Transforming Leviathan: Job, Hobbes, Zvyagintsev and Philosophical Progression

Abstract

The allegory of Leviathan, the biblical serpent of the seas, has undergone numerous distinct and even antithetical conceptions since its origin in the book of Job. Most prominently, Leviathan was the namesake of Thomas Hobbes’s 1651 political treatise and Andrey Zvyagintsev’s 2014 film of the same name, a damning indictment of Russian corruption. These three iterations underscore the societal transition from the recognition of power as being derived from God to the secularization of power in Hobbes’s philosophy, to the negation of the legitimacy of divine and secular institutional power, in Zvyagintsev’s controversial film. This examination of Leviathan’s three unique iterations elucidates the evolution of philosophy and the solution to a world devoid of authority. An autopsy of Leviathan’s allegorical beached corpse invites the individual to create and recognize their own authority and purpose, thus fabricating a fourth transformation of Leviathan.