Comment by aestetix
5 days ago
I'd argue this is too expansive of a view. It's a debate specifically coming out of the English Civil War, and specifically focusing on the tension between Parliament and the Monarchy. If you read Clarendon it becomes extremely obvious. Hobbes (like Clarendon) took the royalist view defending the king, and Locke set for an argument for parliament.
Some of it doesn't translate super well into modern times. For example, Locke barely touches upon judiciary. The modern notion of separation of powers came (I believe) from Montesquieu.
I will say that Hobbes gives a far more comprehensive argument than Locke does. And some of Locke's details, including his anthropology of the origin of commonwealths, is demonstrably false.
Either way, glad to see Leviathan here!
Oh for sure, both thinkers were products of the English Civil War and its aftermath (and see my comment below about reading Quentin Skinner for all the context on Hobbes). I’d add that Locke (who was writing later than Hobbes) was all wrapped up in the 1688 “Glorious Revolution” too.
But some works transcend the specific details of their historical origins and authorship and contain ideas that echo down the centuries. Locke’s ideas were instrumental in founding the United States and feed into much of modern liberalism. And I can read Hobbes here today in the 21st century and still find the pessimistic core of his book powerful and relevant, even while ignoring much of the book because it’s full of the parochial concerns of 17th century England. That was really what I was getting at: not “this is the exact meaning of these works in the 17th century”, but “here is the tension of ideas these books bequeathed to us.”