The Enlightenment's fable: Bernard Mandeville and the discovery of society

The apprehension of society as an aggregation of self-interested individuals, connected only by bonds of envy, competition, and exploitation, is a dominant modern concern, but one first systematically articulated during the European Enlightenment. The Enlightenment's 'Fable' approache...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Hundert, E. J. (Author)
Format: Electronic eBook
Language:English
Published: Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1994
Series:Ideas in context 31
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Online Access:BSB01
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Summary:The apprehension of society as an aggregation of self-interested individuals, connected only by bonds of envy, competition, and exploitation, is a dominant modern concern, but one first systematically articulated during the European Enlightenment. The Enlightenment's 'Fable' approaches this problem from the perspective of the challenge offered to inherited traditions of morality and social understanding by the Anglo-Dutch physician, satirist and philosopher, Bernard Mandeville. Mandeville's infamous paradoxical maxim 'private vices, public benefits' profoundly disturbed his contemporaries, while his Fable of the Bees had a decisive influence on David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith and Immanuel Kant. Professor Hundert examines the sources and strategies of Mandeville's science of human nature and the role of his ideas in shaping eighteenth century economic, social and moral theories
Item Description:Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015)
Physical Description:1 online resource (xii, 284 pages)
ISBN:9780511584749
DOI:10.1017/CBO9780511584749

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