Hobbes’s Leviathan as a Critique of Republican Theories of Liberty

11 July 2006

Professor Quentin Skinner

What is freedom? The philosopher Thomas Hobbes attempted to pin the concept down in his seminal work Leviathan, defining freedom as the absence of opposition, particularly the absence of external impediments to motion.

In this talk, Professor Quentin Skinner argued that this ‘negative’ understanding of freedom as non-interference is now so widely accepted that it is easy to forget that Hobbes’ original argument was intensely polemical. Professor Skinner attempted to excavate the missing side of the dialogue, uncovering the polemical motivations underlying Hobbes’s revolutionary account.

Broad Topics: Arts and Social Sciences

Sub-topics: Philosophy & Religion

Areas: University

Quentin Skinner is Regius Professor of Modern History, and Fellow of Christ’s College, University of Cambridge. He is interested in the intellectual history of early-modern Europe, specialising in the culture of the Renaissance and 17th Century political philosophy.

 Professor Skinner is also interested in such philosophical issues as historical explanation, the nature of interpretation more generally, and contemporary political theory, particularly the concept of political liberty and the character of the state. His books include two volumes on The Foundations of Modern Political Thought; Machiavelli; Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes; Liberty Before Liberalism; and three volumes on Visions of Politics.

Part of the 2006 Toyota-ANU Public Lecture Series