Right and Power: Hobbes and the dissolution of State

Abstract

Assuming that the relation between right and power became problematicafter Machiavel, this paper focuses on the manner Hobbes handles this problem.On the one hand, he separates these instances, taking them as two diferentkinds of relations between men. But, on the other, he thought of these differentskinds of relations as supporting one another in constituting the State. We intendto show that, far from beeing an incoerence, the difference and, at the same time,the reciprocal support between relations of right and power, constitute the specificityof the hobbesian political thought facing the Machiavelian challenge, aswell as the axis from which he thought of the fundamental problem of the durationof the State in time.