Thomas Hobbes (1588 to 1679) was an English philosopher and political theorist, born in Westport near Malmesbury in Wiltshire. He is best known for Leviathan (1651), which sets out an influential form of social contract theory: because life without a common power would be a war of all against all, people consent to an absolute sovereign who keeps the peace. He had lived through the English Civil War and wrote with that conflict in mind. His other major works include De Cive (1642), De Corpore (1655) and De Homine (1658), and he also wrote on history, jurisprudence, optics, ethics and theology, translating Thucydides into English. He was accused of atheism and argued bitterly with contemporaries, yet he is counted among the founders of modern political philosophy.
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1. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Thomas Hobbes (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
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Thomas Hobbes was born on 5 April 1588.
View the Source 2. Thomas Hobbes (Wikipedia)
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was an English philosopher and political theorist
View the Source Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Wikipedia)
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Rousseau based his political philosophy on contract theory and his reading of Thomas Hobbes.
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