This Companion makes a new departure in Hobbes scholarship, addressing a philosopher whose impact was as great on Continental European theories of state and legal systems as it was at home. This volume is a systematic attempt to incorporate work from both the Anglophone and Continental traditions, bringing together newly commissioned work by scholars from ten different countries in a topic-by-topic sequence of essays that follows the structure of Leviathan, re-examining the relationship among Hobbes's physics, metaphysics, politics, psychology, and religion. Collectively they showcase important revisionist scholarship that re-examines both the context for Leviathan and its reception, demonstrating the degree to which Hobbes was indebted to the long tradition of European humanist thought. This Cambridge Companion shows that Hobbes's legacy was never lost and that he belongs to a tradition of reflection on political theory and governance that is still alive, both in Europe and in the diaspora.
Introduction Patricia Springborg; 1. Of Man; 1.1 Hobbes's visual strategy Horst Bredekamp; 1.2 The beast of myth: Medusa, Dionysus and the riddle of Hobbes's sovereign monster John Tralau; 1.3 Sense and nonsense about sense: Hobbes and the Aristotelians on sense perception and imagination Cees Leijenhorst; 1.4 Hobbes on the natural condition of mankind Kinch Hoekstra; 1.5 Hobbes's moral philosophy Tom Sorrell; 2. Of Commonwealth; 2.1. Hobbes on persons, authors, and representatives Quentin Skinner; 2.2 Hobbes on glory and civil strife Gabriella Slomp; 2.3 Hobbes and the philosophical origins of liberalism Lucien Jaume; 2.4 The basis for the right to punish in Hobbes's Leviathan Dieter Huning; 3. Of a Christian Commonwealth; 3.1 Hobbes's covenant theology and its political implications Franck Lessay; 3.2 Omnipotence, necessity, and sovereignty: Hobbes and the absolute powers of God and king Luc Foisneau; 3.3 Hobbes on salvation Roberto Farneti; 3.4 Hobbes and the cause of religious toleration Edwin Curley; 4. Of the Kingdom of Darkness; 4.1 Hobbes's critique of the doctrine of essences and its sources Gianni Paganini; 4.2 Leviathan and its Anglican context Johann Somerville; 4.3 The Bible and Protestantism in Leviathan A. P. Martinich; 4.4 The 1668 appendix and Hobbes's theological project George Wright; 5. Hobbes's Reception; 5.1 Leviathan and Hobbes's contemporaries G. A. J. Rogers; 5.2 The reception of Hobbes's Leviathan Jonathan Parkin; 5.3 Hobbes, Clarendon, and Leviathan Perez Zagorin; 5.4 Silencing Thomas Hobbes: the Presbyterians and Leviathan Jeffrey R. Collins.
Patricia Springborg, formerly a professor in political theory at the University of Sydney, is now professor in the School of Economics of the Free University of Bolzano, Italy. A member of the Australian Academy of the Social Sciences, she has been a visiting fellow at research institutes in Berlin, Oxford, and Uppsala, and was the recipient of a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Award, taken up at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. She is the author of Royal Persons, Western Republicanism and the Oriental Prince, Mary Astell, Theorist of Freedom from Domination and three editions of Mary Astell's writings. She has also published a number of articles on Hobbes and has co-edited a critical edition of Hobbes' Historia Eccesiastica.
Reviews for The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes's Leviathan
'These papers herald a new era in Hobbesian studies.' Contemporary Review
