Strauss on Hobbes and Origins of Modernity

Leo Strauss notes that Thomas Hobbes cannot be ignored because he is the originator of modernity. Here’s an excerpt from his essay, “On the Basis of Hobbes’s Political Philosophy,” (Chapter 7; What is Political Philosophy? by Leo Strauss):

"Nietzsche, who abhorred the modern ideas, saw very clearly that those ideas are of British origin. The admirer of Schopenhauer thought it equitable to look down with contempt on the British philosophers, in particular on Bacon and on Hobbes. Yet Bacon and Hobbes were the first philosophers of power, and Nietzsche’s own philosophy is philosophy of power. Was not “the will to power” so appealing because its true ancestry was ignored? Only Nietzsche’s successors restored the connection, which he had blurred, between the will to power and technology. But this connection is clearly visible in the origins of that philosophic tradition which Nietzsche continued or competed: the British tradition.

"It has become necessary to study Hobbes as the originator of modernity, i.e., to take his claim seriously. That is to say, if we understand ourselves correctly, we see that our perspective is identical with Hobbes’s perspective. Modern philosophy emerged in express opposition to classical philosophy. Only in the light of the quarrel between the ancients and the moderns can modernity be understood. By rediscovering the urgency of this quarrel, we return to the beginnings of modernity. Our perspective becomes identical with that of Hobbes, in so far as his perspective is not limited by his answer, the acceptance of the modern principle, but extends to his question, which is the quarrel between the ancients and the moderns."

Strauss sees Hobbes as a thinker who broke with the pre-modern heritage and ushered in a new type of social doctrine: the doctrine of modernity.