"O homem é o lobo do homem": analysis and history of the phrase

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), classical author Leviatã, was or responsible for divulging the famous phrase "O homem é o lobo do homem", inserted not being the most famous of him.

An original phrase, not entanto, translated for or Latin as "homo homini lupus", belongs to the Roman playwright Plautus (254-184 BC. C.).

A prayer, metaphorical, wants to say that or homeme an animal that loves its own species. Or that to the maximum sublinha is the destructive capacity of the human being against his seus.

Meaning of "O homem é o lobo do homem"

The phrase uses a metaphorical linguagem, isso é, faz uma comparação as an animal behavior to illustrate what the author accredits being a human being in a general way.

Explorer by essence, profiteer dos mais fracos, or homem teria by instinct or impulse to usurp or that is do outro, placing two more and tending as maximum priority or bem to be individual to or reversed do collective.

Na phrase we see synthesized to the idea that either homeme or his own inimigo of him causing bloody fights and, many times, killing his semelhantes.

In order to understand the meaning of the phrase, it should be retaken or the context of where it was withdrawn. Hobbes accredited (and deixou recorded this thought in Leviatã) that the human being needs to live together in a society governed by rules and regulations. Whereas the chamou author of social contracts was essential for human survival pois, otherwise, we would go under extreme circumstances of barbarism.

The English philosopher was adept at absolutism and achava that a mass of people should be ruled by a king not to run or to leave the nature of the animal at home. Hobbes Julgava that there would only be collective peace if you are left to be commanded by a sovereign.

At the most popularized by the English philosopher, he has some variations such as, for example, "o homem é o lobo do own homem" e "or homem é um lobo para os seus semelhantes".

First appearance of prayer

The first author of the maxim "O homem é o lobo do homem" was the Roman playwright Titus Maccius Plautus (254-184 BC. C.), who was supposedly born (second or grammarian Festus), not northeast of central Italy. Plautus has inserted an oração em questão em uma das suas comédias by him entitled Asinaria.

A complete sentence would be: Lupus est homo homini, não homo, quom qualis sit non novit. A translation for or Portuguese would geria something of the genre: "Um homem for another and like a wolf and not a home, when he does not know what type of he is."

A peça também ficou conhecido as Two donkeys comedy ou Comédia do Asno. A story revolves around Demêneto, a greedy senhor who in every way wanted to play his own woman, who was rich, to get money.

Titus Maccius Plautus was two great responsibilities for establishing a truly Roman drama in the Latin language. He has a lot of influence on gregasy peças, many times I have been accused of barely adapted tê-las.

Plautus supposedly had usurped practically all the serious entanglements of Greek playwrights at the end of the fourth century and the beginning of the third century. C., his favorite authors were Menandro e Philemon.

Little is known as a playwright (or not, at the date of the birth or the speculations of later scholars). Also, nothing was specifically known for certain about his peças of him (including Asinaria) because many two manuscripts will be lost, corrupted or incomplete.

A disclosure of the phrase

Although the authorship has been attributed to Platus, or the true responsibility for the dissemination of the sentence was Thomas Hobbes, an English philosopher who was not even free. Leviatã, published in 1651, where he exercised what he considered to be an ideal society.

His greatest inspiration for the composition of the work was precisely the Roman Republic.

Hobbes vehemently defended the monarchies and achava that the human being needed to be ruled by a series of laws and norms in order not to return to the state of violence that would characterize the species. Em Leviatã These ideas for absolutist governments appear reproduced with total clarity and conviction.

Second Hobbes, essentially or "homeme or wolf of his own homem", ou seja, he is capable of placing his own species on the edge.

By instincts of self-preservation and selfishness, the human being would tend to enter into conflicts and wars that would ameaçariam his own irmãos.

According to the English philosopher:

"As a general tendency of all homens, [ha] a perpetual and unrequited desire for power and more power, which ceases as soon as you die"

What was Hobbes?

Of poor origin, it is speculated that the philosopher Thomas Hobbes was born in Westport (England), not on April 5, 1588.

For access to instruction, Hobbes received financial support provided by his nobility. The author was a strong advocate of absolutism during a historical period where power or power was inflicted on the crescent presença two liberais.

The work of Hobbes was greatly influenced by the work of two philosophers René Descartes, Galileu Galilei and Francis Bacon and two great frames of Western culture.

As a philosopher, or thinker, he was also a mathematician and political theorist.

Hobbes died on 4 December 1679, 91 years old.

Conheça also

• Phrase I think, logo I exist
• Phrase Os fins justificam os meios
• Phrase O State sou eu
• Phrase O homem é um political animal

Formed in Literature at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (2010), Master of Literature at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (2013) and doutora in Studies of Culture of the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro and of the Portuguese Catholic University of Lisbon (2018).