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The famous frontispiece of Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan depicts the body of the sovereign composed of people. In the 350 years since its publication, we have made good progress in understanding the nature of the state. The state is not an organism, with limbs subordinate to a unified whole. Effective state authority does not require an absolute monarch. The leader of a state need not have religious authority. To bring Hobbes’s picture up to date, we would remove the crown, lop off the head, and dispose of the crosier in the left hand, if not the sword in the right.

The center of the drawing, however, would remain untouched. In the prevailing contemporary view, society is a composite of interacting people. In this respect, Hobbes’s ontology retains its grip.[1]

  1. Epstein, Brian (2014). The Ant Trap. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. s. .