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Abstract
Hobbes's theory of fear has two major implications for his political theory. One implication is how men's mutual fear is the source of a commonwealth by institution. The second implication is that sovereign power is the source of fear, and that sovereign power also uses that fear to govern people. These two implications have not been analyzed fully in past studies. In a way, a sovereign captures mutual fear reigning in a multitude and transforming it into a political tool designed for government of the subjects. Possessing the right and power to cause death, a sovereign takes the place of God on earth. A sovereign has certain expectations of citizens: they should obey and honour the sovereign as they obey and honour God. Analyzing Hobbes's concepts of mimesis, aisthesis and honouring reveals how Hobbes aimed to construct a political object, the State, that would effect the whole sense experience of the subject. It shows that Hobbes's political thought is not only a legal political thought, but is based also on a thoroughly new setting of esthetical, ontological and semiotic politics.
Notes
1. Concerning Hobbes's philosophy of mind and philosophy of language and their relation to his political doctrine, see recent publications such as Lemetti (2006), Weber (2007), Skinner (2008) and Pettit (2009). Although Skinner and Pettit write about fear in their books, they do not analyze it as an organizing theme of Hobbes's political philosophy, but instead refer to it only in passing comments. One of the most important articles concerning Hobbes's idea of fear is Jan H. Blits's Hobbesian Fear (1989). Blits does not, however, analyze very deeply the relationship between Hobbes's political doctrine and fear.
2. Most of the general presentations concerning Hobbes's philosophy such as Zarka (2001) and Sorell (1996) among many others, and biographies such as Reik (1977) and Martinich (2007), state that fear was a central element in his political philosophy and emphasize the importance of fear in Hobbes's political thought. See also for example two articles by Yishaiya Abosch (2006, 2009) who uses Hobbes's conception of fear and hope in his analysis of Hobbes's political theory.
3. See Esposito (2000, 37–8). It is however worthwhile to remember that writers such as René Descartes, Nicolas Malebranche and Baruch Spinoza wrote also deep philosophical analysis concerning emotions. Hobbes stands not alone as an inventor of the relationship between movements of the mind – or emotions – and political philosophy, since the theme was central for all Greek and Roman political philosophers. In the beginning of the modern age Hobbes however formulated this relationship in a new way and shed a light for a new kind of understanding between politics and emotions. Spinoza for example can be seen as a follower, interpreter and critique of Hobbes's political theory (see more in detail Lazzeri 1998).
4. Hobbes's major political works include The Elements of Law (or Human Nature and De Corpore Politico) written in 1640 (printed as two separate volumes in 1650), De Cive (On the Citizen) published in 1642 (with amendments in 1647), Leviathan published in 1651, Behemoth written in 1668 (published without Hobbes's authorization in 1679), ADialogue between philosopher and a student on the common law's of England written in 1666 (published 1681).
5. Hobbes himself called metaphysics and ontology as a philosophia prima. For a general outline of Hobbes's conception concerning metaphysics and the relation of metaphysics and politics, see Charles Yves Zarka (1999).
6. As Michel Foucault shows in his lectures of 1977–8 (Securité, territoire, population), the principle of the individual is a key to understanding the mechanisms of sovereign power, but as well disciplinary power and mechanisms of security (2004, 13–14).
7. This becomes evident for example from the introduction of Leviathan, where Hobbes writes that it is the quest of art (that is, the art of politics, art which can be found in Plato's Statesman) to create the almighty Leviathan: `Art goes yet further, imitating that rational and most excellent work of nature, man. It is by art that great LEVIATHAN called a Commonwealth, or STATE, [in Latin, Civitas] is created, which is but an artificial man'. And Hobbes goes further to say that ‘[t]o describe the nature of this artificial man, I will consider First, the matter thereof, and the artificer; both which is Man’ (Hobbes 1999, 7). Even though Hobbes supported the idea of an unchanging human nature, which he probably adopted from Thucydides (see Schaltter 1945, 357), it is obvious that his conception of human nature was a basis for political change.
8. Unlike David Heyd (1982, 290) suggests, emotions have their source in appetite and aversion and they also cause appetite and aversion. Again, involuntary motions, such as vital motions, are part of appetite and aversion, not excluded from them as Heyd argues.
9. In a way the whole development of modern science is about amplifying human senses: the microscope, telescope, stethoscope etc. Hobbes writes about microscopes and telescopes for example in De Homine (see Hobbes 1974, 131–42). This idea of technique is still at the centre of many developments of natural science. Hobbes's relation to empiricism was that he thought that there could be no conceptions in the human mind that does not have their source in sense experience. On the other hand, Hobbes's own philosophical analysis is based on the analysis of language and conceptual relationships (see Zarka 2001; Pettit 2009). Hence, it is worthwhile to note that Hobbes did not construct his philosophy on experiments, but on rational and linguistic calculation.
