Hobbes and the ‘Liberties’ of Subjects
Hobbes e “le libertà” dei sudditi

May, 23rd 2018

Department of Philosophy
Sapienza Università di Roma
Villa Mirafiori, via Carlo Fea, 2, Roma

The workshop aims to explore different ways of approaching Hobbesian thought – far from the standard absolutist interpretation – from its moral, political and historical aspects. In particular, we will try to clarify those issues that concern the liberties granted to citizens within the civil state by «the silence of the law» or by the unalienable right to save one’s own life. This general theme is inspired by chapter XXI of the Leviathan, ‘On the Liberty of Subjects’ (in the singular); using liberties, in the plural, we shall investigate those spaces of liberty left to individual judgment and which can be found in Hobbes’s thought. Thus, far from reading Hobbes only as a monolithic theorist of absolutism, the workshop aims at shedding light on those ‘hidden’ sides of Hobbes, which leave room for the possibility of a ‘proto-liberal’ interpretation.

Program

9.20-9.30: Piergiorgio Donatelli (Sapienza Università di Roma)
    Opening Remarks

9.30-11.00: Patricia Springborg (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin)
     Hobbes’s Problematic Concept of Liberty

11.00-12.00: Mauro Farnesi Camellone (Università di Padova)
     The Evanescence of Justice. Hobbes on Liberty and the Legitimation of Power

12.00-13.00:  Francesco Toto (Università degli Studi Roma Tre)
     Democracy and/or Sovereignty? Power and Resistance in Hobbes

13.00-14.30:            Lunch

14.30-15.30: Annalisa Schino (Sapienza Università di Roma)
Hobbes e la religione: la libertà privata di credere

15.30-16.30: Luca Tenneriello (Sapienza Università di Roma)
Hobbes e la questione dei diritti morali individuali

16.30-17.30: General Discussion

Attendance is free and open to everyone.

Organized by Piergiorgio Donatelli and Luca Tenneriello
Information: luca.tenneriello@uniroma1.it