Self-Consciousness and Mutual Recognition in Hobbes’s Leviathan

Abstract This article reconsiders recognition in Hobbes by revisiting Strauss’s influential account to expand the discussion to wider relational and practical contexts. Returning to Leviathan with a revised Straussian perspective helps clarify Hobbes’s explanation for why the natural condition is a condition of war. The fear of violent death which opposes each man to every other is not a natural aversion to death, but a form of self-consciousness that develops across different contexts. Next, building on this revisionist Straussian interpretation, I examine the mutual renunciation of the right to all things as the foundational act of the state. In renouncing their right, I argue, human beings recognize one another not only as potential enemies, but as partners in peace – a recognition that involves a shared risk. Tracing the movement from mutual fear to mutual renunciation of right, I show that Hobbes also envisions recognition as the self-conscious reconfiguration of relations.