The War of All Agains All

Latin phrase coined by Thomas Hobbes

The Præfatio (Preface) of De Cive where the phrase bellum omnium contra omnes appears for the first time.^[1] Taken from the revised edition printed in 1647 at Amsterdam (apud L. Elzevirium).^[ii]

Bellum omnium contra omnes , a Latin phrase meaning "the state of war of all against all", is the clarification that Thomas Hobbes gives to human existence in the state-of-nature thought experiment that he conducts in De Cive (1642) and Leviathan (1651). The common modernistic English language usage is a war of "each against all" where war is rare and terms such every bit "contest" or "struggle" are more common.^[3]

Thomas Hobbes' use [edit]

In Leviathan itself,^[4] Hobbes speaks of 'warre of every 1 against every one',^[five] of 'a war [...] of every man against every human'^[half-dozen] and of 'a perpetuall warre of every man against his neighbor',^{[4] [seven]} but the Latin phrase occurs in De Cive:

[...] ostendo primo conditionem hominum actress societatem civilem, quam conditionem appellare liceat statum naturæ, aliam not esse quam bellum omnium contra omnes; atque in eo bello jus esse autobus in omnia.^[8] I demonstrate, in the first place, that the country of men without ceremonious society (which state we may properly call the state of nature) is nothing else but a mere war of all against all; and in that war all men accept equal correct unto all things.^[9]

Later on on, two slightly modified versions are presented in De Cive:

[...] Status hominum naturalis antequam in societatem coiretur, bellum fuerit; neque hoc simpliciter, sed bellum omnium in omnes. ^[10] The natural country of men, earlier they entered into society, was a mere war, and that not simply, but a war of all men against all men.^[11]

Nam unusquisque naturali necessitate bonum sibi appetit, neque est quisquam qui bellum istud omnium contra omnes, quod tali statui naturaliter adhæret, sibi existimat esse bonum.^[12] For every human past natural necessity desires that which is good for him: nor is at that place any that esteems a war of all confronting all, which necessarily adheres to such a state, to be skilful for him.^[13]

In chapter Xiii of Leviathan,^[14] Hobbes explains the concept with these words:

Hereby it is manifest that during the time men live without a common Power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called War; and such a war as is of every man against every homo.^[15] [...] In such condition there is no place for Manufacture, because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no Civilization of the Earth; no Navigation, nor utilise of the commodities that may be imported by Bounding main; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving and removing such things every bit crave much force; no Knowledge of the face of the World; no business relationship of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Lodge; and which is worst of all, continual Fear, and danger of vehement death; And the life of man alone, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.^[sixteen]

The idea experiment places people in a pre-social condition, and theorizes what would happen in such a condition. According to Hobbes, the issue is that people choose to enter a social contract, giving upwardly some of their liberties in club to enjoy peace. This thought experiment is a test for the legitimation of a state in fulfilling its function as "sovereign" to guarantee social order, and for comparing dissimilar types of states on that footing.

Hobbes distinguishes between war and boxing: war does not only consist of bodily battle; it points to the situation in which i knows there is a 'Will to fence by Battle'.^[17]

Later uses [edit]

In his Notes on the State of Virginia (1785), Thomas Jefferson uses the phrase bellum omnium in omnia ("war of all things confronting all things", assuming omnium is intended to exist neuter like omnia ) as he laments that the constitution of that state was twice at risk of beingness sacrificed to the nomination of a dictator later on the style of the Roman Republic.^[xviii]

The phrase was sometimes used by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels:

• In On the Jewish Question (1843–1844):

Religion has get the spirit of civil society, of the sphere of egoism, of bellum omnium contra omnes .^[19]

• In Outlines of the Critique of Political Economic system (1857–1858):

One could just too deduce from this abstruse phrase that each individual reciprocally blocks the assertion of the others' interests, so that, instead of a full general affirmation this war of all against all produces a full general negation.^[20]

The English language translation eliminates the Latin phrase used in the original German language.^[21]

