/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.18630922]

If I am interested in political philosophy is there a good reason to read Leviathan in current year?
I know it is the genesis of pretty much all subsequent non-Marxist political philosophy but aren’t most of the ideas dismissed in later works on the same subject?
Would it make more sense to read Locke?

[Anonymous No.18630940]

>>18630922
You don't necessarily need to read his works, but it would be a good idea to at least get an idea of what they are about. His ideas of self-interest and so on are still prevalent in realist traditions. Locke is definitely more important and relevant today however.

[Anonymous No.18630985]

Yes his argument is timeless. Everyone will be referencing him and you only have to read, like, half the book (books I and II, skip III and IV). The more time goes on, the more prescient you realise Hobbes was to all modern political problems. His argument isn't so much dismissed as his conclusion.

[Anonymous No.18631011]

>>18630985
Why is this anime made up of middling burghers in late british Torydom?

[Anonymous No.18631020]

What are the 5 must read books on political theory?

[Anonymous No.18631027]

>>18630940
>>18630985
Thanks for the input frens
I think I will go ahead and read Leviathan, at least the first 2 books as you said, and see where it takes me

On a side note, do you guys read the introductory material to books like this? The Hackett Leviathan has like 100 pages of introduction

[Anonymous No.18631080]

>>18631027
It depends on the book and the introduction, they can be very hit or miss. With Hobbes, it's important to know a bit about his time period and motivation for writing the book (the english civil war) which hopefully the introduction would provide. Having skimmed the Hackett introduction, it looks pretty good. And it's only 30 pages.
But generally, yes i do read the introductions.

[Anonymous No.18631120]

>>18631080
>they can be very hit or miss
Hit or miss I guess Hume didn't miss you got a contract tacit agreement didn't kiss ya (https://www.utm.edu/staff/jfieser/class/300/socialcont.htm))

[Anonymous No.18631129]

>>18630922
>I know it is the genesis of pretty much all subsequent non-Marxist political philosophy but aren’t most of the ideas dismissed in later works on the same subject?
The Leviathan, and Hobbes's political philosophy more general, is part of the basis of all modern political philosophy.
Also, don't just go read political philosophy on your own. Read some histories first. I recommend looking into the Cambridge School (Quentin Skinner) and the Straussians (Leo Strauss) and seeing which you prefer.

[Anonymous No.18631138]

>>18631129
I hope you fucking mean histories of the discipline of politics / political philosophy, because as a historian nothing makes me reach faster to the organisation of battalions than political science cunts claiming to comprehend complex hypertext analyses.

[Anonymous No.18631154]

>>18631138
They understand them better than you do. Now go read Quentin Skinner and Leo Strauss.

[Anonymous No.18631200]

>>18630922
>If I am interested in political philosophy is there a good reason to read Leviathan in current year?
Hobbes is basically Machiavelli, but for retarded.

[Anonymous No.18631242]

>>18631080
Thanks. I have been trying to find literally anything online that talks about the necessity of reading introductions in philosophy books but search algorithms make that impossible as it returns pages concerning intro to philosophy books and courses.
I was counting everything up to page 1 which I guess is 77, not 100 so I exaggerated

[Anonymous No.18631243]

>>18631154
>structuralism
You've never fisted a cunt in your life.

[Anonymous No.18631275]

>>18631200
Strauss was a grave digger of philosophy and Machiavelli's and Hobbes' political philosophies are barely comparable

[Anonymous No.18631279]

>>18631242
The point is to tell the reader something about the author, his context, and his interlocutors. For instance, if Leo Strauss were to write an introduction to an edition of The Leviathan, he would discuss Hobbes's life, the revolution in political philosophy begun by Machiavelli, the doctrine of natural law, how Hobbes transforms natural law into natural right on the basis of his hypothetical doctrine of the state of nature, some of the implications of Hobbes's ideas (e.g. the necessity of the abolition of warfare and the creation of the world state), and the basics of esoteric and exoteric reading necessary for understanding him.
>>18631243
What are you saying?

[Anonymous No.18631291]

>>18631275
What are you talking about? Do you even understand what you are reading, or are you simply repeating phrases that you heard elsewhere?

[Anonymous No.18631298]

>>18630922

[Anonymous No.18631369]

>>18631279
Have you ever tasted your fresh bloody fist with her oestrus under your nails?

