Thomas Hobbes' forever war
Humankind must descend into anarchy unless governed by a tyrant, argued the English philosopher. Has democracy disproved Hobbes' diagnosis?
This is Who made our minds?, my Thursday essay probing the greatest, cruellest and most beautiful minds of the past 5,000 years, inspired by my book, The Soul: A History of the Human Mind (Penguin 2024). Coming up: Akhenaten, Buddha and Cicero.
‘To this war of every man against every man . . . nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justic…
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