Thomas Hobbes
Davis Mullins
4.16.09
A1/B1
Thomas Hobbes was an English philosopher and one of the most original political thinkers in the seventeenth century. He lived in a time when the absolutism was coming to an end and democracy was emerging for society. Thomas Hobbes was born during the Elizabethan Age, on April 5, 1588. He was premature and his birthplace is in Wiltshire, England. According to Thomas’ Hobbes Biography webpage, it is believed that he was born prematurely due to the stress on his mother of the news of the soon coming Spanish Armada. He was named after his father, Thomas Hobbes. His father was a vicar (a clergyman who is in charge of the church) of Westport. After getting in a fight with another clergyman, he was forced to flee England. His father left his wife, Thomas, his brother, and their sister behind. On Stanford’s Encyclopedia of Philosophy, under Thomas Hobbes, it says his mother’s name is still unknown. After his father left, Hobbes was raised by his uncle, Francis Hobbes, who also educated him. When Thomas was six, he was already studying Latin and Greek. At fifteen, he was enrolled at Magdalen College, Oxford. He showed little interest in the philosophical elements of his study, Aristotelianism, the studies of Aristotle. While maps and charts kept his attention.
At the Thomas Hobbes Biography website, it says that after graduating Oxford in 1608, at 19 or 20, he became a private tutor for the eldest son of Lord Cavendish of Hardwick, William Cavendish. They gave him his own private library, foreign traveling and introduced him to people who would later on in life influence him. Since he had his own private library and did a lot of foreign traveling, he picked up some languages on the way, such as Italian and German. He then decided to devote his life to the scholarly pursuits. He devolved a big interest in the fates of nations and empires. His first work,...