Hobbes and Modern Society: A Stylization of the Mercantile Individual

Abstract

In this article we intend to re-read and re-expose the work of Thomas Hobbes, with the aim of reinterpreting it from a particular field of knowledge, namely, the history of economic thought. We will depart from the following two hypothesis, while we try to justify them: 1) In a context of secularization of politics, reality and knowledge, within which religion begins to lose effect as a guarantee of moral viability, the authors of political philosophy, such as Hobbes, are wondering about the ground that guarantees the viability of this modern society; and, 2) Hobbes, in his state of nature, is performing a stylization of an individual that is specifically mercantile.