Thomas Hobbes
1588-1679 · British Empiricism · Household name
Hobbes was an English political philosopher. In Leviathan he described life without a common power to keep everyone in awe as 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.' To escape that war of all against all, we contract with one another and hand a sovereign our right to all things, along with our own judgment. Almost any ruler beats the alternative. He also held that everything real is body in motion.
Signature
The position Hobbes is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Society
- leans Individualism
- Perception
- Indirect Realism
Positions on the 14 axes the sources answer
- Natural Processes
- strongly leans Mechanistic (5 on a 0–100 scale from Mechanistic to Purposeful)
- Society
- leans Individualism (79 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- Mind
- strongly leans Brain Only (8 on a 0–100 scale from Brain Only to Beyond Brain)
- The Divine
- mildly leans Indescribable (67 on a 0–100 scale from Describable to Indescribable)
- Universals
- leans Nominalism (87 on a 0–100 scale from Realism to Nominalism)
- Meaning
- leans Constructed (25 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Order
- leans Vertical (25 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Ground of Being
- leans Immanence (21 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Truth
- leans Objective (75 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Nature
- leans Mastery (25 on a 0–100 scale from Mastery to Harmony)
- Polity
- leans Illiberalism (25 on a 0–100 scale from Illiberalism to Liberalism)
- Ethics
- mildly leans Ends (31 on a 0–100 scale from Ends to Means)
- War
- mildly leans Militarism (69 on a 0–100 scale from Pacifism to Militarism)
- Conviction
- leans Certain (75 on a 0–100 scale from Uncertain to Certain)
6 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Hobbes refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Non-Trinitarian Monotheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Autocracy
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Pleasure
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Social Invention
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - Perception
- Indirect Realism
What do we directly perceive? - Knowledge
- Sense Experience
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Social Contract / Utilitarian Calculation
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Compatibilism
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Beginning of Things
- Primordial Chaos / Creation ex Nihilo
What is the origin of reality? - Time
- Linear Progressive
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Economy
- Mercantilist
What is the ideal organization of economic life? - Authority
- Might Makes Right
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Language
- Social Construction
What is the fundamental nature of language? - Law
- Legal Positivism
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Role of Emotion
- Aesthetic Necessity / Irrational Driver
What is the proper role of emotion? - Human Nature
- Other
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- Nation
What is your primary bond and loyalty?