Doubting Thomas: A study of Thomas Hobbes's post-Restoration dialogues

This study explores the possibility that Thomas Hobbes's post-Restoration writings have a teaching that is somewhat different than the teaching contained in his scientific treatises. Specifically, Hobbes seems to express doubt in his dialogues that his science as outlined in Leviathan and elsewhere is a realistic solution to the problems of the commonwealth. His knowledge of the English Civil War and the peace that followed may have been instrumental in reorienting Hobbes towards a more pragmatic and realistic philosophy that recognized the limits of science to create stability in the political arena. The Hobbes of the dialogues seems to focus his attention on leadership as the means by which a commonwealth can be well governed, which is a departure from the more formal program of institutional reform that he proposed in his science.