13 Free Thomas Hobbes Books [PDF]

Looking for Thomas Hobbes books? Hobbes was the English philosopher who lived through the English Civil War and wrote Leviathan, the book that launched modern social contract theory.

Here are 13 free Thomas Hobbes books in PDF, from Leviathan and De Cive to Behemoth and his translation of Thucydides. His major works cover political philosophy, human nature, free will and history, written across a 91-year life from 1588 to 1679.

Start with the state of nature and the social contract, or explore the works few readers know. Every book is free to read online or download as PDF.

• Leviathan

  

  Hobbes's masterpiece of 1651, where life without government is nasty, brutish and short, and a social contract creates an all-powerful sovereign. The complete text, including the parts on religion and the church.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Format: PDF 691 pages 2.42 MB

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• De Cive: Philosophical Rudiments Concerning Government and Society

  

  The English version of De Cive, where Hobbes first set out his case for peace under an absolute sovereign. Its three parts move from liberty to dominion to religion, in a shorter path than Leviathan.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Format: PDF 293 pages 1.97 MB

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• De Corpore Politico, or The Elements of Law

  

  The political half of The Elements of Law, the 1640 work where Hobbes first argued for a strong sovereign as the cure for civil war. A compact version of the ideas he later expanded in Leviathan.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Format: PDF 127 pages 0.88 MB

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• A Dialogue between a Philosopher and a Student of the Common Laws of England

  

  A philosopher and a lawyer argue over who really makes the law, the judges or the sovereign. Hobbes's late challenge to Sir Edward Coke and the common law tradition.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Format: PDF 120 pages 0.71 MB

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• Human Nature, or The Fundamental Elements of Policy

  

  The first part of The Elements of Law, a short tour of the senses, imagination, passions and reason. An easy way into the view of human nature that sits behind Leviathan.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Format: PDF 78 pages 0.57 MB

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• Of Liberty and Necessity

  

  Hobbes's short treatise on free will, written as a reply to Bishop Bramhall. He argues that every action has a cause and that liberty and necessity can live together.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Format: PDF 42 pages 0.34 MB

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• The Questions Concerning Liberty, Necessity, and Chance

  

  The full record of the free will debate with Bishop Bramhall, with each of the bishop's arguments followed by Hobbes's answer. His most complete defense of the idea that freedom and necessity are compatible.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Format: PDF 357 pages 1.88 MB

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• Elements of Philosophy Concerning Body (De Corpore)

  

  The first part of Hobbes's system of philosophy, covering logic, first principles, geometry and physics. It lays out his view of a world made only of bodies in motion, with the original figures and tables.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Format: PDF 471 pages 7.69 MB

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• Seven Philosophical Problems

  

  A late dialogue on gravity, tides, the vacuum, heat and light, hardness, wind and weather, and motion, dedicated to Charles II. Hobbes puts his natural philosophy to work on the science debates of his day.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Format: PDF 58 pages 0.7 MB

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• Behemoth: The History of the Civil Wars of England

  

  Hobbes's history of the English Civil War, from the Long Parliament to the Restoration, told as a dialogue between two speakers. Charles II refused to license it, so it was printed only after Hobbes's death.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Format: PDF 195 pages 1.06 MB

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• Thucydides: The History of the Peloponnesian War

  

  Hobbes's translation of Thucydides, his first published book, in an 1830 Oxford edition with notes and an analysis of each book. The war between Athens and Sparta that taught him how states fall apart.

  Thucydides, translated by Thomas Hobbes

  Format: PDF 446 pages 12.24 MB

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• The Whole Art of Rhetoric

  

  Hobbes's English digest of Aristotle's Rhetoric, followed by his own Art of Rhetoric and Art of Sophistry. A compact guide to persuasion, the passions and the tricks of argument.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Format: PDF 105 pages 0.63 MB

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• The Iliads and Odysses of Homer

  

  Homer's two epics in rhymed verse, translated by Hobbes in his late eighties. A rare chance to read the Iliad and the Odyssey in the words of the philosopher who wrote Leviathan.

  Homer, translated by Thomas Hobbes

  Format: PDF 565 pages 26.96 MB

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Hobbes still shapes how we think about power, security and the state. To compare his social contract with a gentler one, read our John Locke books next, or meet Niccolò Machiavelli, who wrote about power more than a century before him.

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