Thomas Hobbes Political scientist and Fear's twin. Author of The Elements of Law and Leviathan.

Why Empower a Sovreign

Though most philosophers of current date agree that a Sovereign must be of absolute authority, they disagree on why. Here are my two cents.

Nothing in the Bible advocates the absolute authority of kings; in fact that is rarely mentioned. Some academics, like Robert Filmer, argue that the idea of Adam's dominion establishes the authority of a certain king, but this is a severe misinterpretation.

In my book, Leviathan, I argue that there is a secular reason to follow the authority of a sovereign, and that is out of the fear of harm from others and repercussions from said sovreign.

Objection to Meditations on First Philosophy

My colleague Descartes has published a rationalistic justification of human experience in his latest book. Essentially, he states that he knows that he exists because of an idea of a thinking substance, and we also know that God exists, since the idea of a perfect being can only come from one.

The first problem with this relates to the justification of God's existence which is used. It is perfectly possible to get the idea of God without God causing that idea.

My other issue is that since ideas are imagistic - they have to be based on a sensation - we have no idea of a thinking substance, and thus cannot justify our existence from an idea of ourselves.