Triumphs of the Mind. Hobbes and the Ambivalences of Glory

The chapter analyses the Hobbesian conception of glory. This passion embodies the tendency for empowerment and social competition of the modern self whose motive will be defined as the “desire for recognition”. Hobbes places at the core of his analysis of the human passions the need for recognition, conceived as a never-satisfied desire, as it depends on an endless escalation in the quest for power: the glorious self asks the other self to be recognized as superior, but is unwilling to meet the equivalent request from his partners. Increasingly dependent on the confirmations of others, the individual consciousness is condemned to a condition of distressing anxiety and insecurity about its own value. A conflict of “social unsociability” arises and drags all human beings in a restless competition for honours, which produces an endemic state of mental war. My investigation is guided by the relation that links the question of glory and war. Particularly, I try to show how Hobbes exemplarily captured the “dark side” of the struggle for recognition. At the same time, my reading highlights the ambivalences of the Hobbesian argument that seem to open up glimpses towards a more positive reconsideration of the passion which will become the leitmotif of Kojeve’s rehabilitation of the Hobbesian glory.