>>24784622
It's interesting to see these similarities, as Hobbes proscribes a unity of will via the Sovereign Leviathan and its covenant with its subjects that is not dissimilar to the unity of the whole that pervades the metaphysics and politics of Plato.
However, ever the nominalist, Hobbes metaphysics is entirely different, and its Leo Strauss's contention that Hobbes swaps metaphysics out with a geometric-mathematical epistemology, and swaps virtue-oriented telos with the overwhelming fear of death as the fundamental end to be provided by political order.
Carl Schmitt however still pins Hobbes down as a Christian political theologian, and that Hobbes is still working towards giving man the social room to personally reach his divine destiny via salvation. There is no room for virtue and salvation be strived for in the savage state of nature for Hobbes after all.
So I am curious where the truth lies here and what of these secondary interpretations get right and wrong and what we can gleam from the conflict here for ourselves. I think Strauss is correct on the metaphysical differences and onto the truth with fear of violent death and through it self-preservation being the new telos of political order for Hobbes, but it's wrong to ignore his clear political theology elsewhere and to reduce him into being an Epicureanian atheist as he does in Natural Right and History (pgs. 169-171). The tension lies on the fault within the true purpose of the state, and whether Hobbes is striving for Summum bonum still or if Strauss is correct in that Hobbes follows Machiavelli in the deliberate lowering of ultimate political goals for the obtainment of the achievable and obtainable efficient political state.
Apologies if this is more or less totally tangential to the initial analysis of >>24784622, I just got done from a day long writing session on Hobbes that ended with this tension coming to the fore without resolution.
