On The People In Dilemma Under Political Philosophy Of Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes is one of the most famous British philosophers in the 17th century. Although the value of his theory was not well understood and recognized in his lifetime, instead it became the conflict target of Church, Congress and other forces. With the time passing by, the meaning of his thoughts was finally known and accepted by the people and disseminates widely so that it is existing more or less in liberalism, totalitarianism and utilitarianism. Because of the qualities of the individualism in his thoughts, Hobbes's theory provided the important theory prop for the liberalism in the western thinkers' eyes. Oakeshott, the well-known contemporary neo-conservative thinkers in British, pointed out that Hobbes's individualism philosophy has laid the foundation for western liberalism in modern times by the way of the analysis of western political philosophy tradition in the introduction of Leviathan which was wtitten by Thomas Hobbes. Once Oakshott said that he thought that Hobbes was not a liberalist but his philosophy contained more liberalism than that of the theory which was advocated by the majority of liberalism initiators.Hobbes' masterpiece is Leviathan in which he has given the profound opinions on humanity, country and Christianity. However, the later generations have very different attitudes to the same ideology. On the one hand, some liberalists are excited to find that in Leviathan Hobbs liberated individualists from the theology of Plato, Aristotle and Christian in the political field while the liberation provides a powerful theoretic basis for the development of the individualism and the liberalism. On the other hand, some liberalists found that Thomas Hobbes save the individual rights rapidly and humbly give them to his ideal rulers—King after he empowered the abstract individual the basic power.For a long time the judgments on Hobbes have been categories into two: one thinks that he is the pioneer of liberalism, but the other regards his theory as the typical of autocracy thought. We will find Hobbes in his theory first saved the individual person from the formerly different kinds of purpose theory but impatiently deprived of their rights and transferred to the King in the name of "self-preservation" to completely if we neglect the arguments and care for Hobbes' theory itself. Until now Hobbes's theory seems to be caught in a dilemma. However, how we explain the dilemma and how the dilemma appears and so on is the problem which I want to discuss with you.