• In a letter of the alphabet from Marx to Engels (xviii June 1862):

It is remarkable how Darwin rediscovers, amid the beasts and plants, the guild of England with its sectionalisation of labour, competition, opening up of new markets, 'inventions' and Malthusian 'struggle for being'. It is Hobbes' bellum omnium contra omnes .^[22]

• In a letter of the alphabet to Pyotr Lavrov (London, 12–17 November 1875), Engels is expressed clearly against whatever try to legitimize the trend anthropomorphizing human nature to the distorted view of natural selection:

The whole Darwinists teaching of the struggle for existence is just a transference from society to living nature of Hobbes's doctrine of bellum omnium contra omnes and of the bourgeois-economic doctrine of competition together with Malthus's theory of population. When this conjurer's trick has been performed..., the aforementioned theories are transferred back again from organic nature into history and it is now claimed that their validity as eternal laws of human society has been proved.^[23]

Information technology was also used by Friedrich Nietzsche in On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense (1873):

Insofar every bit the private wants to preserve himself confronting other individuals, in a natural country of affairs he employs the intellect mostly for simulation solitary. But because man, out of demand and boredom, wants to exist socially, herd-fashion, he requires a peace pact and he endeavors to banish at to the lowest degree the very crudest bellum omnium contra omnes from his world.^[24]

See also [edit]

• Anomie
• Failed state
• Human homini lupus
• Listing of Latin phrases
• Rat race
• Social contract theories
• State of nature

References [edit]

1. ^ See on Google Books.
2. ^ See on Google Books.
3. ^ Charles Fourier (1915). Upton Sinclair (ed.). "Each Against All". Bartleby.com (1st ed.). Retrieved 21 April 2013.
4. ^ ^{a b} Thomas Hobbes (2005). Klenner, Hermann (ed.). Leviathan. Hamburg: Meiner Verlag. p. 610. ISBN978-3-787-31699-1.
5. ^ Chapter 14.
6. ^ Chapters 13-14.
7. ^ Chapter 24.
8. ^ (in Latin) Præefatio ("Preface").
9. ^ English language translation on Google Books.
10. ^ (in Latin) Affiliate ane, section 12.
11. ^ English translation on Google Books.
12. ^ (in Latin) Affiliate 1, department thirteen.
13. ^ English language translation on Google Books.
14. ^ Thomas Hobbes. "Chapter XIII - Of the Natural Condition of Mankind equally Apropos Their Felicity and Misery". bartleby.com. Archived from the original on 4 December 2020. Retrieved 15 August 2012.
15. ^ Occurrences on Google Books.
16. ^ Ibid.
17. ^ Ibid.
18. ^ Thomas Jefferson (1832). Notes on the Land of Virginia. Boston: Lilly and Look. p. 134.
19. ^ "On The Jewish Question - Works of Karl Marx 1844". Marxists Internet Archive. Retrieved 31 May 2016.
20. ^ "Grundrisse: Notebook I – The Chapter on Coin". Marxists Net Annal. Retrieved 31 May 2016.
21. ^ "Entstehung und Wesen des Geldes. Grundrisse der Kritik der politischen Ökonomie" (in German). emanzipationoderbarbarei.blogsport.de/studium/dokumente/karl-marx-grundrisse-der-kritik-der-politischen-akonomie/entstehung-und-wesen-des-geldes/. Retrieved 12 December 2016.
22. ^ "Marx-Engels Correspondence 1862". Marxists Internet Archive. Retrieved 4 March 2012.
23. ^ Friedrich Engels. "Engels to Pyotr Lavrov In London". Marx-Engels Correspondence 1875. Transcription/Markup: Brian Baggins. Marxists Cyberspace Archive. Retrieved 20 June 2016.
24. ^ Walter Kaufmann's translation in The portable Nietzsche. Urban center of Westminster, London: Penguin Books. 1977. p. 35. ISBN978-1-440-67419-8.

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellum_omnium_contra_omnes

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