Wednesday, December 12, 2007

What Is In A Leviathanic State?



The famous thinker, Thomas Hobbes coined the word Leviathan. As he described it in his works, Leviathan is an artificial person whose body's made up of all the bodies of its citizens – the literal members of the Leviathan's body. It is therefore a metaphor of a state. The sovereign is the leader of the Leviathan. The people, its followers, will sign into a contract authorizing themselves to be under the order of the Leviathan for them to escape the horrors of the natural condition of men and the environment. It is the power of the Leviathan that shields the people from the abuses and maltreatment of one another.

In this work, Hobbes explained the process of creating the Leviathan, the rights of the sovereigns and the common people, and illustrated the civil and legislative mechanics of the commonwealth. He also explained the religious system of the Leviathan and compared it with the Christian doctrine. He concluded that to achieve a secure Christian commonwealth, there should be a political implementation of the Leviathanic state.

4 comments:

  1. Hey thanks for commenting on my thread at http://patrick-testa.blogspot.com/. I really like your blog here, we are interested in much of the same topics.

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  2. i think that this leviathnic state is similar to the polis of artistotle. except that the former is religion-oriented. Carolyn Farley

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  3. can you site a specific example of a Leviathan State? If there are such..That would be really helpful.

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  4. I need to read again on this topic. It seems interesting since it deals with the church and state.

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