Thomas Hobbes tells us that he wrote Leviathan to “absolve the divine laws” of the charge that they justify rebellion. This article interprets the argumentative strategy of the second half of Leviathan in light of this intention. Over the course of his three major political works, Hobbes develops a convergent argument to absolve God’s laws. This strategy of judicial rhetoric relies on using multiple independent claims in the hope that one’s audience finds at least one of them persuasive. This was a risky strategy for Hobbes that angered his critics. The strategy also reveals something about what sort of philosopher Hobbes was and how we ought to approach his work.
Aristotle. 2007. On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse, 2nd edition. Translated by KennedyGeorge A.. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2.
AubreyJohn. 1898. ‘Brief Lives’, chiefly of Contemporaries, set down by John Aubrey, between the Years 1669 & 1696, vol. 1. Edited by ClarkAndrew. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
3.
BaumgoldDeborah. 2017. “Editor’s Introduction.” In Three-Text Edition of Thomas Hobbes’s Political Theory: The Elements of Law, De Cive and Leviathan, edited by BaumgoldDeborah, ix–xxi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
4.
BejanTeresa. 2017. Mere Civility: Disagreement and the Limits of Toleration. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
5.
BramhallJohn. 1844. “The Catching of Leviathan.” In The Works of the Most Reverend Father in God, John Bramhall, D.D., vol. 4, 507–97. Oxford: John Henry Parker.
6.
CollinsJeffrey R.2021. In the Shadow of Leviathan: John Locke and the Politics of Conscience. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
7.
CurleyEdwin. 1992. “‘I Durst Not Write So Boldly’ Or How to Read Hobbes’ Theological-Political Treatise.” In Hobbes e Spinoza: Scienza e Politica, edited by Daniela Bostrenghi, 497–593. Naples: Bibliopolis.
8.
FreemanSamuel. 2007. “Editor’s Forward.” In John Rawls, Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy, edited by FreemanSamuel, ix–xvi. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
9.
GauthierDavid P.1969. The Logic of Leviathan: The Moral and Political Theory of Thomas Hobbes. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
10.
GuggisbergHans R.1983. “The Defence of Religious Toleration and Religious Liberty in Early Modern Europe.” History of European Ideas4, 35–50.
11.
HammondHenry. 1850. Letter to Matthew Wren (1651). In The Theologian and Ecclesiastic9, 295–95.
12.
HamptonJean. 1986. Hobbes and the Social Contract Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
13.
HerzogDon. 1989. Happy Slaves: A Critique of Consent Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
HillChristopher. 1984. The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution. London: Penguin.
16.
HillChristopher. 1994. The English Bible and the Seventeenth-Century Revolution. London: Penguin Books.
17.
HobbesThomas. 1839. “Thomae Hobbes Malmesburiensis Vita Carmine Expressa.” In Opera Philosophica Quae Latine Scripsit Omnia, vol. 1, edited by MolesworthWilliam, lxxxi–xcix. London: John Bohn.
18.
HobbesThomas. 1986. “A Briefe of the Art of Rhetorique.” In The Rhetorics of Thomas Hobbes and Bernard Lamy, edited by HarwoodJohn T., 33–128. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University.
19.
HobbesThomas. 1998. On the Citizen [De Cive]. Edited by TuckRichardSilverthorneMichael. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
20.
HobbesThomas. 2008. Elements of Law, Natural and Politic. Edited by J. C. A. Gaskin. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
21.
HobbesThomas. 2012. Leviathan, vols. 2 and 3. Edited by MalcolmNoel. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
22.
HoekstraKinch. 2006. “The End of Philosophy (The Case of Hobbes).” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society106: 25–62.
23.
JohnstonDavid. 1989. “Hobbes’s Mortalism.” History of Political Thought10: 647–63.
24.
JonesSerene. 1995. Calvin and the Rhetoric of Piety. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press.
25.
KavkaGregory S.1986. Hobbesian Moral and Political Theory. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
26.
LakePeter. 1989. “Anti-Popery: The Structure of a Prejudice.” In Conflict in Early Stuart England: Studies in Religion and Politics 1603-1642, edited by CustRichardHughesAnn. London: Routledge.
27.
