Comments on: About Hobbes http://www.theamericanconservative.com/mccarthy/2009/10/04/about-hobbes/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=about-hobbes www.ToryAnarchist.com Mon, 30 Jan 2012 11:59:48 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Aaron http://www.theamericanconservative.com/mccarthy/2009/10/04/about-hobbes/comment-page-1/#comment-1678 Aaron Mon, 05 Oct 2009 07:21:01 +0000 http://www.amconmag.com/mccarthy/?p=1438#comment-1678 I also liked that article. The book reviewed there sounds interesting. The article was surprisingly wrong, though, about Carl Schmitt. While it's true that Schmitt "credited" Hobbes for <i>inadvertently</i> opening the door to liberalism and depoliticization by way of Spinoza and others - that was in the book you bought - the claim that Schmitt did not see in Hobbes "the faintest glimmer of a kindred spirit" is the opposite of the truth. Schmitt, who's been called "the Hobbes of the twentieth century", once called Hobbes (I'm quoting from memory) "the greatest of all political thinkers, and perhaps the only truly systematic one". Schmitt often explicitly based his arguments on Hobbes. In the 1938 book you referred to, for instance, Schmitt uses Hobbes' critique of the Catholic doctrine of "indirect powers" as an esoteric criticism of the Nazi Party. Just my opinion, but if someone wants to see Hobbes' influence on Schmitt, then there are better places to start than that rather idiosyncratic book on leviathan. Schmitt's best-known and probably most influential book is, of those I've read, also his most "Hobbesian": <i>The Concept of the Political</i>. I also liked that article. The book reviewed there sounds interesting. The article was surprisingly wrong, though, about Carl Schmitt. While it’s true that Schmitt “credited” Hobbes for inadvertently opening the door to liberalism and depoliticization by way of Spinoza and others – that was in the book you bought – the claim that Schmitt did not see in Hobbes “the faintest glimmer of a kindred spirit” is the opposite of the truth. Schmitt, who’s been called “the Hobbes of the twentieth century”, once called Hobbes (I’m quoting from memory) “the greatest of all political thinkers, and perhaps the only truly systematic one”. Schmitt often explicitly based his arguments on Hobbes. In the 1938 book you referred to, for instance, Schmitt uses Hobbes’ critique of the Catholic doctrine of “indirect powers” as an esoteric criticism of the Nazi Party.

Just my opinion, but if someone wants to see Hobbes’ influence on Schmitt, then there are better places to start than that rather idiosyncratic book on leviathan. Schmitt’s best-known and probably most influential book is, of those I’ve read, also his most “Hobbesian”: The Concept of the Political.

]]>