Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Honor
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Author: Paul Sagar
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691191514
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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How David Hume and Adam Smith forged a new way of thinking about the modern state What is the modern state? Conspicuously undertheorized in recent political theory, this question persistently animated the best minds of the Enlightenment. Recovering David Hume and Adam Smith's long-underappreciated contributions to the history of political thought, The Opinion of Mankind considers how, following Thomas Hobbes's epochal intervention in the mid-seventeenth century, subsequent thinkers grappled with explaining how the state came into being, what it fundamentally might be, and how it could claim rightful authority over those subject to its power. Hobbes has cast a long shadow over Western political thought, particularly regarding the theory of the state. This book shows how Hume and Smith, the two leading lights of the Scottish Enlightenment, forged an alternative way of thinking about the organization of modern politics. They did this in part by going back to the foundations: rejecting Hobbes's vision of human nature and his arguments about our capacity to form stable societies over time. In turn, this was harnessed to a deep reconceptualization of how to think philosophically about politics in a secular world. The result was an emphasis on the "opinion of mankind," the necessary psychological basis of all political organization. Demonstrating how Hume and Smith broke away from Hobbesian state theory, The Opinion of Mankind also suggests ways in which these thinkers might shape how we think about politics today, and in turn how we might construct better political theory.

Author: James Bowman
Publisher: Encounter Books
ISBN: 1594031983
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 394

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"From the earliest records of human civilization until the dawn of the twentieth century, and in widely separated cultures throughout the world, the story of honor was inseparable from the story of mankind. Today, an acquaintance with the concept of honor is indispensable to understanding the culture of the Islamic world and its sense of grievance against the West, where honor has been disregarded or actively despised for three-quarters of a century." "James Bowman draws from an wealth of sources across many centuries to illuminate honor's curious history in our own culture, and he discovers that Western honor was always different from that found elsewhere. Its idiosyncratic qualities derived partly from the classical tradition but mainly from the Judeo-Christian heritage, whose emphases on individual morality and, more recently, on sincerity and authenticity in private and personal life have acted as continual challenges to the traditional notion of honor as it is still maintained in other parts of the world. These challenges to honor and the accommodations with it that they ultimately produced are a fundamental theme in our own culture's distinctive history; and the eventual collapse of the honor culture in the West is the background against which the War on Terror and the Clash of Civilizations ought to be seen."--Jacket.

Author: I. Primer
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 940101633X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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For centuries readers have admired the writer who wields his pen like a sword - an Aristophanes, a Rabelais, a Montaigne, a Swift. Using ribaldry, satire and irony in varying proportions, such writers pierce the thick, comfortable hide of society and uncover, predictably, the corruption and hypocrisy that characterize the life of man in commercial society. Though a lesser talent than any of these literary giants, Bernard Mande ville is nevertheless a member of their class. The crucial year in the emergence of his reputation was 1723, the year in which he added his controversial Essay on Charity and Charity-Schools to his Fable of the Bees. From that point on he became one of the most reviled targets of the public guardians of morality and religion; for some he appeared to be truly the Devil incarnate, Mandevil, as Fielding and others spelled it. This reputation was attached to his name well into the nineteenth centu ry. In a diary entry for June 1812 Henry Crabb Robinson recorded the following conversation with the elderly Mrs. Buller: "She received me with a smile, and allowed me to touch her hand. 'What are you reading, Mr. Robinson?' she said. 'The wickedest cleverest book in the English language, if you chance to know it. ' - 'I have known the "Fable of the Bees" more than fifty years. ' She was right in her guess.

Author: Bernard Mandeville
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3387311222
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Reproduction of the original. The publishing house Megali specialises in reproducing historical works in large print to make reading easier for people with impaired vision.

Author: Paul Joseph
Publisher: SAGE Publications
ISBN: 1483359905
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 4593

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Traditional explorations of war look through the lens of history and military science, focusing on big events, big battles, and big generals. By contrast, The SAGE Encyclopedia of War: Social Science Perspective views war through the lens of the social sciences, looking at the causes, processes and effects of war and drawing from a vast group of fields such as communication and mass media, economics, political science and law, psychology and sociology. Key features include: More than 650 entries organized in an A-to-Z format, authored and signed by key academics in the field Entries conclude with cross-references and further readings, aiding the researcher further in their research journeys An alternative Reader’s Guide table of contents groups articles by disciplinary areas and by broad themes A helpful Resource Guide directing researchers to classic books, journals and electronic resources for more in-depth study This important and distinctive work will be a key reference for all researchers in the fields of political science, international relations and sociology.

