A crucial issue in international relations is to associate theoretical with historical inquiry. This paper aims to analyse how Hobbes struggled with this problem, in which measure his answers have influenced the theory of international relations and to what extent they permit the solution of contemporary problems in this discipline. The first part analyses how Hobbes justifies his method of thinking both historically and theoretically. The second part shows how Hobbes is later rehabilitated by the revision of idealism as well as by the emergence of the doctrine known as realism, in both cases with the aim of criticising early idealism. The third part, considering the contemporary debate in international relations, analyses how neo-realism, investigating above all power technologies, loses the interest for historical inquiry that was present in classical realism, and how normativism, which came to prominence in the 90s, formulating a justified criticism of the lack of ethical reflection by neo-realism, often creates variants of utopian idealism. In both there is a lack of historical inquiry, which does not allow the analysis of the contingency of social relations. If the predominantly anthropological character of Hobbes' historiography, as well as the predominantly institutionalistic character of his state and law theory can no longer be accepted, it is his way of thinking theoretically and historically at once which is the challenge and the legacy that he has left to us.
Hobbes; Historiography; Realism; Normativism