reason, the future, and sovereignty

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Reason, the Future, and Sovereignty: Hobbes and the Security of Time

Richard A. Lee, Jr.DePaul University

Chicago, IL

Abstract

In this paper I argue that Hobbes’s concern with security, the very issue that allows him to move from

the state of nature to the covenant for the commonwealth, is fundamentally related to the future. Thefuture, however, is only available to a capacity Hobbes consistently calls “reason.” Therefore, there is a

role for reason to play that is in an interesting way outside what is usually taken to be his materialistmetaphysics. I then chart the role that reason plays in Hobbes metaphysics and natural philosophy.



Reason, the Future, and Sovereignty: Hobbes and the Security of Time

One needs only visit Sicily briefly in order to be struck by a certain violent beauty and

beautiful violence. The land itself does not appear able to support life of any kind. And yet it

has been the scene of civilization going back centuries. Visiting Agrigento, an ancient Greek city

with remarkable temples, one is immediately struck by a fundamental truth of Greek religion—

the gods are seen as concentrations of violent power and their temples make that manifest.

Conquered by Greeks, Romans, Muslims, Normans, and even Americans, Sicily's history

matches its geography—it is the site of the exercise of violent power. It is no wonder that in this

context something like the Mafia emerges. As depicted in a film like “The Godfather” or a

television series like “The Sopranos,” this form of life is not anarchic, operating without norms

or rules, but rather is carried along by a relentless logic of power, force, or violence. Take, for

example, Michael Corleone's claim in the first part of “The Godfather” triology that he will

“make the family legitimate.” He insists to his future wife that his only goal is to take the family

—in both senses, i.e., his own family and the mafia “family”—out of this logic of violence that

functions outside of what he sees as “legitimate society.” Yet he is prevented from this task by

the other mafia families who perceive his intention as a certain weakness. So, his first act on the

path to legitimacy is to brutally murder all of his enemies—and this while he is standing in

church while his nephew and godson is being baptized! The rest of the story, through all three

films, shows just how relentless this logic is—power, whether criminal or seemingly legitimate,

is required to secure the future. However, the security of the future requires the acquisition of

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ever more power, and this acquisition of power is, in the end, the only thing that distinguishes

legitimate from illegitimate. It turns out to be true that “might makes right!”

This, too, is the lesson we learn from Hobbes' political philosophy. And if we can feel

easily confident that thankfully Hobbes is behind us, we need only reflect on the actions and

proclamations of the regime of George W. Bush in the U.S. It is easy, and also quite comforting,

to think that he was a stupid man who could only recognize the law of the strongest and who was

deaf and blind to any sense of right and law that is based on principles other than power and

violence. He was and is, indeed, all of this. Yet we should certainly pause to reflect on whether

the logic that he made explicit is not implicit in other forms of political discourse and action that

seem to be quite far from his. Throughout the world, from China to Canada, and even in Europe,

we hear worries expressed that we need to handle this economic crisis for the sake of the future

—future prosperity, future security. And one hears all over the world that we have to work now

to protect our children from worse suffering in the future—let's not pass off debt to future

generations.1 This is the logic that, I argue, should cause us to worry, for it is the same logic that

George W. Bush pursued to its logical conclusion, and with Hobbes offering theoretical support.2

As long as the future is the basis of politics, Bushism is not far away as the logical result. This

reliance on the future as the basis of politics is the main contribution of Hobbes to political

discourse and it is to him we must return in order to understand its mode of operation. In order

1The connection between the future, security, and the figure of the child is brought out with great clarity in Lee

Edelman, No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004).

2 It is by no means my intention to argue that G.W. Bush was a scholar of Hobbes, though it is interesting that

many of his advisors had a Straussian heritage that might indicate that there was a Hobbesian background to

many of his actions and policies.

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to do this, I will pursue a specific course through Hobbes. First, I will investigate the crucial

move in the Leviathan from the state of war through natural right to natural law. This movement

relies on an appeal to reason, I argue, as the only capacity capable of grasping the future. As

such, we will be required to trace this concept of reason back to his De Corpore in order to see

how a materialist, such as Hobbes, is able to mobilize a capacity that seems to stand outside of

matter altogether. Here we will see a certain relation between reason, the future, and power. We

can then return to the lessons of the Leviathan to see the consequences of this logic of securing

the future.

