Some Remarks on Strauss’s Correspondence in the 1930s

Perspectives on Political Science · 2025-06-16

From Laslett to Waldmann: The Case for Reconsidering Strauss on Locke

The Review of Politics · 2022 · 2 citations

• Political Science
• Epistemology
• Philosophy

Abstract The denial of Locke's debt to Hobbes has long been characteristic of many scholars of Locke influenced by the Cambridge School. Peter Laslett was the first to argue for this view, and he did so in conscious opposition to Leo Strauss and his interpretation of Locke. The recent discovery by Felix Waldmann of a memoir that confirms Locke's deep interest in Hobbes as well as his prudent concealment of that interest has undermined Laslett's case against Strauss. Waldmann's discovery, moreover, comes in the wake of other historical work, by Jeffrey Collins and others, that has provided further grounds for abandoning the Cambridge view of Locke. These developments have yet to lead to a serious reengagement with Strauss's interpretation of Locke, but they should, because his controversial claim about Locke's debt to Hobbes has been vindicated.

Jeffrey R. Collins: In the Shadow of Leviathan: John Locke and the Politics of Conscience. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. Pp. xiii, 430.)

The Review of Politics · 2020-12-01

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Response - Devin Stauffer: Hobbes's Kingdom of Light: A Study of the Foundations of Modern Political Philosophy. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018. Pp. 336.)

The Review of Politics · 2019-12-20

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Book Review: <i>Hobbes and the Two Faces of Ethics</i> , by Arash Abizadeh

Political Theory · 2019-08-08

Chapter Five. Religion and Theology III

2018-01-01

Abstract This chapter discusses Hobbes's account of "the kingdom of God by nature" in Chapter 31 of Leviathan. Hobbes here develops a new natural theology that contains an implicit critique of traditional natural theology. The chapter considers Hobbes's arguments about the limits of what human beings can know about God, and it examines Hobbes's doctrine of God as the first cause and its complex relationship to Hobbes's mechanistic materialism. The ultimate argument of the chapter is that Hobbes did not think the existence of God could be either demonstrated or refuted by reason alone. The chapter therefore points ahead to the following chapter, which considers Hobbes's confrontation with Scripture.

Hobbes's Kingdom of Light: A Study of the Foundations of Modern Political Philosophy

2018-08-02 · 2 citations

Hobbes's Kingdom of Light

2018-01-01 · 9 citations

Chapter 3. Hobbes on Nature and Its Conquest

University of Pennsylvania Press eBooks · 2018-07-06 · 1 citations

Chapter Six. Hobbes’s Political Philosophy I

2018-01-01

Abstract What are Hobbes's aims in the second half of Leviathan, where he most directly engages with the Bible? This chapter argues that Hobbes has two main aims in this understudied section of Leviathan. On the one hand, Hobbes reinterprets the Bible to make it compatible with his own doctrines, especially his political doctrines. On the other hand, he presents a critique of the Bible by revealing the various ways in which its teachings are at odds with his own rational doctrines. Among the issues involved in Hobbes's critique of the Bible are the conflict between materialism and spiritualism, the biblical teaching about hell, the politics of the Bible, and a set of problems concerning prophecy and miracles. This chapter reveals and then evaluates Hobbes's confrontation with Scripture on each of these issues. It also provides further evidence of Hobbes's atheism.