The Enlightenment's Fable: Bernard Mandeville and the Discovery of Society (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780521619424)

The apprehension of society as an aggregation of self-interested individuals is a dominant modern concern, but one first systematically articulated during the Enlightenment. This book approaches this problem from the perspective of the challenge offered to inherited traditions of morality and social understanding by Bernard Mandeville, whose infamous paradoxical maxim "private vices, public benefits" profoundly disturbed his contemporaries, while his The 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.

Author: E. J. Hundert
ISBN-10: 0521619424
ISBN-13: 9780521619424
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 02/17/2005
Pages: 300
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.97lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.67d