The Multitude, the People, and Popular Sovereignty: Pufendorf and Locke in Reply to Hobbes

Abstract In the early iterations of his political thought, The Elements of Law and De Cive , Hobbes proposed a new account of the nature of the people. In Section 2 I describe Pufendorf’s critical response. Pufendorf’s theory of the people is a neglected aspect of the political argument of the De Jure . Just as neglected is Locke’s theory of the people in Two Treatises of Government , though there is better reason for neglect in Locke’s case, in so far as he fails in his major work of political philosophy to present anything resembling a theory of the people at all. In Section 3 I bring Locke’s thinking about the people into clearer focus. In the concluding Section 4 I explore some of the weaknesses of his position.