Talk:State of nature

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Thomas Aquinas
I removed

The term "state of nature" appears in the writings of Thomas Aquinas (born c. 1225) (see De Veritate, Question 19, Article 1, Answer 13). Aside from its influence upon later Political Philosophy, the use of the term in Aquinas is also of key importance for the development of the Catholic "Natural Law" Theological Tradition; its biblical theological provenance goes back to a pregnant statement of the Apostle Paul in his Letter to the Romans (Romans 2:12–16).

For Paul, in Romans chapter 2, the "natural law" is contrasted with the Mosaic Law posited on Mount Sinai in that the Jewish Nation possessed the latter while the Gentile Nations lacked the Law of Moses but possessed the former in virtue of knowing (some of its central commandments) and obeying it (partially) "by nature." From this theological interpretation (one now controversial among leading Paulinists, i.e., it is disputed that Paul actually intended all of the later machinery of the "Natural Law" tradition) it was but a small step to speak of this perceived natural condition of the Gentile Nations (i.e., their "natural" nomological condition) as a "state of nature."

However, for Aquinas, following Aristotle, the State of Nature is not logically (or temporally) prior to the politically constituted community but is that community, i.e., for both Aristotle and Aquinas the political state is natural for human beings (see Encyclopedia of Political Theory, by Mark Bevin, s.v., "Thomism, "Natural Law"). In later Political Philosophy (e.g., Hobbes and Locke) the (hypothetical if not temporal) positing of the priority of the State of Nature will become a standard move.

Aquinas also employed the terms "primitive state" (statum primi) and "state of innocence" (statu innocentiae) (see Summa Theologica, Part I, Question 97, "Of the Preservation of the Individual in the Primitive State").

Because, as the intro says, The state of nature is a concept in moral and political philosophy used in religion, social contract theories and international law[1] to denote the hypothetical conditions of what the lives of people might have been like before societies came into existence. This isn't an article about uses of the phrase "state of nature" that mean different things. Aquinas does indeed use in DeV. But the context is completely different: ''The infusion of the gifts of grace does not reach those who are in hell, but these souls are not deprived of the things which belong to the state of nature. “For nothing is completely deprived of a share in the good,” as Dionysius says.'' Similarly, the use of "state of innocence" in ST is in a theological, original-sin sense.

That leaves us with Hobbes as the first user of the term, in the sense this article is about. For all I know, that's correct William M. Connolley (talk) 13:18, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

John Calhoun Section
I'm a bit skeptical that John C. Calhoun's views on the state of nature warrant inclusion here. The other philosophers discussed are almost all universally regarded as among the most important in Western Philosophy, whereas Calhoun is more famous as a politician and little discussed in the academic literature (Montesquieu is also a bit of an outlier, but of great historical importance). A look at Google Scholar citations show him with 12% or less the amount of citations of the other philosophers on this topic (except Montesquieu at roughly 20%, and that section also needs some more work). Philpapers.org only has 4 essays or books on or about him and it looks like there are only a half dozen or so articles about him in the Philosopher's Index. Neither the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy nor the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy mention him at all (SEP does have one citation from a speech of his). Also, the idea that humans are by nature social and political animals is an old idea, most famously put forward by Aristotle in his Politics. So unless anyone objects, I'll delete that section. Original Position (talk) 20:41, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Orlog/ Urluig
Maybe some mentioning of the earliest german word for war (the modern word 'Krieg' came only during the high middle ages into the vernacular) should be mentioned? The dutch still use it and one could translate it as the original contract (the original state, the state of nature, the period between negotiated times of peace). Hobbes did not came up with that idea from scratch, you know! Heraklitos and antique comments on his notion, war being the father/source/cause of all things, preceded that for about two millenia. Btw. isn't it curious, that - although the romanic languages took over the german 'Wirren' (vverra, guerre, guerra etc.) - the modern high german expression for war (Krieg, kriegen=to get, to obtain, to deserve, to come by) is a rather positive, somewhat euphemistic word taken from a mercantile field of significance?--77.187.66.209 (talk) 22:56, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

The actual "state of nature" (revisited)
Some time ago (10 years - goodness how time files) I made a comment here regarding something that I think this article needs to discuss/expand upon. Unfortunately, that got used as a starting point for an acrimonious argument about definitions and original research, and ended up getting closed down. I think my original issue is still relevant though, so I'll restate it: Many philosophers have speculated about the original condition of human society (or of per-society) humanity. They call this original condition "the State of Nature", and use it as a starting point to extrapolate their ideas about how society should be organised. (In some cases, e.g. Hobbes, arguing that the State of Nature was terrible, and that we need states etc to fix this; in others, essentially arguing that the State of Nature is fundamentally moral and proper, and laws and states are only legitimate if compatible with the "rules" of the State of Nature). However all these arguments are based on assumptions about what the "State of Nature" actually was. I think there needs to more discussion of this issue. In particular, there is presumably evidence from anthropology and archaeology (and other disciplines) to indicate what the real state of nature was for early humanity. There is therefore probably also citable scientific or philosophical discussion about how this supports or undermines the various ethical arguments that are based on the various assumptions about the state of nature. The closest the article comes to this at the moment is the paragraph about John Calhoun (who rejects the concept as hypothetical and contradictory - and then appears to propose his own unevidenced assumption about what the state of nature was). Iapetus (talk) 14:03, 1 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Well, fair point. I'd also criticise the current lede, which implies that the philosophical speculations depend on the SoN having actually existed, which I think is untrue. Personally I'd subscribe to "there was no SoN: society and people co-evolved" but I doubt I could find a source for that William M. Connolley (talk) 15:14, 1 December 2021 (UTC)