The present study attempts a holistic and dialectical assessment of the political philosophy of Enlightenment through two leading representatives, Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The aim here is to bring to the surface the relevance of the thinking of these two thinkers on issues such as democratic deficit and social inequalities that we perceive around us. In Hobbes' philosophy, sovereignty expresses the distinction between two individual cases or types of human beings, the reasonable and the malicious actor, regarding the regulatory principles of the foundation of a politically organized society. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, on the other hand, perceives sovereignty in terms of the birth and reproduction of the socio-political phenomenon, locating it at the core of the central social relationship, namely socially organized labor or human creativity. Expanding further on this analysis, it is argued that the concept of general will and thus the entire Rousseauian problematic of sovereignty are not exhausted at the level of the functioning of social and political institutions, but are crucially related to the tracing of a completely renewed way of organizing human civilization as everyday life.

"Giorgos Moraitis offers the reading public a significant study, a contribution to Enlightenment thought, a study that nourishes thought and is addressed not only to those who maintain some specialized philosophical interests, but generally to those who continue to think critically, to stand upright and to struggle for a better world, for a society of freedom and equality, for a just society."
Yannis Plangesis
Honorary Professor of Philosophy, AUTH