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.
HINT:
👉 Bellum omnium contra omnes in the context of De Cive
De Cive ('On the Citizen') is one of Thomas Hobbes's major works. The book was published originally in Latin from Paris in 1642, followed by two further Latin editions in 1647 from Amsterdam. The English translation of the work made its first appearance four years later (London 1651) under the title Philosophicall rudiments concerning government and society.
It anticipates themes of the better-known Leviathan. The famous phrase bellum omnium contra omnes ('war of all against all') appeared first in De Cive.
In this Dossier
- ⭐ Core Definition: Bellum omnium contra omnes
- 👉 Bellum omnium contra omnes in the context of De Cive
- Bellum omnium contra omnes in the context of Prehistoric warfare
Bellum omnium contra omnes in the context of Prehistoric warfare
Prehistoric warfare refers to war that occurred between societies without recorded history.
The existence—and the definition—of war in humanity's state of nature has been a controversial topic in the history of ideas at least since Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan (1651) argued a "war of all against all", a view directly challenged by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in a Discourse on Inequality (1755) and The Social Contract (1762). The debate over human nature continues, spanning contemporary anthropology, archaeology, ethnography, history, political science, psychology, primatology, and philosophy in such divergent books as Azar Gat's War in Human Civilization and Raymond C. Kelly's Warless Societies and the Origin of War. For the purposes of this article, "prehistoric war" will be broadly defined as a state of organized lethal aggression between autonomous preliterate communities.
View the full Wikipedia page for Prehistoric warfare