TEHRAN-The Persian translation of the book “The Political Philosophy of Hobbes: Its Basis and Its Genesis” written by Leo Strauss has been released in the bookstores across Iran.

Yashar Jeyrani has translated the book and Ghoghnoos Publishing House has brought it out in 246 pages, ILNA reported.

In this classic analysis, Leo Strauss pinpoints what is original and innovative in the political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes. He argues that Hobbes's ideas arose not from tradition or science but from his own deep knowledge and experience of human nature.

Tracing the development of Hobbes's moral doctrine from his early writings to his major work “Leviathan,” Strauss explains contradictions in the body of Hobbes's work and discovers startling connections between Hobbes and the thought of Plato, Thucydides, Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza, and Hegel.

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was an English philosopher, best known for his 1651 book “Leviathan,” in which he expounds an influential formulation of social contract theory. He is considered to be one of the founders of modern political philosophy.

Hobbes witnessed the destruction and brutality of the English Civil War from 1642 to 1651 between Parliamentarians and Royalists, which heavily influenced his advocacy for governance by an absolute sovereign in “Leviathan,” as the solution to human conflict and societal breakdown. Aside from social contract theory, “Leviathan” also popularized ideas such as the state of nature (war of all against all) and laws of nature. 

Hobbes contributed to a diverse array of fields, including history, jurisprudence, geometry, optics, theology, classical translations, ethics, and philosophy in general, marking him as a polymath. Despite controversies and challenges, including accusations of atheism and contentious debates with contemporaries, Hobbes's work profoundly influenced the understanding of political structure and human nature.

Leo Strauss (1899-1973) was an American scholar of political philosophy. Born in Germany to Jewish parents, Strauss later emigrated from Germany to the United States. He spent much of his career as a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, where he taught several generations of students and published fifteen books.

Trained in the neo-Kantian tradition with Ernst Cassirer and immersed in the work of the phenomenologists Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger, Strauss authored books on Spinoza and Hobbes, and articles on Maimonides and Al-Farabi. 

In the late 1930s, his research focused on the texts of Plato and Aristotle, retracing their interpretation through medieval Islamic and Jewish philosophy, and encouraging the application of those ideas to contemporary political theory.

Strauss's thought can be characterized by two main themes: the critique of modernity and the recovery of classical political philosophy. He argued that modernity, which emerged among the 15th century Italian city states particularly in the writings of Niccolo Machiavelli, was a radical break from the tradition of Western civilization, and that it led to a crisis of nihilism, relativism, historicism, and scientism.

He claimed that modern political and social sciences, which were based on empirical observation and rational analysis, failed to grasp the essential questions of human nature, morality, and justice, and that they reduced human beings to mere objects of manipulation and calculation. He also criticized modern liberalism, which he saw as a product of modernity, for its lack of moral and spiritual foundations, and for its tendency to undermine the authority of religion, tradition, and natural law.

SS/SAB