance to the king. His views of justice and legislative power are so far removed from modern norms that they're difficult to even explain, but Nixon was a kindred spirit when he said, "When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal."
Long story short: authoritarians should find much to love in this book; invidualists and lovers of personal liberty, not so much.