Leviathan for Anthropologists

Abstract

In the eyes of anthropologists, Hobbes's Leviathan is no longer an interesting text. But the theory of the social contract presented in this treatise can be interpreted as a theoretical myth that speaks of the birth of society, state and civilisation, although the word civilisation appeared a century after the publication of Leviathan. As a theoretical myth, Hobbes's theory is also comparable to Claude Lévi-Strauss's views on the relations existing between nature and culture. In turn, the empirical content of the representation of Warre of every man against every man is captured by the framing of this Hobbesian category within Victor Turner's social theory.