Thomas Hobbes

Mises Institute

In this ten-lecture course sponsored by Steve Berger and Kenneth Garschina, intellectual historian David Gordon guides students through a survey of the greatest thinkers, and evaluates these scholars by their arguments for and against the idea of Liberty. Lecture 4 of 10. Recorded at the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, June 4-8, 2007. Thomas Hobbes' (1588-1679) best-known work is Leviathan (1651), which established social contract theory. His liberal thinking included: The right of the individual; the natural equality of all men; the artificial character of the political order; the view that all legitimate political power must be representative; and a liberal interpretation of law. Hobbes met not only Descartes but also Galileo. He thought space and time to be imaginary. He saw humans as being matter and motion, obeying the same physical laws as other matter and motion. He thought one could square the circle.