DEMONS AND PRANKS IN THE KINGDOM OF THE LEVIATHAN

Abstract

The main objective of this paper – resulting from an academic speech at UFG (Universidade Federal de Goiás) -is to outline the importance of Thomas Hobbes’ most known political work: Leviathan. Taking the figure of a big marine monster, quite in the same sense of the biblical metaphor used in the dialogue between God and Job to introduce the danger or the benefit of a big power controlled by men, Hobbes’s arguments terrorized the Church but helped in creating new ways of thinking so to conceive the modern state. In the same movement, many other “demons” emerged to fight against religious power and also other forms of totalitarianism. Nevertheless, even shocking our conventional assumptions, Hobbes’ political work may be considered – among other liberal thinkers – a defense of individualism and many other aspects of civil order, which make him one of the most important contributor to modernity and also an essential source to think about our reality.