Bellum omnium contra omnes
Template:Short description
Template:Lang, a Latin phrase meaning "the war of all against all", is the description that Thomas Hobbes gives to human existence in the state-of-nature thought experiment that he conducts in De Cive (1642) and Leviathan (1651). The common modern English usage is a war of "each against all" where war is rare and terms such as "competition" or "struggle" are more common.[3]
Thomas Hobbes' use
In Leviathan itself,[4] Hobbes speaks of 'warre of every one against every one',[5] of 'a war [...] of every man against every man'[6] and of 'a perpetuall warre of every man against his neighbour',[4][7] but the Latin phrase occurs in De Cive: Template:Quote
Later on, two slightly modified versions are presented in De Cive: Template:Quote
In chapter XIII of Leviathan,[8] Hobbes explains the concept with these words: Template:Quote
The thought experiment places people in a pre-social condition, and theorizes what would happen in such a condition. According to Hobbes, the outcome is that people choose to enter a social contract, giving up some of their liberties in order to enjoy peace. This thought experiment is a test for the legitimation of a state in fulfilling its role as "sovereign" to guarantee social order, and for comparing different types of states on that basis.
Hobbes distinguishes between war and battle: war does not only consist of actual battle; it points to the situation in which one knows there is a 'Will to contend by Battle'.[9]
Later uses
In his Notes on the State of Virginia (1785), Thomas Jefferson uses the phrase Template:Langx ("war of all things against all things", assuming Template:Langx is intended to be neuter like Template:Langx) as he laments that the constitution of that state was twice at risk of being sacrificed to the nomination of a dictator after the manner of the Roman Republic.[10]
The phrase was sometimes used by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels:
- In On the Jewish Question (1843–1844):
- In Outlines of the Critique of Political Economy (1857–1858):
- The English translation eliminates the Latin phrase used in the original German.[11]
- In a letter from Marx to Engels (18 June 1862):
- In a letter to Pyotr Lavrov (London, 12–17 November 1875), Engels is expressed clearly against any attempt to legitimize the trend anthropomorphizing human nature to the distorted view of natural selection:
- It was also used by Friedrich Nietzsche in On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense (1873):
- Max Stirner also used the term in his book "The One and his own".
- Rudolf Steiner describes it with the term "war of all against all" a future epoch, when the human race will be submitted to a powerful selfishness.Template:Cn
See also
- Anomie
- Failed state
- Homo homini lupus
- List of Latin phrases
- Rat race
- Social contract theories
- State of nature
References
- ↑ See on Google Books.
- ↑ See on Google Books.
- ↑ Template:Cite web
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Template loop detected: Template:Cite bookTemplate:Dead link
- ↑ Chapter 14.
- ↑ Chapters 13-14.
- ↑ Chapter 24.
- ↑ Template:Cite web
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ Template loop detected: Template:Cite book
- ↑ Template:Cite web