An Enquiry Whether a General Practice of Virtue Tends to the Wealth Or Poverty, Benefit Or Disadvantage of a People? PDF Download

Author: George Blewitt
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Charity-schools
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Ethics
Languages : en
Pages : 112

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Author: Bernard de Mandeville
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Ethics
Languages : en
Pages : 112

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Author: John J. Callanan
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691264988
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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A lively and provocative account of Bernard Mandeville and the work that scandalized and appalled his contemporaries—and made him one of the most influential thinkers of the eighteenth century In 1714, doctor, philosopher and writer Bernard Mandeville published The Fable of the Bees, a humorous tale in which a prosperous hive full of greedy and licentious bees trade their vices for virtues and immediately fall into economic and societal collapse. Outrage among the reading public followed; philosophers took up their pens to refute what they saw as the fable’s central assertion. How could it be that an immoral community thrived but the introduction of morality caused it to crash and burn? In Man-Devil, John Callanan examines Mandeville and his famous fable, showing how its contentious claim—that vice was essential to the economic flourishing of any society—formed part of Mandeville’s overall theory of human nature. Mandeville, Callanan argues, was perfectly suited to analyze and satirize the emerging phenomenon of modern society—and reveal the gap between its self-image and its reality. Callanan shows that Mandeville’s thinking was informed by his medical training and his innovative approach to the treatment of illness with both physiological and psychological components. Through incisive and controversial analyses of sexual mores, gender inequality, economic structures, and political ideology, Mandeville sought to provide a naturalistic account of human behavior—one that put humans in close continuity with animals. Aware that his fellow human beings might find this offensive, he cloaked his theories in fables, poems, anecdotes, and humorous stories. Mandeville mastered irony precisely for the purpose of making us aware of uncomfortable aspects of our deepest natures—aspects that we still struggle to acknowledge today.

Author: Andrea Branchi
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004428437
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 207

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A reading of the Anglo-Dutch physician and thinker’s philosophical project from the hitherto neglected perspective of his lifelong interest in the theme of honour.

Author: Samuel Halkett
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Anonyms and pseudonyms, English
Languages : en
Pages : 436

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Author: Samuel Halkett
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Anonyms and pseudonyms, English
Languages : en
Pages : 472

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Author: Robin Douglass
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691224692
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Why we should take Bernard Mandeville seriously as a philosopher Bernard Mandeville’s The Fable of the Bees outraged its eighteenth-century audience by proclaiming that private vices lead to public prosperity. Today the work is best known as an early iteration of laissez-faire capitalism. In this book, Robin Douglass looks beyond the notoriety of Mandeville’s great work to reclaim its status as one of the most incisive philosophical studies of human nature and the origin of society in the Enlightenment era. Focusing on Mandeville’s moral, social, and political ideas, Douglass offers a revelatory account of why we should take Mandeville seriously as a philosopher. Douglass expertly reconstructs Mandeville’s theory of how self-centred individuals, who care for their reputation and social standing above all else, could live peacefully together in large societies. Pride and shame are the principal motives of human behaviour, on this account, with a large dose of hypocrisy and self-deception lying behind our moral practices. In his analysis, Douglass attends closely to the changes between different editions of the Fable; considers Mandeville’s arguments in light of objections and rival accounts from other eighteenth-century philosophers, including Shaftesbury, Hume, and Smith; and draws on more recent findings from social psychology. With this detailed and original reassessment of Mandeville’s philosophy, Douglass shows how The Fable of the Bees—by shining a light on the dark side of human nature—has the power to unsettle readers even today.

Author: Markku Peltonen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139436694
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 374

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Arguments about the place and practice of the duel in early modern England were widespread. The distinguished intellectual historian Markku Peltonen examines this debate, and show how the moral and ideological status of duelling was discussed within a much larger cultural context of courtesy, civility and politeness. The advocates of the duel, following Italian and French examples, contended that it maintained and enhanced politeness; its critics by contrast increasingly severed duelling from civility, and this separation became part of a vigorous attempt in the late seventeenth century and beyond to redefine civility, politeness and indeed the nature and evolution of Englishness. To understand the duel is to understand much more fully some crucial issues in the cultural and ideological history of Stuart England, and Markku Peltonen's study will thus engage the attention of a very wide audience of historians and cultural and literary scholars.

Author: Klaus E. Knorr
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487591012
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 644

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The purpose of this study is to present and examine significant British colonial theories on the advantages and disadvantages resulting to the mother country from the establishment and maintenance of overseas colonies. For what reasons was the building and preservation of Empire thought profitable or unprofitable to the British nation? Professor Knorr has performed a major service in providing a selection of representative statements in the course of a discussion which proceeds by chronological periods and also by important topics from contemporary events. The original printing of this work, published in 1944, was received with enthusiastic reviews and went out of print in a few years. An equally warm welcome can be predicted now.