The lecture is devoted to man comprehending him/herself in society, and the diverse conceptions of social order.
An invividual’s personality can only develop as a social construct. This is what Aristotle meant when saying that humans are social creatures. Throughout the twenty-five hundred years since, there have been numerous attempts to invent such principles of social relations that would allow for the consideration of each person’s rights and responsibilities in the most rational way possible. Still pretty far from reaching an ideal social order, we have nevertheless learnt a lot about ourselves in the process.
“The final cause, end, or design of men (who naturally love liberty, and dominion over others) in the introduction of that restraint upon themselves, in which we see them live in Commonwealths, is the foresight of their own preservation, and of a more contented life thereby; that is to say, of getting themselves out from that miserable condition of war which is necessarily consequent, as hath been shown, to the natural passions of men when there is no visible power to keep them in awe, and tie them by fear of punishment to the performance of their covenants, and observation of those laws of nature...”
(Thomas Hobbes. Leviathan. 1651)