When I first picked up Hobbes, I wasn’t initially worried. I had (miraculously) survived Plato, so I didn’t think Hobbes would be an issue. If you had previously talked to me about Plato’s Republic you would know the extent of my hatred for that particular philosopher. Unfortunalty having to read and than look up definitions in the Leviathan is slightly annoying, but it does make sense as to why the book is written in such as way. The quote “thee being nothing in the world universal but names; for the things named are every one of them individual and singular” (p17) places Hobbes in stark opposition to Plato. As soon as Robert Crawford said that Hobbes was agitated by Aristotle, and by extension Plato, I knew that if I didn’t love Hobbes already I definitely loved him now!

Hobbes’s theory is understandable (In my opinion. At least after the lecture). The book is about us wanting desperately to be alive, according to Crawford. And this surprisingly makes sense. As long as our government doesn’t outright kill us, or place us in the position of imposing death, why go against it when we created it? Logic, I missed you. Every point in the book is connected leading to the end. Obviously I didn’t notice until lecture, but by going back and rereading bits I saw it.

This particular part stuck out to me in the lecture:

The story about when Persian kings died, it was a custom to leave the people without law or king for 5 days.

This explanation clicked Hobbes’s points in my brain and all of a sudden it began to make sense.