Major Works

• Leviathan, or the Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil [1651]

  - Hackett, 1994 (Edwin Curley, ed.)
  The Leviathan is Hobbes’s masterwork, published in 1651. It contains four parts: “Of Man,” “Of Commonwealth,” “Of a Christian Commonwealth,” and “Of the Kingdom of Darkness.” “Of Man” connects… 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… 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… More

Commentary

• A Letter Concerning Toleration [1689]

  - John Locke (James H. Tully, ed., Hackett, 1983)
  Locke’s plea for religious toleration, first published anonymously in 1689, is the founding document for the modern tradition of religious toleration.  He argues, in contrast to Hobbes, for the strict separation of church and state, basing his argument… More

• Hobbes on Civil Association [1975]

  - Michael Oakeshott (Liberty Fund, 2000)
  This volume consists of Michael Oakeshott’s four principal essays on Hobbes and on the nature of civil association as civil association pertains to ordered liberty. The essays are “Introduction to Leviathan” (1946); “The Moral Life in the Writings of… More

• “Hobbes and the Political Science of Power”

  - Harvey C. Mansfield, in Taming the Prince: the Ambivalence of Modern Executive Power (Free Press, 1989), pp. 151-180
  Excerpt: In Machiavelli we find the executive, but not executive power.  Before executive power could be conceived as one of the equal independent powers of a republican constitution, the very concept of power had to be discovered.  This was the work of… More