Thomas Hobbes Influence

Thomas Hobbes was an English Philosopher born in Wilshire, England in 1588, prematurely to a mother whose name is unknown. His father, Thomas Sr., was the vicar of Charlton and Westport, two cities located on the shores of England. Hobbes also had two older siblings, a brother, Edmund, and a sister, whose name is also unknown. Other than his immediate family, little is known about Thomas Hobbes’ life growing up. When Thomas Hobbes was younger, he got into a fight that forced him to leave London and his family. It was then that Hobbes began his education, and exceeded expectations of his teachers at his grade schools and colleges.

After the English Civil War in 1642, many people were contemplating the legitimacy of state power in England. This questioning of power is what inspired Hobbes to write the Leviathan. Like most of Hobbes works, the Leviathan was influenced by Francis Bacon, which is prevalent in Hobbes’ writing style. Hobbes was not young when he wrote the Leviathan, for he was in his sixties when it was published in 1651.

Hobbes took this creature as a sovereign figure, but also wrote in a way that it can be deemed to be Satan. The word “Leviathan’s” Hebrew derivation comes from a root word that means “to twine; to join,” which makes its literal definition to be “wreathed, twisted in folds.” This definition can be contrasted to the book the Leviathan because Hobbes is essentially twining or joining the idea of the social contract with modern culture, and how that affected the doubt of national power at that time. The Leviathan is mentioned six times in the Hebrew Bible, and once even said to have been destroyed by God and fed to the people. Later, however, the Leviathan is referred to as the “tortuous serpent” and is said to be killed at the end of