From Warre to Sovereignty

Hobbes concludes the first part of the Leviathan, Of Man, with a trajectory that begins

with the “natural condition of mankind” in Chapter 13, and moves from that condition to a

discussion of natural right, i.e., the rights that one has on the basis of this natural condition alone.

This natural right is “the liberty each man hath to use his own power, as he will himself, for the

preservation of his own nature, that is to say, of his own life, and consequently of doing anything

which, in his own judgment and reason, he shall conceive to be the aptest means thereunto.”1

This right, Hobbes indicates, does not bind action, but is simply the freedom to do or not do as

one wills. This right is natural because the natural human condition is one of a war of everyone

against everyone arising from the relative and general equality that exists among humans.

However, equality itself is not a cause of war. Rather, the main cause of war is desire in relation

1 Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. Edwin Curley, (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1994, 79. Hereafter,

this will be cited as “Lev.” followed by page number and often inserted in the body of the text.

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to this equality. It is only when two people desire the same object that, since they are roughly

equal in ability and power, the condition Hobbes calls “diffidence” arises. “And therefore, if any

two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become

enemies; and in the way to their end, which is principally their own conservation, and sometimes

their delectation only, endeavour to destroy or subdue one another” (Lev. 75). From conditions

that belong to humans as such, namely desiring objects and striving to preserve existence, indeed

desiring things as a means of persevering in existence, the result is a distrust of one another. This

distrust requires that I work to secure my life—as all beings strive to maintain their existence.

The task of security, however, introduces a temporal element into preservation and

perserverance; for security projects preservation into the future. I subdue or destroy the other

because I fear that they will, in the future, take what I desire. Therefore, this futural projection is

already built into the notion of desire, since desire itself is a motion, an endeavor ( conatus)

toward an object that is the cause of this motion.1 Since desire is motion, a temporal structure

already belongs to it, as time belongs to all motion. But furthermore, Hobbes argues that this

“diffidence” emerges from a hope of attaining the object toward which desire moves. Hope, in

turn, is nothing but the motion of desire along with an opinion that I might attain the object

toward which I am moved (Lev. 30). So the hope at the core of diffidence inserts an additional

futural element into desire beyond the element that belongs to all motion.

In this way, there is a twofold futural dimension at work in this diffidence. On the one

hand, there is the future implicit in motion as motion. More troubling for the one desiring,

1 Hobbes discusses desire in Chapter 6 of Leviathan (Lev. 28). It is one of the primary “animal motions” upon

which all other passions depend.

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however, is the recognition that others will strive to take the fruits of my labor and even my own

life in the struggle to preserve their own. This means, therefore, that in order to preserve my life,

I must secure myself, that is, project my preservation into the future. “And from this diffidence

of one another, there is no way for any man to secure himself so reasonable as anticipation, that

is, by force or wiles to master the persons of all men he can, so long till he see no other power so

great enough to endanger him” (Lev. 75). That is, because all are working to preserve their own

lives, I must not only work in the present to do the same, but act in the present so as to secure, in

the future, the possibility of preservation. This entails that I constantly seek to gain more power,

as that is the means to obtain “some future apparent good” (Lev. 50).

Because of the need to gain power for security, the state of war is founded upon the

projection of my endeavor to preserve existence into the future. This projection, however,

rebounds back to the present and causes me to increase my power so as to secure the future

possibilities of preservation. In this condition, everyone has a “right to everything, even to one

another's body” (Lev. 80). This right, however, does not follow immediately from the natural

condition, but only from the projection of preservation into the future. This is what Hobbes calls

“security.” But it is this same projection that leads Hobbes from natural right to natural law. As

long as this natural right is taken by everyone, “there can be no security to any man (how strong

or wise soever he be) of living out the time nature ordinarily alloweth men to live” (Lev. 80). In

a sense, when I project this very projection, I recognize that, no matter how much power I

acquire, I will never be able to secure myself, and therefore the possibility of preserving my life

in the future is threatened. The very conditions of security, therefore, make me insecure. “And

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consequently it is a precept or general rule of reason that every man ought to endeavour peace,

as far as he has hope of obtaining it, and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek and use all

helps and advantages of war ” (Lev. 80).

