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Bernard de Mandeville and the Shaping of Conjectural History

2015; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1007/978-3-319-19381-6_2

2215-1958

Frank Palmeri,

Marxism and Critical Theory

This paper argues that Bernard Mandeville's Fable of the Bees, Part II (1729), is the first work to bring together all the elements of conjectural history, a form that rose to prominence in the Enlightenment, between 1750 and 1800. Conjectural history builds on the natural law tradition of Hobbes and Locke, but it is non-contractual and considers a longer span of history. In both these respects, Pufendorf's account of early society opens a way that is taken by later conjectural historians. Of these, Mandeville's Fable, Part II, is the earliest to present a naturalistic, non-contractual narrative of the early stages of civil society. Although Vico's New Science exhibits some of these features, it remains tied to a providential and cyclical view of history.