FERRUCCIO FOCHER

Hobbes  e lo stato della rivoluzione

N. 147

Summary - Hobbes’ political work, held to be the first theorization of the modern State, came into being during the same years and in the same country where the first political revolution, in the modern significance of the expression, takes place. This essay finds a link between the two events, not only historical but also logical: the State outlined by Hobbes, more than the ordinary absolute State of modern age, symbolizes the extraordinary State that will stem from modern revolutions. Realizing that the State might lose the loyalty of its subjects at any time, through an appeal to nature, or to reason, or to God, Hobbes elaborated a new theory of loyalty consisting in making these three principles void of meaning, that is, in the elimination of their potential politically dangerous influence. By this he made revolution impossible, but, with the revolution, he made impossible politics itself. With Hobbes, in fact, a process starts of separation between the political thought and the positive human reality. Politics from a tentative and innovating action is reduced to a mechanical substratum regulated by rigidly necessitating laws. It is useless, or inadmissible to resist to the logic of politics, and therefore of the State. Against this situation stands today an increasing number of politologists and philosophers of politics attracted anew by the political thought of the classical age.