The Elements of Philosophy: De Corpore
  The Elements of Philosophy is composed of three parts, not published in their intended order. De Corpore, which was published in 1655, contains four parts. Part I concerns logic, Part II concerns scientific concepts, Part III concerns geometry and mathematics and Hobbes’s… More

The Elements of Philosophy: De Homine

Hackett, 1991 (Bernard Gert, ed. -- contains De Cive and selections of De Homine)

The Elements of Philosophy is composed of three parts, not published in their intended order. De Homine, which was published in 1658, opens with ten chapters on optics. The last five chapters, treating Hobbes’s accounts of the passions and an analysis of the origins of religion, are… More

The Elements of Philosophy: De Cive

Hackett, 1991 (Bernard Gert, ed. -- contains De Cive and selections of De Homine)

The Elements of Philosophy is composed of three parts, not published in their intended order. De Cive, published in 1642, was Hobbes’s first definitive articulation of his political philosophy. It includes Hobbes’s account of the state of nature and the origin of society in a… More

The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic [1640]

Oxford University Press, 2008 (Human Nature and de Corpore Politico, J.C.A. Gaskin, ed.)

This is Hobbes’s first published philosophical work (1640), which was written in part in response to the conflicts between Charles I and Parliament. The book represents Hobbes’s initial attempt to address political matters with the deductive methods of geometry, and proposes a… More

Behemoth, or the Long Parliament [written 1668, published 1682]

University of Chicago Press, 1990 (Ferdinand Toennies, ed.)

Behemoth is Hobbes’s account of the English Civil Wars of the 1640s.  It is an important book in helping us consider how the experience of the wars influenced Hobbes’s thinking, and how he would later interpret the wars through the perspective of the theories developed in De Cive and… More