It is not the case that this first law of nature, “seek peace and follow it” is logically

derived immediately from the right of nature. Rather, there is a fundamental difference between

a natural right and natural law. Or, more specifically still, a two-fold difference emerges, one

that Hobbes makes explicit and one that remains implicit. As I mentioned above, the distinction

Hobbes draws between law and right has to do with whether it binds one to a particular action. A

right is simply the freedom or liberty to do or to not do, but it does not bind one to either. A law,

on the other hand, binds one to one side.1 So the natural right of everyone to everything—even

to another’s person—does not bind me to take possession of that to which I have a right. The

law of nature, on the other hand, binds or determines me to seek peace and follow it. What is it

that so determines the action? What is the binding force of this law of nature?

Between the natural right to everything and the law to seek peace and follow it, Hobbes

has inserted the “precept or general rule, of reason” to endeavor peace when possible and to

make war when peace is not possible. Hobbes insists that the first part, endeavor peace when

possible, leads to the first law of nature, while the second part reiterates the natural right of

everyone to everything. That is, when peace is not possible, I then still have the right to make

1 This discussion occurs at Lev., 79. There is much debate in the literature over the source of obligation in Hobbes.Perhaps the origin of the debate was A. E Taylor, “The Ethical Doctrine of Hobbes,” Philosophy Philosophy 13,

no. 52 (1938). For an interesting analysis of this see Tarlton C.D., “Rehabilitating Hobbes: Obligation, Anti-

fascism and the Myth of a `Taylor Thesis’,” History of Political Thought 19, no. 3 (1998): 407–438. Taylor’s

thesis was rehabilitated by Howard Warrender, The Political Philosophy of Hobbes, His Theory of Obligation.

(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957). One could also helpfully consult Richard Tuck, “Hobbes Moral Philosophy,” in

The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 175–207.

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war, the right that belongs to me because of the natural condition. Indeed, the situation is even

more complicated. The first law of nature obligates one to seek peace only to the extent possible.

Where it is not possible, the natural right to make war now emerges as an obligation and thus a

law. So if the natural right continues within this precept, what, again, is the binding force of the

first law of nature? The general precept indicates only one thing: that reason discovers that one

can never acquire enough power to secure oneself. Yet why is this general rule one of reason and

not of nature?

The Work of Reason

We began this investigation, as it were, in media res. The Leviathan, unlike the earlier De Cive,

does not begin with the discussion of the natural condition of humans, but rather with a

discussion of sensation. This structure is also found in the Elements of the Laws.1 Part I of the

Leviathan appears to move in a deductive fashion from sensation to imagination (which turns out

to be the same), to the train of thoughts, speech, and reason. At the end of this discussion, having

to do with what me might call the cognitive faculties, Hobbes then turns to a discussion of the

passions, or what he calls, “the interior beginnings of voluntary motions.” This follows a line in

the strict sense, namely the line of motion starting from the object, leading to sensation in us, and

finally to the passions, which simply follow as an effect of that same motion begun by the object.

So there is an intimate connection between sensation, imagination, and the passions:

1 This text can be found in Thomas Hobbes, Tripos; in three Discourses, ed. William Molesworth, The English

Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury v. 4, (London: 1839). This text will be cited as EL followed by page

number, even in the body of the text.

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motion. This connection is clearer, for example, in the Elements of the Laws: “...conceptions and

apparitions are nothing really, but motion in some internal substance of the head; which motion

not stopping there, but proceeding to the heart , of necessity must either help or hinder the motion

which is called vital ; when it helpeth, it is called delight, contentment, or pleasure...” (EL, 31).

In Leviathan, Hobbes draws out another connection between sensation and the passions: “And

because going , speaking , and the like voluntary motions depend always upon a precedent

thought of whither , which way, and what , it is evident that the imagination is the first internal

beginning of all voluntary motion” (Lev. 27). In this way, it is clear why Hobbes begins

Leviathan with sense and moves to knowledge and then the passions of the soul, this last leading

directly to the covenant for peace. Hobbes is simply following out the effects that the motion of

bodies have, including our own bodies, on other bodies.

However, there is still something odd, at least methodologically. We can mark this oddity

in two ways that I will argue are, in fact, connected. First, I have been pointing out the role that

the future plays in Hobbes' move from natural right to natural law. But if all ideas, conceptions,

and knowledge are from the motion of bodies, and sensation is nothing but the effect of this

motion, then knowledge can only be of the present or past. Hobbes acknowledges this in his

discussion of the consequences or the train of thoughts: “The present only has a being in nature;

things past have a being only in memory; but things to come have not being at all, the future

being a fiction of the mind, applying the sequels [consequences] of actions past; which with most

certainty is done by him that has most experience, but not with certainty enough” (Lev. 14). In

this way, the very reliance of natural law on a futural projection seems to be problematic, as the

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future has no reality and therefore is always marked by uncertainty, the very uncertainty that

grounded Hobbes’s move to security..

