Nature in all its states. State of nature et civil war: Hobbes and the ancients, particularly Aristotle

Abstract

The theme of the civil war represents a privileged way of comparing the political analyses of the ancients and of the moderns. In this perspective, the usual anthropological oppositions can be considered in a different way letting unexpected convergences be seen. The importance of Thucydides for Hobbes’ reflection on civil war must be therefore underlined. We will also try to show that what Hobbes owes to Thucydides concerns the whole of his anthropology. We must therefore discuss again, taking this point of view, the facts of the opposition between the work of him who is considered to be one of the founders of the modern political thought and the political thought of the ancients, at least when we are dealing with philosophers of the classical age, particularly Aristotle.