Human Nature

A Comparison of Hobbes' and Plato's Philosophical Views

Trying to understand how a philosopher arrives at the reasoned opinions they put on paper is essential to also understanding what they wrote. The how is often a matter of the people they have borrowed from, but that can be an unreliable method of determining the origins of their philosophy also. Two in particular are difficult to judge using the influences they had because some of their ideas were relatively radical for the times in which they made them. Plato and Thomas Hobbes embraced philosophical stances that were different from others around them, and different from those who had come before. Both wrote extensively on human nature, which led to their ideas regarding justice and government, but they did so with an understanding of that was different from contemporaries. It is interesting to note then that some of their ideas...
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