El Hobbes de Schmitt

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to expose the main features of Carl Schmitt’s interpretation of Thomas Hobbes. The author distinguishes three moments in Schmitt’s thought, but deals mainly with the second (namely with Der Leviathan in der Staatslehre des Thomas Hobbes, from 1938) and the third, which comprises the “ Hinweise ” to the 1963 edition of Der Begriff des Politischen and the article “Die Vollendung der Reformation” (1965). According to Schmitt, the leading idea of Hobbes: political philosophy is the attempt to restore the broken natural unity between the temporal and the spiritual powers. The Leviathan protects the individual liberty of conscience, and therefore rejects the illegitimate claims of the potestates indirectae, first of all the Catholic Church. After analyzing Schmitt’s version of the problem of transcendence in the Hobbesian system, the author proposes his own interpretation of the concept of atheist and of the idea of God in the work of 1651.