イギリスで初めて偉大な政治哲学を呈した人物、トマス・ホッブズ（1588-1679年）。人間は本質的に悪であり、その欠点を補うためには全体主義国家が必要であると唱え、悲観的な無神論者と称されました。本書は同時代の哲学者であったデカルトの思想にも匹敵するとされる、ホッブズが積極的に取り組んだ懐疑主義の論駁と知識論の発展を紹介しつつ、ホッブズ哲学の意義を問う一冊です。(cf. Leviathan (Oxford World's Classics); The Elements of Law Natural and Politic. Part I: Human Nature; Part II: De Corpore Politico; with Three Lives (Oxford World's Classics))
   

• Covers important topics such as atheism, and human nature
• Hobbes was the first great English political philosopher
• Richard Tuck is an expert in political philosophy and history
• Discusses Hobbes' view of the natural human condition as 'nasty, brutish, and short'
• Fully updated bibliography for this edition

Thomas Hobbes, the first great English political philosopher, has long had the reputation of being a pessimistic atheist, who saw human nature as inevitably evil and proposed a totalitarian state to subdue human failings. In this illuminating study, Richard Tuck re-evaluates Hobbes's philosophy and dispels these myths, revealing him to have been passionately concerned with the refutation of scepticism, and to have developed a theory of knowledge which rivalled that of Descartes in its importance.