The Thinkers of the Enlightenment Tradition

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Recommended: Similarities between thomas hobbes and john locke views on state

In this essay I will make a critical comparison between Locke and Hobbes, their idea of how Europe as a civil society has changed through time. Also, what was their vision of epistemology, sovereignty, peace, slavery, human nature, and future directions in international politics. In conclusion, I will give an overall opinion and view on how Locke, and Hobbes’s view have impacted the international political thoughts in conclusion I will identify one of the two of which I can compare my political views with theirs.

The Enlightenment is the period in the history characterized by dramatic revolutions in science, philosophy, society and politics; these revolutions swept away the medieval world-view and ushered in our modern western world . In the period of the Enlightenment we can highlight a number of thinkers known as the philosophes among which are Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, Thomas Jefferson, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes and others. These philosophers were relevant to society, each in their own individuals’ ways opened a path for independent thoughts, for each contributed thoughts and ideas implements to create an intelligent and self-aware civilization that inspired the creation of the world first great democracies.

Thomas Hobbes and John Locke lived during different periods of time with different situations that in a sense provided them with different perspectives of the society. For Hobbes the states have to be involved because the human beings are not capable of respect the rules of society. “We all are part of the Leviatan (the State) in which we have a specific function depending of where we are located the closest to the head of the leviathan the most important is our role” . This is a very detailed way of explain...

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...as the obligation to maintain the peace and security and guarantee a continuous development, and if it needs to create certain regulations that could be categorized as radical but never violate the Declaration of Human Rights, let it be.

Works Cited

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy; http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/enlightenment/; Web

Hobbes, Thomas; “The Leviathan”; Public Domain; United States; http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3207; Web.

Class of June 6, 2011

From John Locke, 2nd Treatise of Civil Government (1689); Chapter VII – “Of Political or Civil Society” section 77.

Class of June 6, 2011

From John Locke, 2nd Treatise of Civil Government (1689) Chapter VII – “Of Political or Civil Society” section 85

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy; Section 1.2 Empiricism and the Enlightenment; http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/enlightenment/; Web

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