Author: John B. Stewart
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 140086285X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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"The picture of Hume clinging timidly to a raft of custom and artifice, because, poor skeptic, he has no alternative, is wrong," writes John Stewart. "Hume was confident that by experience and reflection philosophers can achieve true principles." In this revisionary work Stewart surveys all of David Hume's major writings to reveal him as a liberal moral and political philosopher. Against the background of seventeenth-and eighteenth-century history and thought, Hume emerges as a proponent not of conservatism but of reform. Stewart first presents the dilemma over morals in the modern natural-law school, then examines the new approach to moral and political philosophy adopted by Hume's precursors Shaftesbury, Mandeville, Hutcheson, and Butler. Illuminating Hume's explanation of the standards and rules that should govern private and public life, the author challenges interpretations of Hume's philosophy as conservative by demonstrating that he did not dismiss reason as a key factor determining right and wrong in moral and political contexts. Stewart goes on to show that Hume viewed private property, the market, contracts, and the rule of law as essential to genuine civilized society, and explores Hume's criticism of contemporary British beliefs concerning government, religion, commerce, international relations, and social structure. Originally published in 1992. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Author: Roger Crisp
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192576941
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Does being virtuous make you happy? In this book, Roger Crisp examines the answers to this ancient question provided by the so-called 'British Moralists', from Thomas Hobbes, around 1650, for the next two hundred years, until Jeremy Bentham. This involves elucidating their views on happiness (self-interest, or well-being) and on virtue (or morality), in order to bring out the relation of each to the other. Themes ran through many of these writers: psychological egoism, evaluative hedonism, and - after Hobbes - the acceptance of self-standing moral reasons. But there are exceptions, and even those taking the standard views adopt them for very different reasons and express them in various ways. As the ancients tended to believe that virtue and happiness largely coincide, so these modern authors are inclined to accept posthumous reward and punishment. Both positions sit uneasily with the common-sense idea that a person can truly sacrifice their own good for the sake of morality or for others. Roger Crisp shows that David Hume - a hedonist whose ethics made no appeal to the afterlife - was the first major British moralist to allow for, indeed to recommend, such self-sacrifice. Morality and well-being of course remain central to modern ethics, and Crisp demonstrates how much there is to learn from this remarkable group of philosophers.

Author: James Anthony Harris
Publisher:
ISBN: 0199549028
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 687

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Book Description
This is the first book to provide comprehensive coverage of the full range of philosophical writing in Britain in the eighteenth century. A team of experts provide new accounts of both major and lesser-known thinkers, and explores the diverse approaches in the period to logic and metaphysics, the passions, morality, criticism, and politics.

Author: Louis Schneider
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 9781412830454
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 624

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Book Description
The writings of Bernard Mandeville mark an important transition between enlightenment, social philosophy, and modern science. Born in Holland in 1670 and educated as a physician, Mandeville spent the greater part of his working life in England, where he died in 1733. In some respects, Mandeville can be compared to Voltaire--Mandeville's junior by twenty-four years. Mandeville had the knack of making controversies volcanic and of arousing heated debate about any topic on which he chose to comment--and he chose to comment on virtually everything. He was especially1 interested in social evolution, morality and society, prostitution and romantic love, crime and its deterrence, and in social aspects of religion. His views on these and countless other topics cohere in his continual fascination with the consequences of social and economic actions that run counter to anticipations and intentions and in the paradoxical or ironic cast that such outcomes often have. In "Paradox and Society, "Louis Schneider is the first to offer a full consideration of Mandeville as a sociologist. Schneider offers an intellectual and characterological portrait of Mandeville, examining his writings and reactions to him over time. Schneider goes on to review Mandeville's theory of human nature, and explores his hotly contested notion of the paradox of private vices and public benefits--that the arousal of desires is a necessary precondition for the stimulation of social and economic development. Social action outside the marketplace, and Mandeville's problematic theory of social evolution, are next considered. The volume ends with an examination of paradox, irony, and satire in society. In this detailed analysis of one of the world's most controversial social critics, Schneider shows us that Mandeville offers a vision of human society that is of enduring significance. He challenges the reader to consider how that vision might operate in today's world.