Equally problematic, if not more so, is the question of the methodological site one would

have to occupy in order to say, as Hobbes does at the very start of the Leviathan, that human

thoughts, and therefore passions, are “a representation or appearance, of some quality or

accident of a body without [outside] us, which is commonly called an object. Which object

worketh on the eyes, ears, and other parts of a man's body, and by diversity of working produceth

diversity of appearances” (Lev. 6). That is, is the analysis of sensation, which leads directly to

the analysis of the passions, possible from within sensation itself? Do I not need another

position or site from which the analysis can proceed? Otherwise, is there not the risk that the

statement concerning the origin of knowledge in sensation is simply a posit, and not an

explanation or analysis? One could say that sensation itself provides one merely with a flat plane

of manifestation, and from this flat plane, one would be unable to give an account of that

manifestation or the plane on which it occurs.

Hobbes recognizes this problem is two ways. First, he recognizes that the thought of the

future is actually the thought of a present power that is able to produce something that it has not

yet produced (EL, 37). Second, but directly related to this, Hobbes understands philosophy itself

to think exactly this kind of power. In De Corpore, Hobbes offers this definition of philosophy:

“Philosophy is the knowledge [cognitio], acquired through right ratiocination, of effects or

phenomena from their conceived causes, and on the other hand of the generations, which are able

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to be, from known effects.”1 On the face of it, this definition seems to agree with the traditional

definition going back as far as Aristotle, namely that “we say we know something when we

know it's causes.” Hobbes' definition, however, works in both directions: from cause to effect

and from effect to cause.2 Both directions deal with effects, either as that which is presupposed

as already known or as that which is sought. But effects, for Hobbes, are nothing more than

powers of bodies, i.e., effects are the ways in which the power of some body acts on some other

body. Given an effect, one can always reason back to a power that was capable of producing that

effect. This is why one needs to take seriously the way in which Hobbes consistently conjoins

the term “effect” with the term “phenomenon,” so that he always writes “effectus sive/ seu

phaenomena” or “effectus et phaenomena.” An effect is always the manifestation of some

power, and in this way is the appearing of that power such that appearance just is force or power.

This equation, in fact, is what leads to the difficulty of its analysis, of finding its causes. If we

think of phenomena in terms of sensation, that is only because sensation is an effect that bodies

have on our bodies. Sensation, however, is but one form of the manifestation of the power of

bodies. Every effect is an appearance or manifestation of some kind.

This power of bodies, therefore, is the same as their action. That is, potentia and actus

are identical, but name only diverse forms of consideration. “And thus the power [ potentia] of

an agent and efficient cause are the same in reality. They differ, however, by consideration. For

it is called cause with regard to an effect already produced , a power [ potentia] indeed with1 Thomas Hobbes, De Corpore: Elemtentorum Philosophiae sectio prima, ed. Karl Schuhmann, (Paris: Librairie

Philosophique J. Vrin, 1999). This text will be cited as De Corp. followed by part number, chapter, paragraph

and page number, also in the body of the text.

2 Aristotle talks of a demonstration working in both directions in Posterior Analytics. Hobbes, however, takes

these two kinds of demonstration to be philosophy itself. Aristotle, on his part, does not equate philosophy with

demonstration.

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respect to producing the same effect; thus as cause it regards the past , as power it regards the

future” (De Corp. II, 10, 1, p. 100). It is, therefore, always toward the future that power directs

us.

But how is it that we can determine that something has the power to produce an effect

that it is not actually, in the present, producing? Hobbes needs a certain doubling, i.e., a move to

a site outside of appearing, of phenomena, of manifestation, in order to chart the causes of

manifestation. “And thus the first principles of all science are the phantasms of sense and

imagination, which we certainly know naturally that they are; to know why, however, they are or

from what causes they proceed is the work of ratiocination, which consists in composition and

division or resolution” (De Corp. I, 6, 1, p. 58). The effects, the manifestations of power, are

known to us without further ado, but the knowledge of how this happens, of the causes, belongs

not to sensation but to reason. Reason, therefore, must stand outside the play of forces that is

effects or phenomena. Since sensation, imagination, and ideas are all themselves effects or

phenomena, they alone cannot comprehend their causes: “nor do the varieties of things perceived

by sense such as color, sound, taste, etc., have a cause other than motion contained partly in the

acting object, partly in the ones sensing; so that nevertheless, since it is a kind of motion we

cannot know what kind without resolution” (De Corp. I, 6, 5, p. 60).

