Reason and Desire After the Fall of Man

A Rereading of Hobbes’s Two Postulates of Human Nature

Bibliographic Data

ID20394381
AuthorsKody W Cooper (Texas State University, corresponding author)
Year2013
Volume26
Issue2
Pages107-129
Publication date2013-01-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueHobbes Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0921-5891 • E-ISSN: 1875-0257
PublisherWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1163/18750257-02602004
OpenAlexW2021652492
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited2

Hobbes claimed to have discovered two most certain ( certissima ) postulates of human nature: first, the postulate cupiditatis naturalis , whereby man demands private use of common things and second, the postulate rationis naturalis , which teaches man to avoid violent death or “fly contra-natural dissolution” as the greatest natural evil. From these two postulates, Hobbes claims to demonstrate “by most evident connection” his moral and civil doctrines. But the character of Hobbes’s two postulates and their role in grounding his political philosophy has been a flashpoint of contention. This is not surprising given what is at stake: our reading of these postulates will implicate our understanding of Hobbes’s most celebrated moral and political doctrines. In what follows, I take up Leo Strauss’s influential analysis of the Hobbes’s two postulates and identify some problems for Strauss’s interpretation. I then sketch a rereading of the two postulates in light of the Christian Aristotelian or Thomistic tradition of thought. I argue that Hobbes’s human nature teaching is not as radically novel as has often been thought.1

Epistemology · Natural law · Political philosophy · Politics · Sketch · State of nature · History · Law · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics · Political Theology and Sovereignty · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought