Instruction
write about Hobbes, Leviathan, Chapters 16 and 17.
• Sharpen grammar and prose style.
• Sharpen essay writing skills. Create powerful theses statements and clear topic sentences. Write clear clarifying and limiting sentences and develop well-constructed explanatory, introductory, and concluding paragraphs.
for example :
Dear Eyad,
I hope your day has gone well and that the reading has made more sense to you than it has to me! Unfortunately, the reading we have been doing over the last couple of weeks has been extremely confusing to me, to be completely honest. It takes me longer to read these shorter chapters than it usually takes me to read because of the language. The old English leaves me lost and some of the concepts Hobbes writes about are wild to me. In chapter thirteen, Hobbes is talking about the equality that is instilled at birth between men, but contradicts himself claiming that there will always be someone stronger to take the lead.He also mentions later that men do not want companions unless there is some kind of benefit or power that comes from it. It’s very interesting to me that he starts the chapter claiming equality and later talks about benefiting from companionships as if the men were never equal to start with.
Later on in the book, chapter fifteen is when the Leviathan started to making a little more sense to me. This is when Hobbes was talking about natural laws and rights and what the differences were. People have the right to self-preservation or what Hobbes calls natural rights. It’s almost like that discussion we had in class the other day about our natural rights and if it would actually influence a more peaceful and fulfilling society. Personally, I do not think that the society would suffer from these rights or laws, they should allow for some kind of assurance of safety. He said that natural laws are different than rights because they are based off of obligation rather than preservation. We went over this in class earlier this week, that discussion was what helped clear up what they really were.The differences kind of confused me at first, but I think it has more to do with the fact that, again, this is written in old English rather than modern English.
Speaking of which, why is it that old English has so many extra “e”s “l”s and “th”s? I get that it made sense in the time period, but how did we evolve the language to the point where we dropped those extra consonants, vowels and suffixes? I swear English is one of the most confusing languages out there! Also, what is all this talk of this covenant? A covenant is an agreement and Hobbes is saying the agreement defends him, validates him, causes fear, a bunch of different effects and I am so lost. How does an agreement cause so many mental ramifications? Maybe I am just not comprehending it correctly? No clue, anyways there was a chapter on higher beings leading me to believe that Hobbes is definitely more of an atheist or agnostic individual. He said “ The true God may be Personated” (Hobbes p.220). By this I think he meant that no matter what religion the person believes in, the God will always take a human form in different circumstances. This “multitude of men” creates, what they all call, God. Hobbes seems more skeptical of this than a man of God would be. I was confused much more later when he mentions what I thought to be the same “multitude of men”, but I guess I misinterpreted that statement as well.
Anyways, hopefully you could follow this to some extent, it is very scattered, but Hobbes’ uses weird language and leaves my brain scattered as well. Have a fantastic day and let me know if there is anything I can change about my letters to make it easier to follow!
I NEED IT LIKE THIS WAY