This ratiocination is a calculation, not with numbers, but either with names or ideas. For

example, seeing something at a distance, there is caused in me that idea on account of which the

name “body” has been imposed. Then, at less distance, I see that it is moving, and thus the idea

“animated” is caused. Then I hear this body talking and I have the idea “rational.” I can thus

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compose these ideas into one name, “animated, rational body” or, simply “human.” Resolution

works in the opposite direction, generating ever more universal and simple ideas from out of a

complex and less universal one. Through this composing or resolving, we can discover the

causes of phenomena, causes that are unavailable to sensation itself. If, for example, we would

like to know the cause of something sensed, for example a human, we need to resolve that idea

into its parts—figure, quantity, motion, sensation—“which composed at the same time constitute

the whole human” (De Corp. I, 6, 2, p. 58). Therefore, only by resolution do we arrive at these

simple ideas that are, in the end, the causes of less universal things—motion being the most

universal cause of all.

In Part IV of De Corpore, Hobbes defines sensation as “the phantasm made through

reaction, by the conatus toward the outside, which is generated by the conatus of the object

toward the inside, and by that remaining for some time” (De Corp. IV, 25, 2, p. 269). This

definition exhibits the causes of sensation. However, this definition depends on the acquisition

of simple ideas like body, conatus, reaction, and time. These ideas are not caused immediately

by sensation, but emerge only out of the process of resolution. Yet because we are caught

constantly in the flow of appearances or manifestation, we need a tool to stop that flow in order

to allow a proper resolution. “We best begin the doctrine of nature from privation, that is, from

the fiction of the destruction of the universe” (De Corp. II, 7, 1, p. 75). This construction of the

supposed annihilation of the universe allows for an ultimate kind of resolution, for it allows one

to see phantasms, i.e., effects, for what they are. From within the flow of appearances, things

seem to be outside of me and independent of any power of my soul. However, with the supposed

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annihilation of the universe, I am able to treat phantasms as internal to my soul.1 Since sensation

is a conatus with a direction outward, it carries along with itself the presumption that the things

sensed exist or stand outside my soul. If I suppose the annihilation of the universe, then this

presumption is interrupted. It is with this interruption that, for the first time, we can recognize

that our phantasms can be considered either as accidents of our soul or as things appearing to

exist outside of our soul.

This second way of considering phantasms allows us to consider what belongs to this

assumption that things stand outside our soul. The first condition is that of space: “If we would

remember or have a phantasm of some thing, which existed before the supposed annihilation of

external things, and we do not want to consider how that thing was, but simply that it was outside

the soul, we have that which we call Space, certainly imaginary, because merely a phantasm, but

nevertheless that itself that is called space by all” (De Corp. II, 7, 2, p. 76). The imagined

annihilation of the universe, therefore, allows Hobbes to interrupt the flow of appearances in

order to be able to resolve those appearances into the simple, universal, and fundamental ideas or

concepts that allow him to trace manifestation to its causes. This maneuver is necessary because,

as Hobbes has already argued, from the ideas that are generated from sensation, we cannot get

behind sensation to its causes.

From the annihilation of the universe, and the concept of space that derives from it, we

1 A similar move, I would argue, happens in Descartes' Meditations, where he is able to cut off the automatic

ontological commitment that he argues belongs to ideas. One can find a similar argument in Yves Charles Zarka,

La Décision Métaphysique de Hobbes (Paris: J. Vrin, 1999), 36–58. Zarka also looks at this fictional annihilation

of the world in relation to the later medieval concept of the absolute power of God. His point there is similar to

mine, namely that this fiction allows us to separate our representations of the world from the flow of causation

that brings them to appear to us.

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can take another step in the thought experiment, that is, we can imagine something to be replaced

into the universe or created anew. If we imagine something to be put back into this universe,

where there is only space, we must immediately recognize that this thing would occupy some

amount of space and also that it would be something that does not depend on our imagination.

