Concept

Bellum omnium contra omnes

Overview

Bellum omnium contra omnes, a Latin phrase meaning "the war of all against all", is the description that Thomas Hobbes gives to human existence in the state-of-nature thought experiment that he conducts in De Cive (1642) and Leviathan (1651). The common modern English usage is a war of "each against all" where war is rare and terms such as "competition" or "struggle" are more common.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Philosophers who discussed Bellum omnium contra omnes

• Thomas Hobbes

Related ideas

• Friedrich Nietzsche
• Max Stirner
• Walter Kaufmann (philosopher)
• The Ego and Its Own
• Marxists Internet Archive
• Karl Marx
• Latin
• Leviathan (Hobbes book)
• Sovereign state
• Roman Republic
• Rudolf Steiner
• State of nature
• Sovereignty
• Thomas Hobbes
• Thomas Jefferson
• Thomas Robert Malthus
• Google Books
• Social contract
• Grundrisse
• Friedrich Engels
• Thought experiment
• Penguin Books
• Political legitimacy
• Charles Darwin

Place in the tradition

Part of Political philosophy.

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