Hobbes, Thomas (1588–1679)

By Sorell, Tom

Among the figures who were conscious of developing a new science in the seventeenth century, the Englishman Hobbes stands out as an innovator in ethics, politics and psychology. ...

Hobbes, Thomas (1588–1679)

Among the figures who were conscious of developing a new science in the seventeenth century, the Englishman Hobbes stands out as an innovator in ethics, politics and psychology. ...

Political philosophy

By Miller, David

Political philosophy can be defined as philosophical reflection on how best to arrange our collective life - our political institutions and our social practices, such as our economic ...

Schmitt, Carl (1888–1985)

By Dyzenhaus, David Ludovic

Carl Schmitt was a conservative critic of the Weimar Republic’s liberal-democratic constitution. After Hitler’s rise to power, he allied himself briefly to Nazism, and despite having fallen from ...

Honour

By Roberts, Julian

Honour consists in living up to the expectations of a group – in particular, in keeping faith, observing promises, and telling truth. This restriction to a particular group ...

Pufendorf, Samuel (1632–94)

By Ford, J.D.

Pufendorf was the first university professor of the law of nature and nations. His De iure naturae et gentium (On the Law of Nature and Nations) (1672) and ...

Cumberland, Richard (1632–1718)

By Haakonssen, Knud

Richard Cumberland developed his ideas in response to Hobbes’ Leviathan. He introduced concepts of aggregate goodness (later used in utilitarianism), of benevolence (used in moral-sense theory), of moral ...

Theology, political

By Lutz-Bachmann, Matthias

The concept of political theology was the subject of important controversies in European, and especially German, philosophy, social science and jurisprudence in the twentieth century. After the First ...

Cockburn, Catharine (1679–1749)

By Hutton, Sarah

Catharine Cockburn (Catharine Trotter) was a British moral philosopher who turned to philosophy after a successful career as one of the first woman playwrights. She wrote no substantial ...

Clandestine literature

By McKenna, Antony

Clandestine philosophical (anti-Christian) literature of the seventeenth century circulated in manuscript form until its publication by the philosophes in the later eighteenth century. Since research began, the ...

Charleton, Walter (1620–1707)

By Rogers, G.A.J.

The physician Walter Charleton was the first to introduce Epicurean atomism into England in the form advocated in France by Gassendi. Charleton’s version of atomism, although largely derivative, ...

Conway, Anne (c.1630–79)

By Hutton, Sarah

Anne Conway (née Finch) was the most important of the few English women who engaged in philosophy in the seventeenth century. Her reputation derives from one work published ...

Strauss, Leo (1899–1973)

By Drury, Shadia B.

Leo Strauss was a German-Jewish émigré political philosopher and historian of political thought, who wrote some fifteen books and eighty articles on the history of political thought from ...

Meaning and communication

By Blackburn, Simon

The two fundamental facts about language are that we use it to mean things and we use it to communicate. So the philosophy of language tries to explain ...

Murray, Andrew Howson (1905–97)

By Sweet, William

One of the leading South African philosophers of the twentieth century, Murray was best known as a public intellectual and for his work in political thought. He was ...

Enthusiasm

By Shaver, Robert

For much of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, enthusiasm denotes a state of (claimed) divine inspiration. The claimed inspiration is almost always seen by those who employ the ...

Chillingworth, William (1602–44)

By Milton, J.R.

Chillingworth was one of the most notable English-speaking contributors to debates between Protestants and Catholics in the seventeenth century. His use of a distinction between metaphysical and moral ...

Partiinost’

By Joravsky, David

Partiinost’ (Russian for partyness, often translated as party-mindedness, partisanship or party spirit) was long the controlling principle of Soviet Marxism. Though commonly identified with thought control, partiinost’ ...

Locke, John (1632–1704)

John Locke was the leading English philosopher of the late seventeenth century. His two major works, An Essay concerning Human Understanding and Two Treatises of ...