[Anonymous No.18631372]

>>18630922
His ideals are tyrannical and if you think theyre any solution to any problems youre an npc

[Anonymous No.18631384]

>>18630922
Devin Stauffer, Hobbes's Kingdom of Light
Robert P. Kraynak, History and Modernity in the Thought of Thomas Hobbes
Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History
Leo Strauss, "Three Waves of Modernity" (start here) https://archive.org/details/LeoStrauss3WavesOfModernityocr
Leo Strauss, "On the Basis of Hobbes' Political Philosophy"

[Anonymous No.18631391]

>>18631372
Democracy is like Communism. It sounds good on paper to give everyone a vote but in practice it is disastrous in the long term

[Anonymous No.18631395]

>>18631391
Hobbes and Machiavelli set down the cornerstones of modern democracy.

[Anonymous No.18631427]

Ignore all Straussian cultists

[Anonymous No.18631500]

>>18631275
>Machiavelli's and Hobbes' political philosophies are barely comparable
Before Machiavelli, the political philosophy was concerned with virtue and good life. Afterwards, it's all about "how to control this fucking cattle"

[Anonymous No.18631542]

>>18630922
>If I am interested in political philosophy is there a good reason to read Leviathan in current year?
Obviously faggot. Its one of the most influential works.
The read Carl Schmitt

[Anonymous No.18631710]

>>18631298
this never fails to make me kek

[Anonymous No.18631819]

>>18631500
>Before Machiavelli, the political philosophy was concerned with virtue and good life. Afterwards, it's all about "how to control this fucking cattle"
Is it true? is there an article about this turning point?

[Anonymous No.18631904]

>>18631819
See >>18631384, particularly Three Waves of Modernity.
For more on Machiavelli, see also Strauss's Thoughts on Machiavelli. Be aware that the book is extremely obscure, as Strauss indicates in the following passage from the fourth chapter:

"It would not be reasonable to claim, or indeed to believe, that the preceding observations suffice to elucidate every obscure passage of the Discourses. The utmost we can hope to have achieved is to have pointed to the way which the reader must take in studying Machiavelli's work. Books like the Discourses and the Prince do not reveal their full meaning as intended by the author unless one ponders over them "day and night" for a long time. The reader who is properly prepared is bound to come across suggestions which refuse to be stated. Pen or typewriter, to say nothing of hand and tongue, refuse their service. The reader thus comes to understand the truth that what ought not to be said cannot be said. It is fortunate for the historians of ideas, to say nothing of others, that there are not many books of this kind. Still, there are more of them than one would easily believe, for there were more great men who were stepsons of their time or out of step with the future that one would easily believe. As Faust put it to Wagner, "the few who understood something of the world and of men's heart and mind, who were foolish enough not to restrain their full heart but to reveal their feeling and their vision to the vulgar, have ever been crucified and burned"; not everyone belonging to those few failed to restrain his full heart. Goethe was the last great man who rediscovered or remembered this, especially after he had returned from the storm and stress of sentiment to the tranquillity of fullness of vision. After him, social reason, sentiment and decision and whatever goes with those "dynamic forces" united in order to destroy the last vestiges of the recollection of what philosophy originally meant."

To be clear, the post you are replying to misrepresents the shift in political philosophy that took place with Machiavelli. Machiavelli rejected the basic positions of classical political philosophy, which include the idea that there is an insoluble contradiction between philosophy and the city (the quest for the truth of the whole is necessarily corrosive of the norms underlying the stability necessary for the health of any society, and must therefore remain in the realm of theory), the positing of a perfect regime that, due to its sublimity, is beyond the reach of most men and can only be brought about through chance or fortune (this is what is meant by Machiavelli's dictum that Fortuna can be compelled by force, i.e. that the perfect regime can be brought about by human artifice because human beings are infinitely malleable), and the perfect regime as defined in terms of ideal virtue that is hardly ever in evidence on Earth (Machiavelli both redefined virtue and lowered the standards for the ideal regime.)

[Anonymous No.18631916]

>>18630922

[Anonymous No.18631919]

>>18631819
>>18631904
What this means is that political philosophy, which was once a largely secretive and theoretical endeavor, with Machiavelli shifted to the attempt to direct the development of society. That is to say that, where philosophers were once aloof, they turned to spreading their doctrines in order to change society.

[Anonymous No.18632058]

>>18630922
Later authors were responding to him and building on his arguments. Philosophy isn't like science where older works become outdated, rather you have to read it from the start to fully understand it since it's essentially a thousand year old conversation between different authors.

[Anonymous No.18632069]

>>18632058
Baste

[Anonymous No.18632875]

>>18630922

Hobbes was the reddit moderator of his time. His entire thesis can be summed up wit "ya'll just cant behave". His needs for the state to patronize the common man shows just how little he thought of himself and of others.