The Platonian Leviathan

"In The Platonian Leviathan, Leon Harold Craig offers a radical re-interpretation of Hobbes's most famous and influential political treatise. Craig begins and concludes with substantial discussions of the Hobbesian features of Melville's Moby-Dick, however, the major portion of his text consists of a two-part commentary on Leviathan.

In 'The Problematical Leviathan, ' Craig critically assesses the metaphysical and psychological principles on which Hobbes supposedly based his political prescription, and shows them to be untenable. Craig also argues that Hobbes himself clearly does not subscribe to these principles, but uses them merely as the means of assimilating his new science of politics to the new Baconian-Cartesian natural science his prescribed regime is designed to promote and exploit. In Part Two, 'The Platonic Leviathan, ' Craig delineates the underlying 'Platonism' of Hobbes' thinking, especially regarding justice and the relationship between philosophy and politics. Dividing the two parts is an essay on Conrad's Heart of Darkness, illustrating the profound difference between the two 'States of Nature' - pre-civil and post-civil - that Hobbes's rhetoric conceals."--Pub. desc.

1. Curiosity about Causes and the Problem of Religion -- 2. Reality and the Problem of Materialism -- 3. The Aristotelian Analysis of Cause -- 4. The Human Psyche and the Problem of Chance -- 5. The Causes of a Commonwealth -- 6. Nature and the Problem of Teleology -- 7. The Essentials of Baconian Science -- 8. The Baconian Character of Hobbes's Political Project -- 9. Philosophy and the Problem of Determinism -- 10. Reason and the Problem of Revelation -- 11. Rationality and the Problem of Reason -- 12. Science and the Problem of Language -- 13. Honour and the Problem of Natural Law -- 14. Nobility and the Problem of Hedonism -- 15. Justice and the Problem of Regimes -- 16. Equity and the Problem of Egoism -- 17. The Crucial Paragraphy: Platonic Intimations -- 18. The Heartless Introduction: Hobbes's Disposable Physiology -- 19. The Original State of Nature: Hobbes's Palaeoanthropology -- 20. The Ever-Present State of Nature: Greeks versus Barbarians -- 21. The Nature of Men: Equality as a Useful Lie -- 22. The Place of Philosophy: The Kingship of Hobbes -- 23. A Colossus of Irony: The Latent Platonism of Leviathan.