Abstract

In the following paper I argue that uncertainty is a key hermeneutic in Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan by referring to an analysis the original text. Uncertainty is a barrier to the standard of reciprocity in social interactions that is dictated by God via natural law. The importance of uncertainty is tied to several key conceptual distinctions – among these the division of individuals according to two character types, modest and vainglorious, is key. Another important distinction is the difference in social relations between the state of nature and the civil state. I will argue that within the civil state the tension resulting from the uncertainty born of the two-fold division of characters is resolved in a way that makes Christian ethics possible.