“This, however, is that which is accustomed to be called, certainly on account of extension,

Body, however on account of the independence from our thought subsisting per se, and

furthermore because it subsists outside, existing ...”(DeCorp. II, VIII, 1, p. 82). But already with

these two concepts, had by combination of resolution and the thought experiment of the

annihilation of the universe, a third one emerges. If we think of the difference between a body

and the space it occupies, we recognize that the body and its space are different, for we can think

of the body in a different space. Therefore, we can uncover the concept of accident, for the space

a body occupies is an accident of it. If I ask, how does it happen (accidit ) that one part of this

body appears in one place and another part in another place, then the answer is “because of its

extension.” Yet notice that this is an answer to how it appears, and in this way, such an accident

is a faculty of a body by which it impresses its concept in us (De Corp. II, 8, 2, p. 83). Or, more

simply we could say that an accident is a way of conceiving a body.

The concept of accident is crucial in Hobbes' understanding of the concept of cause. We

call a cause a body that generates or destroys an accident in another body, or in another part of

the same body. This causation is always motion of some kind. As we have seen, a cause only

operates when it is “applied” to another body. Abstracted from this application, a cause is a

power ( potentia) of producing or destroying some effect. As such, “power” always points to the

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future, but is in reality the same as cause. This attitude toward the future that is power, however,

emerges only through this work of reason that we have been carrying out in what Hobbes calls

“First Philosophy.” With these basic concepts in hand, Hobbes can now deploy them in an

analysis of motion. We have not yet returned to appearances, however. Still, in this analysis, we

are pursuing a resolutive method that allows us to uncover the simple and universal causes and to

construct effects on the basis of these causes.

When Hobbes turns, then, to a discussion of appearance, i.e., to physics or the phenomena

of nature, he pursues a different method. Since phenomena are “whatever appears or is shown

(ostensa) us by nature,”1 we are unable to discover the actual causes of this effect, namely the

appearing of things. We can, however, discover the possible causes. That sensation could be

caused in this way, however, tells us something essential about sensation. Discovering these

features, in turn, allows us to see what belongs to manifestation or, as Hobbes writes to

phainestai.

The analysis of manifestation returns us back to what I earlier called the play of forces

because sensation is always resistance of the conatus belonging to my body or a part of it, to the

conatus of another body. Appearing, then, is the result of this, or, more accurately, is just this

resistance. A conatus, an endeavor, for Hobbes, is the “small beginning of motion.” As such,

conatus not only has magnitude, i.e., velocity, but also direction. Since in sensation these two

endeavors are contrary, otherwise there would not be resistance, they must move in different

directions. The motion of the “object” is directed “inward” while the motion of my organs is

1 De Corp., IV, 25, 1, p. 268.

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directed “outward.” Because of the outward direction of the conatus of my organ, the object

“appears,” or “shows itself,” but outside of the organ and outside of my body. This endeavor on

my part is what Hobbes calls “vital motion.”

The vital motion that is affected by sensation constitutes the passions. That is, the

sensation that my sensations affect my vital motion, either positively or negatively, is a passion.

So the issue of my own well being concerns my sensation of my vital motion, i.e., my passions.

These passions are caused by sensations, together with my vital motion, and so my care for my

own well being is carried out on the plane of manifestation. Sensation as such is always only

either present or past, i.e., sensation, imagination, or memory. Yet passions often project a

future. Fear, for example, projects an impingement on my vital motion into the future.

Diffidence, as we saw, projects a future in which my power to acquire what I desire for my life

and well being is in question.

The passions are the beginnings of all voluntary motions. When my aversion is projected

into an uncertain future, I act so as to try to secure that future, i.e., to make it less uncertain. This

is the condition Hobbes called the war of all against all. It takes place on the plane of

manifestation and purely through manifestation, because my projected aversion is a present

passion, namely fear and diffidence, that causes me to act in the present in order to secure the

future. There is no actual battle, except an actual battle of passions.1 Because sensation and the

1 This is a counter-argument to Michel Foucault, Il faut défendre la société: cours au Collège de France, 1975-1976 (Paris: Gallimard/Seuil, 1997); Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the Collège de

France, 1975-76 , ed. Alessandro Fontana and François Ewald, trans. David Macey (New York: Picador, 2003).

In this course, Foucault argues that there is no actual battle, no actual war in Hobbes’s Leviathan. Against this, I

am arguing that Foucault does not recognize the actuality and reality of the passions and the role they play in the

war of all against all. Furthermore, I am arguing here the further point that in a certain sense the sovereign is

engaged in an actual war against the subjects of the commonwealth.

