Love and the Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes's Critique of Platonic Eros

Abstract

Hobbes' understanding of love, and its significance for his political thought, has received insufficient attention. This article contends that Hobbes has a consistent and comprehensive teaching on love that directly repudiates what he regards as the Platonic teaching on eros. In attacking the Platonic idea of eros, Hobbes undermines a pillar of classical political philosophy and articulates a significant aspect of his new understanding of the passions in terms of power, which is itself a critical part of his new political science most famously presented in Leviathan.