ABSTRACT
The scholar who more than anyone else lays the theoretical foundation for a new conceptualization of politics was the Englishman Thomas Hobbes, the first modern political philosopher. The anchoring of politics in nature is the premise for its rationality. The laws of society receive their legitimacy "from below", that is from the political rationality which civil society develops in freedom, without orders "from above" or "from without". The household provided a biological, economic and institutional basis for political life. Political policy was to be decided on the basis of reason, but it was dependent on life in the household. The most important opponent of the understanding of politics sketched here was for Jean Jacques Rousseau the Catholic Church. The Enlightenment was destined to view Christianity – Catholic as well as traditional Protestant – as outdated and a threat to human development.