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passions are both bodily, the war of passions is also a war of bodies, a war of bodily sensations

and passions. Without certainty of the future, which can only be brought by projecting

something other than fear into the future, I continuously act as if I am in battle. More

specifically, I act more strategically than if I were in an actual battle, for as long as battle does

not break out, I can make plans, lay traps, and use other wiles to secure my future. Still, the only

real security and safety lie in the use of my power to secure my future existence and well being.

And for this, reason is required.

This we may call a politics of bodies, namely the way in which my body is affected on

the plane of manifestation by manifestation. It is a politics of force brought about by an

uncertain future. The solution to this state of war, however, is to covenant to lay down my right

to force, as long as others do so as well, and transfer that right to the sovereign, thereby

constituting the body politic. This solution, however, takes place not entirely on the plane of

manifestation, “For the Lawes of Nature…of themselves, without the terrour of some Power to

cause them to be observed, are contrary to our naturall Passions…” (Leviathan, 93). So while

the natural right to force describes the play of manifestation, the natural law to seek peace and to

covenant requires the work of reason. Reason intervenes to break the play of manifestations, just

as it did in the fictive annihilation of the universe. Since reason can discover the possible causes

of effects and the possible effects of causes, reason always is opened toward a future which is

not, as futural, manifest. So reason enters the play of forces, and puts a momentary end to this

play of manifestation.

In order to secure one’s life and well being in the future, the play of manifestation must

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be directed , i.e., disciplined. However, since passion is what brings about the state of war, the

sovereign has as its primary responsibility the direction of passions. Thus, in the body politic,

the politics of bodies re-emerges in the form of the discipline of the passions. The war goes on,

now, however, it is a war that reason has directed toward individuals such that the play of forces

is put in the hands of the sovereign to direct the passions of the citizens so as to achieve safety

and security. The sovereign's sole purpose, therefore, is to use force to redirect the passions of

humans who would otherwise act out of fear and diffidence and thereby bring about once again

the state of war.

The state of war, therefore, is reconstituted in the commonwealth, precisely because the

sovereign receives the right to use force to direct the passions of the subjects. However, the

sovereign also has the right, indeed almost an obligation, to use force to ensure the safety and

security of its subjects, and therefore has the right to use actual violence to secure the

commonwealth. That is, the move from the state of war of all against all to the commonwealth, a

move made possible by reason, brings the actual use of violence to the fore for the first time.

This is required because once all give up their right to use violence, the only insurance that

violence will not erupt is if the sovereign uses violence to prevent it. So fear is once again that

which directs passions and action, but in the commonwealth fear is directed only at the

sovereign, who, through this fear, upholds the covenant of each to lay down their natural right to

force.

This we may call the politics of the commonwealth and it is the continuation of the fear

that emerged in the politics of bodies. The commonwealth, however, differs in that it directs the

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fear so as to secure a more certain future. The result is that the sovereign must continually inject

the passion of fear into the play of manifestations in order to uphold the covenant. This fear can

be brought about through punishment, but it can also be brought about through the fear that

smoking kills, swine flu is coming, homosexuals want to adopt our children, and especially that

an enemy who mostly refuses to fight is consistently plotting against us, both abroad, and more

importantly, in our very midst. We are threatened, so the sovereign must say, both from within

and without. In such a situation, we can tolerate no dissent, because dissension leads to an

inability to fight, because it results in the denial of the authority of the sovereign. But we must

tolerate the fact that all other ends that reason might put forth must be given up in order to ensure

safety and security. Since reason is not bound to the play of manifestation, it is also able to

propound other ends. Yet the sovereign is given the right to deny the pursuit of these other ends

so as to ensure the end of security.

So the war without end continues, even, and especially, within the commonwealth. But

the war is necessary if there is to be security and safety. Reason has shown us that without

security no other end can be pursued. But Hobbes Leviathan shows us that the priority of

security over any other end that reason might propound prevents the pursuit of those other ends.

We are caught therefore, in the vicious circle of security: without it, no other ends can be

pursued, with it no other ends can be pursued. This is entirely the danger with security. This is

the lesson that Michael Corleone has learned only too vividly. And it is the lesson that we must

learn. If we think that the future is our primary value, and therefore the basis of politics, then are

we not compelled to secure that future? And if we are compelled in this way, are we not already

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very far down the road at whose end Hobbes is already waiting, laughing?

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reason, the future, and sovereignty

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