The Savage against the Leviathan: a comparison of Pierre Clastres' and Thomas Hobbes' approaches to defining the "political."

The subject of the research is reflection on the categories of "political" and "state" in the context of political philosophy and political anthropology. The object of the study is a comparative analysis of the concepts of state nature and its evolution in the works of political philosopher T. Hobbes and anthropologist P. Clastres. The work examines the key contradictions between Hobbes' model of the state as a tool for suppressing the "war of all against all" and Clastres' critique of statehood as a mechanism of violent dominance over stateless communities. The consideration is presented in relation to the optics of the concept of "political" by C. Schmitt. Special attention is given to the methodological differences in the interpretation of "state," "political," and assessments of power relations. The study also focuses on the naturalistic motif in the authors' interpretations, specifically on elements of the interpretation of "human nature." The research method chosen is a comparative interdisciplinary analysis with elements of discourse analysis, incorporating aspects of a structuralist approach. The novelty of the research lies in revealing the reflection of "political" within contemporary anthropological thought analyzing the socio-political structure of Amazonian Indians. It demonstrates that this reflection emphasizes the examination of naturalistic foundations of the mythopoeic representation of Indigenous Americans as valid political-philosophical settings that shape the political organization of communities. By comparing these views with those of T. Hobbes and applying C. Schmitt's optics, it introduces this reflection into the space of political philosophy as a specific tradition of representing pre-state societies. The question of defining "human nature" at the basis of the paradigms of "political" and the traditions that describe the genesis of statehood in political philosophy and anthropology is also highlighted. The main conclusion of the study is the demonstrated autonomy of the "political" based on the examination of two opposing views on the nature of the state. Confirming C. Schmitt's thesis about the difference between the nature of the "political" and the space of the state, the article provides a brief deconstruction of the ancient juxtaposition of the city-state and politics.

political, Clastre, Schmitt, Leviathan, anarchist anthropology, indigene, Hobbes, Alien, pre-state societies, feud