Biography

Thomas Hobbes was born in Malmesbury in 1588. He was educated at Oxford University, which was at the time a center of nominalistic Scholasticism. As tutor for a noble English family he had opportunities for travel. At Florence he came into contact with the thought of Galileo; in France he knew Mersenne, the great friend of Descartes. It was Mersenne who induced Hobbes to write his critical observations on the Meditations of Descartes.

Hobbes returned to England in 1637 with the intention of writing. When the struggle between Parliament and the King broke out, Hobbes, who was a supporter of the absolute monarchy, retired to France, where he lived for ten years. Granted an amnesty, he returned to England in 1651 and was reconciled with Cromwell. When Charles II, whom Hobbes had tutored, ascended the throne, the King granted a pension to his former teacher. Hobbes died in 1679, having lived beyond the age of ninety.

Thomas Hobbes wrote one great philosophical work, which he divided into sections and published at three different times: De cive(On the Social and Political Organism), a work that was further developed and later published under the title The Leviathan; De corpore (On the Body); and De homine (On Man). The vigorous thought of Hobbes made a deep impression in his native country and abroad. The Leviathan is generally considered his masterpiece.