LloydS.A.1992. Ideals as Interests in Hobbes’s Leviathan: The Power of Mind over Matter. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
28.
LockeJohn. 1960. Second Treatise of Government in Two Treatises of Government. Edited by Peter Laslett. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
29.
LockyerRoger. 2005. Tudor and Stuart Britain: 1485-1714, 3rd ed.Abingdon: Routledge.
30.
MalcolmNoel. 2012. Introduction. In Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, vol. 1, edited by MalcolmNoel. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
31.
MarshallStephen. 1641[2]. Meroz Cursed. London.
32.
MartinichA. P.1992. The Two Gods of Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes on Religion and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
33.
McQueenAlison. 2018a. “Mosaic Leviathan: Religion and Rhetoric in Hobbes’s Political Thought.” In Hobbes on Politics and Religion, edited by van ApeldoornLaurensDouglassRobin, 116-34. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
34.
McQueenAlison. 2018b. Political Realism in Apocalyptic Times. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
35.
McQueenAlison. 2020a. “‘A Rhapsody of Heresies’: The Scriptural Politics of On the Citizen.” In Hobbes’s On the Citizen: A Critical Guide, edited by DouglassRobinOlsthoornJohan, 180–198. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
MintzSamuel I.1962. The Hunting of Leviathan: Seventeenth-Century Reactions to the Materialism and Moral Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes. New York: Cambridge University Press.
38.
NiliShmuel. 2021. “Strategic Political Theory: Philosophizing the Indefensible.” Unpublished manuscript.
39.
NissenBeth. 1978. “For the Defense: Texas Attorney Gains Fame Winning Cases That Seem Impossible.” Wall Street Journal (October 31): 1, 35.
40.
OberJosiah. 1989. Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens: Rhetoric, Ideology, and the Power of the People. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
41.
ParkinJon. 2007. Taming the Leviathan: The Reception of the Political and Religious Ideas of Thomas Hobbes in England 1640–1700. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
42.
ParkinJon. 2016. “Hobbes and Paradox.” In The Oxford Handbook of Hobbes, edited by MartinichA. P.HoekstraKinch, 624–41. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
43.
ParkinJon. 2018. “Hobbes and the Future of Religion.” In Hobbes on Politics and Religion, edited by van ApeldoornLaurensDouglassRobin, 184–200. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
44.
PocockJ. G. A.1970. “Time, History and Eschatology in the Thought of Thomas Hobbes.” In The Diversity of History: Essays in Honour of Sir Herbert Butterfield, edited by ElliotJ. H.KoenigsbergerH. G., 149–98. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
45.
Quintilian. 1921. The Institutio Oratoria, vol. 2. Translated by ButlerH. E.. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
46.
RawlsJohn. 2007. Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy. Edited by Samuel Freeman. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
47.
RaylorTimothy. 2018. Philosophy, Rhetoric, and Thomas Hobbes. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
48.
SkinnerQuentin. 1996. Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
49.
SommervilleJohann P.1993. “Further Light on Hobbes.” The Historical Journal36, no. 3: 733–36.
50.
SpringborgPatricia. 2009. “The Paradoxical Hobbes: A Critical Response to the Hobbes Symposium.” Political Theory37, no. 5: 676–88.
51.
StauntonEdmund. 1645. Phinehas’s zeal in execution of judgement. London.
52.
StraussLeo. 1952. The Political Philosophy of Hobbes, Its Basis and Genesis, translated by SinclairElsa M.. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
53.
StraussLeo. 1988. What is Political Philosophy? And Other Studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
54.
SvenssonManfred. 2014. “Fundamental Doctrines of the Faith, Fundamental Doctrines of Society: Seventeenth-Century Doctrinal Minimalism.” The Journal of Religion94, no. 2: 161–81.
55.
Trevor-RoperH. R.1964. “The Fast Sermons of the Long Parliament.” In Essays in British History: Presented to Sir Keith Feiling, edited by Trevor-RoperH. R., 85–138. London: Macmillan.
56.
WalkerDavid P.1964. The Decline of Hell: Seventeenth-Century Discussions of Eternal Torment. Chicago: University of Chicago.
57.
WilsonThomas. 1994. Art of Rhetoric. Edited by MedinePeter E.. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
