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A survey of sovereignty concepts -- Michelet : burying the governments of grace -- Michelet : sovereign people, political theology, and liberal exclusion -- Hobbes, decisionism, and the friendly exception -- Hobbes's civic theodicy : Leibniz, suffering innocents, and prosperity of the wicked -- Seneca's friendly sovereign -- Seneca and Rome's new make-believe.

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- 1 Introduction -- 2 The Humanist Face of Hobbes's Mathematics, Part 1 -- 3 Constraints That Enable the Imitation of God -- 4 King of the Children of Pride: The Imitation of God in Context -- 5 Architectonic Ambitions: Mathematics and the Demotion of Physics -- 6 Eloquence and the Audience Thesis -- 7 All Other Doctrines Exploded: Hobbes, History, and the Struggle over Teaching -- 8 The Humanist Face of Hobbes's Mathematics, Part 2: Leviathan and the Making of a Masque-Text -- 9 Conclusion -- Appendix: Who Is a Geometer? -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Stephen White and Gianni Vattimo have argued in favor of weak ontological thought. Particularly for White, weak ontology's contestable fundamentals are a superior response to strong ontologies, including the violence linked to them. I make a historically comparative evaluation of their arguments. The evaluation draws on William Davenant's Restoration revision of Shakespeare's Macbeth. Davenant's play defends Charles II's sovereignty against the strong ontological claims of orthodox Anglicans. Lady Macduff's much expanded role and the death she suffers, in contrast to her counterpart in Shakespeare's Folio, are key vehicles for this defense. Davenant's revisions are linked in this interpretation to Charles II's Happy Act of Indemnity and Oblivion of 1660. Also explored are new connections between Macduff and the witches. I argue Davenant exemplifies a contingency unanticipated by weak ontology advocates: he is both antifoundational and in favor of violence. Antifoundational arguments aid more political persuasions than often imagined.