Hobbes, Materialism and Freedom

Abstract

Hobbes’s political anthropology is grounded on a concept of liberty whose elaboration was influenced by the development of his project for a materialist philosophical system. Hobbes’s attempt to provide a definitive foundation for civil science led him to re-elaborate the concept of liberty after De cive, and eventually conflate its descriptive and normative components in Leviathan. Some of Leviathan’s conceptual innovations can thus be related to Hobbes’s attempt to absorb the natural liberties of individuals in the body politic’s artificial functioning.

Keywords

• Cartesio
• Hobbes
• Libertà
• Conatus
• De cive