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libraryofbabel 4 hours ago

GP here, I agree with you, my characterizations were both pretty casual to the point of flippancy. I could write y’all a deeper essay on this stuff, but hey, I have LLMs to herd, the 17th century wasn’t my period anyway, and there is already a massive amount of insightful writing about these two thinkers to dive into.

I would say Hobbes in particular is a complex and difficult and frankly eccentric thinker; don’t make the mistake of believing you understand him; he is weird. If you really want to grok the guy in the context of his culture and historical moment, you should just read Quentin Skinner. That’s hardcore intellectual history though; for the basics I’d just go for the clear and brief and informative Oxford Hobbes: A Very Short Introduction.

sebg 4 hours ago | parent [-]

To continue this discussion and to tie it into the original link, worth looking at this YouTube Video where "Jon Pike interviews Quentin Skinner about Thomas Hobbes' masterpiece Leviathan"...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PO3GB-RhA4