The Enlightenment's Fable: Bernard Mandeville and the Discovery of Society

by E.J. Hundert

Book Overview

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...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0521619424
• ISBN13: 9780521619424
• Release Date: February 2005
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 300 Pages
• Weight: 0.97 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"