Does Thomas Hobbes assert that political philosophy or civic philosophy as it was known then, began with him?

Question

I found this claim that Hobbes believed he founded political philosophy in multiple reputed places. In this lecture from Yale: 12. The Sovereign State: Hobbes' Leviathan

In Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey's book History of Political Philosophy, it says the following Berns says the following in his chapter on Hobbes "Because of what he regarded as his discovery of the true roots of human behavior, his knowledge of human nature, and his scienti way of proceeding, Hobbes believed that he had succeeded where a11 others had failed, that he was the first true political philosopher"

In the Stanford encyclopedia page about hobbes accessible here: Thomas Hobbes: Stanford it says-

" Hobbes thought that he would be renowned as the founder of civil philosophy just as he saw Copernicus as having initiated the “beginning of astronomy”, Galileo as having opened the “gate of natural philosophy universal” with an account of the “nature of motion”, and William Harvey as having first discovered the “science of man’s body” (see the dedicatory epistle to De Corpore; EW I.viii). He asserted that while “Natural Philosophy is… young”, civil philosophy itself is “no older than… [his] own book De Cive” (EW I.ix). "

However, if I navigate to EW I.ix using their bibliography pictured here:[3]bibliography screenshot

This quote cannot be found. Here is the link to the text tagged EW The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury

Here is the entire passage I.ix

Answer 1

You're right to be skeptical. While Hobbes was super important in political philosophy, he didn't actually invent the whole field. The idea that he did likely comes from a few things. First, he had a unique approach, focusing on science and human nature to explain politics, which was different from the ways people thought about it before. Plus, he wanted a strong government to stop the kind of chaos he saw during the English Civil War. Second, Hobbes was a confident guy who compared himself to major scientists. This confidence might have been mistaken for a claim that he started political philosophy from scratch. Lastly, Hobbes's influence was so huge that it's easy for later thinkers to exaggerate his role to emphasize his importance.

So, instead of calling him the founder, it's better to say that Hobbes completely reshaped political philosophy with his focus on the social contract and ideas like that. He definitely built on concepts that existed before him, even if he disagreed with them.