Early modern · 1588–1679
Who influenced Thomas Hobbes?
Influences and legacy
Imagined society as a contract escaping a war of all against all — the first modern political science.
Thomas Hobbes was influenced by Francis Bacon, Hugo Grotius and René Descartes, and went on to influence Margaret Cavendish, Baruch Spinoza and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. That is 6 lines of the 448 documented lines of influence between the 279 thinkers on this map.
Read on Wikipedia Portrait: John Michael Wright, Public domain See the whole map
Who was Thomas Hobbes?
Thomas Hobbes studied at Oxford, became tutor to the Cavendish family and travelled widely in Europe, where he met Galileo. Having watched the English Civil War tear the country apart, he argued in Leviathan (1651) that only an absolute sovereign can save people from conflict and collapse.
Leviathan gave an influential version of social contract theory and popularised the state of nature as a "war of all against all". His other works include the trilogy De Cive, De Corpore and De Homine. He also wrote on history, law, geometry, optics and theology, and despite charges of atheism he is counted among the founders of modern political philosophy.
Summarized from the lead of the Wikipedia article.
Who influenced Thomas Hobbes?
3 direct influences on this map, earliest first.
- Francis Bacon 1561–1626
- Hugo Grotius 1583–1645
- René Descartes 1596–1650
Who did Thomas Hobbes influence?
3 thinkers on this map draw directly on Thomas Hobbes.
- Margaret Cavendish 1623–1673
- Baruch Spinoza 1632–1677
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1712–1778
The line of teachers behind Thomas Hobbes
The longest documented line of influence ending at Thomas Hobbes runs 15 generations back, to Thales of Miletus.
Two steps away from Thomas Hobbes
Indirect influences
- Through René Descartes: Augustine of Hippo, Anselm of Canterbury, Al-Ghazali, Thomas Aquinas, Michel de Montaigne
- Through Hugo Grotius: Cicero
The second generation
Thomas Hobbes by the numbers
- Direct influences
- 3
- Direct followers
- 3 — #36 of 279 on this map
- Thinkers upstream
- 58
- Thinkers downstream
- 115
- Wikipedia languages
- 112 — #13 of 36 among early modern philosophers
- Card rarity
- Legendary
Questions about Thomas Hobbes
- Who influenced Thomas Hobbes?
- Francis Bacon, Hugo Grotius and René Descartes.
- Who did Thomas Hobbes influence?
- Margaret Cavendish, Baruch Spinoza and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
- When did Thomas Hobbes live?
- 1588–1679. The map files Thomas Hobbes under the early modern period.
- How rare is the Thomas Hobbes card?
- Wikipedia carries an article on Thomas Hobbes in 112 languages, which makes it a Legendary card. Legendary starts at 100 languages, Epic at 50 and Rare at 25.
More early modern philosophers
- René Descartes 1596–1650
- Immanuel Kant 1724–1804
- Voltaire 1694–1778
- Adam Smith 1723–1790
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1712–1778
- Niccolò Machiavelli 1469–1527
- Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz 1646–1716
- John Locke 1632–1704