Abstract

This paper deals with Thomas Hobbes’ conception of the state of nature. Deviating from its interpretation as a logically indispensable hypothesis for the purpose of the individualist-contractualist legitimation of the state, the article directs the discussion away from the question of the state of nature’s status within Hobbes’ anthropological or legal framework and towards the issue of where and what kind of evidence for this narrative is supposed to be found. If one interrogates this narrative in epistemological terms, an interpretative perspective is opened up in which ordinary forms of competitive and exploitative behaviour as well as of unmediated rule are of central importance, and the consideration of the state of nature as both a situational-relational and gradual concept is made possible as well as necessary. This contribution not only shows how such interpretative possibility is substantiated by the primary sources, but also asks how it relates to Hobbes’ own reflections on knowledge and scientific method. It is shown that what is crucial here is not the distinction between empirical and idealist approach, but the one between two kinds of experience, the second of which corresponds to a nominalist view of knowledge about politics.