10. A critic and follower of Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote in his second discourse (Discours sur l'origine et les fondaments de l'inégalité parmi les hommes) in a similar way as Hobbes that the origin of all bad things in society was the camp fire, which made people gather together and perform for one another, singing and dancing. This is something that cultivates envy in human mind and makes them imitate the gestures of one another (Rousseau 2003, 96–108).
11. René Girard has studied lots of the concept of mimesis and his conception of mimesis and desire resemble Hobbes's view. Girard underlines that the principal object of the mimesis is the power of other's life (Girard 2006, 217; see also more generally 213–48).
12. Or so Hobbes claims. Scholastics were a very wide philosophical genre and some of the scholastics did not seriously consider the question of angels. Although, Thomas Aquinas did ponder the question in his Summa Theologiae (1981), see Questions 50–64.
13. For Carl Schmitt, who wrote about the state of exception in his Political Theology, the sovereign is the one who decides the state of exception. This means simply that sovereign can hold the law in its hands and decide about police operations or war (see Schmitt 2006). See also Giorgio Agamben's analysis concerning Schmitt's thought (Agamben 2005, 32–40).
14. Mediators between individuals are named as arbitrators already in the list of natural laws of De Cive. Arbitrators are necessary for the peace and both parties have to acknowledge the same arbitrator. In society the sovereign is the arbitrator and the principle of natural laws means simply that people have to accept that the sovereign mediates all relations between citizens if that is necessary (Hobbes 2003, 51–2). It could be said that decisions of the arbitrator or judge are in a principle arbitrary: they have no other source or cause than sovereignty itself. However, in practice they are more or less conventional, not purely arbitrary.
15. Civil law does not mean a particular law of this or that commonwealth, but the law of commonwealth generally. The word civil law is derived, Hobbes claims, from the name of the commander. In the case of civil law the commander is the persona civitatis, person of the commonwealth. The definition of the civil law is following:
16. Max Weber's definition of the State at the beginning of his Politics as a vocation lecture is that State has a monopoly of violence over a certain territory. Violence is a tool of power (Weber 2004).
17. Hannah Arendt writes in her Vita Activa (1998), that only the violence is mute, which is the reason why violence itself cannot ever be anything great.
18. See von Clausewitz (2000, 101–21, part I, par. 24). See also Foucault (1997, 41–6). Foucault says that von Clausewitz's famous principle is in fact a turnover of a general idea of politics in the seventeenth century, which understood politics as a continuum of war. In Hobbes's case we can detect that he especially wants to deny the relationship between war and politics. Politics is not a continuum of the war of everyman against everyman. In politics, according to Hobbes, there should be no rivalry of different sections. Politics is for Hobbes the same thing as government that is, governing the people.
19. Jeffrey R. Collins explains in his book The Allegiance of Thomas Hobbes that Hobbes's idea of civil religion was important for Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Hobbes's ideas of civil religion and the use of religion as an instrument of politics are derived from the humanist canon, both from Tacitus and Cicero, but also from Thucydides (Collins 2007, 36–57).
20. For a comprehensive analysis of the concept of honour, see Hobbes (1998, 58–65). Generally honour is a sign of power. Lisa T. Sarasohn (2000) has analyzed Hobbes's theory of honouring from the viewpoint of master and servant, that is, from the viewpoint of patronage. Sarasohn is not explicitly interested in the relationship between religious and political honouring.
21. In Leviathan Hobbes explains the principal causes of crime: ‘vain glory, or a foolish overrating of their own worth’ (Hobbes 1998, 196). Difference between worth or value and dignity is that sovereign power orders the dignity of a person (her place in social hierarchy) whereas worth is a depending on a context and opinions of the others. Valuing oneself too high definitely irritates others (1998, 59).
22. In Leviathan Hobbes states very explicitly that mutual equality on the state of nature is the source of war of every man against every man (1998, 82–3).
23. For example the Mesopotamian way of celebrating the day of the false king, which has different variations in many cultures of the Near-East. The Emperor's New Clothes is another popular example of mocking the sovereign. See also Girard (1998), who shows how these kinds of rites are a way to oust the violence of the community.
24. This idea stands in the very centre of the social contract. Hobbes writes:
25. Jacques Rancière has analyzed the question between politics and aisthesis. His idea is that the political aisthesis is a very complex set of esthetical and cognitive processes (such as memory, education etc.). Ranciére's viewpoint could be useful in the analysis of Hobbes's political thought (see Rancière 1995, 2000).
26. See Skinner (2004, 139–67). See also Heyd (1982) and Ewin (2001) who analyze Hobbes's theory of laughter but fail to show its relevance for his political theory.
27. See for example fine book by Barbara Ehrenreich (2007) that charts down the ways of resistance by joy and carnival demonstrations.
28. See Blits (1989) who clarifies Hobbes's theory of senses and his mind. Although Blits's article is inspiring and detailed, it fails to show how sovereign power affects the relationship between man and the world.