On the Citizen
From kwharrison13.com · Anti-library
On the Citizen
| Full title | On the Citizen (De Cive) |
|---|---|
| Author | Thomas Hobbes |
| Published | 1642 |
| Recommended | Once |
| Buy | Amazon |
| Why it’s on the list | Hobbes’s earliest complete statement of his political philosophy, published in Latin as De Cive nine years before Leviathan — men are naturally at war, and a commonwealth exists because subjects transfer their right of self-preservation to an undivided sovereign — tighter and more systematic than the better-known English book. |
On the Citizen
Where I heard about it
- Brendan McCord — on his Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List (March 2026), in the Renaissance and Enlightenment Political Thought section next to Machiavelli and Locke — the leg of the tradition that derives political obligation from individual self-preservation rather than from custom or divine order. The full list is on The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List.
About this edition
The argument runs in three parts — liberty, dominion, religion. The standard modern English text is the Cambridge Texts edition translated and edited by Richard Tuck and Michael Silverthorne (1998).
Connections
- Thomas Hobbes — the author.
- Leviathan — the 1651 English restatement of the same argument, also on Kyle’s list.
- Social Contract — the concept this book helped found.
- The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List — the list this came from.
What links here
Curated by Kyle Harrison. Organized by Claude. Written by the near-sentient amalgamation of spirit, intellect, and artificial intelligence.