The Hunting of Leviathan: Seventeenth-Century Reactions to the Materialism and Moral Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes 'the infamous author of Leviathan' is remembered chiefly for his political philosophy but his contemporaries were more concerned with the moral and materialistic views which formed the basis of his doctrines. He was a notable literary figure of his time, and his powerful and lucid style had its effect on all manner of arguments with his opponents. With Hobbes rationalism came into its own. Mintz, in examining these seventeenth-century reactions to Hobbes, sets him against his intellectual background and so gives an added dimension to his thought. Mintz succeeds in capturing the ideological excitement of the seventeenth-century critics and in reawakening the crucial issues which were at stake. His study has much to offer historians, philosophers and theologians, and anyone with a general interest in the man or his period.