Aristotle vs. Hobbes, constitutes a debate between two great thinkers from two profoundly different periods of time. Whereas Aristotle (384 - 322 BCE) had been a part of the Greek's and more precisely, Athens's Golden Age, Thomas Hobbes (1588 - 1679) had lived through the English Civil War of 1640s to become one of the most influential philosophers. Based on their own personal experiences and surroundings, both Aristotle and Hobbes had developed a view of what human equality should sustain. However…

Aristotle and Hobbes: A Comparison of Human Nature Theory Aristotle and Hobbes present two fundamentally distinct doctrines about the conception of politics, human affairs, and the nature of man. Specifically, both philosophers express vying interpretations of human nature. Even though Aristotle and Hobbes similarly use their understanding of human nature to conceptualize their politics, they both express differing views about the aims for which they believe human beings act and exist. In a rather…

book, Thomas Hobbes describes the state of nature in which men, driven by appetites and aversions, are constantly in a state of competition and conflict with one another. Because there are limited resources like food and shelter and people have a desire for the same end, there is no peace or unity in society. Every man must fend for himself in this individualistic, power struggle. The combination of finite resources, mistrust of other men, and equality of power in the state of nature, an unending…

A hallmark of Thomas Hobbes political philosophy lies in his delineations of two distinct conditions which men can reside in; the state of nature, and the commonwealth led by a sovereign, otherwise referred to as the Leviathan. In order to illustrate how the former state gives way to the latter, Hobbes constructs a perception of nature in which the lives of men are riddled with ambiguity, fear, and distrust. He proposes, then, that the optimal civil society is not constructed by embracing the natural…

2016 Aristotle, Plato, and Rousseau: What is Natural and The Nature of Man As mentioned in the essay prompt, authors in this course have used the term(s) nature/natural in various ways to frame and support their arguments. As I identified in my previous paper, “In Book 1 of Aristotle 's Politics, Aristotle begins by defining the city and or political community while also making the case that nearly everything exist for the sake of achieving some sort of good.” It is here that Aristotle introduces…

quote by Aristotle was taken from ‘Aristotle: a Very Short Introduction’ and there is no-one of whom this is more true than Aristotle as he was dedicated to every possible discipline he could sink his teeth into making him one of the utmost key figures within philosophy, not only in classical philosophy but he is still regarded as influential in modern philosophy. As well as being a devoted biologist, botanist, moral philosopher, psychologist, zoologist and many more things besides Aristotle held a…

In his text, Leviathan, Hobbes argues that the generation of all states ,regardless of what type of state, comes from the need to escape a common fear among all men. In other words, there is generally no great difference between one type of state from the other in terms of the ends that such states seek to achieve. The generation of all states, ,principalities or republics, comes from the common fear of what Hobbes dubs “the state of nature” (54). The state of nature is essentially life in an anarchic…

difference between Aristotle and Hobbes, and in turn classical and modern political philosophies’, with regard to a good life and happiness is that of normative judgments about the good life. While Hobbes rejects normative judgments about the good life and discusses human actions without attributions of moral quality, Aristotle offers the exact opposite. In Ethics, Aristotle differentiates between good and evil actions along with what the best good, or summum bonum, for all humans while Hobbes approach argues…

Michael Swain Paper 2 PS 171 (1) The state of nature as Thomas Hobbes claims is violent, dangerous and solitary. In a state of nature mankind is subjected to constant fear of death and it essentially runs every aspect of mans life. Yet a human is a rational being and there is a drive to get rid of this fear, one of the rights that Hobbes brings up is the right of self preservation and the fact that a man must not bring harm to himself. Hobbes discusses how natural rights are different than natural…

Does Hobbes’ account of the ‘State of Nature’ involve a false generalisation about human nature? Hobbes’ state of nature has been used as a philosophical and political basis for the actions and policies of many modern governments. According to Hobbes, the state of nature is “the Naturall Condition of Mankind, as concerning their Felicity, and Misery.” The Hobbesian state of nature was a condition in which many European peoples existed under conditions of “high moral density” or morality but…