Bernard de Mandeville (1670 – 1733), was a philosopher, political economist and satirist. Born in the Netherlands, he lived most of his life in England and used English for most of his published works. He was famous (or infamous) for The Fable of the Bees. (Redirected from 18th century philosophy) 17th-century Western philosophy is conventionally seen as being dominated by the coming of symbolic mathematics and rationalism to philosophy, many of the most noted philosophers were also mathematicians. ... January 19 is the 19th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1670 was a common year beginning on a Saturday in countries using the Julian calendar and a Wednesday in countries using the Gregorian calendar. ... Rotterdam Location Coat of arms The coat of arms reads Sterker door Strijd, i. ... Events February 12 - British colonist James Oglethorpe founds Savannah, Georgia. ... Classical economics is widely regarded as the first modern school of economic thought. ... The Politics series Politics Portal This box:      Political philosophy is the study of fundamental questions about the state, government, politics, liberty, justice, property, rights, law and the enforcement of a legal code by authority: what they are, why (or even if) they are needed, what makes a government legitimate, what... Ethics (from the Ancient Greek ἠθικός (ethikos), meaning theory of living), a major branch of philosophy, is the study of values and customs of a person or group and covers the analysis and employment of concepts such as right, wrong, good, evil, and responsibility. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... A free market is an idealized market, where all economic decisions and actions by individuals regarding transfer of money, goods, and services are voluntary, and are therefore devoid of coercion and theft (some definitions of coercion are inclusive of theft). Colloquially and loosely, a free market economy is an economy... Division of labour is the specialization of cooperative labour in specific, circumscribed tasks and roles, intended to increase efficiency of output. ... William Petty Sir William Petty (May 27, 1623-December 16, 1687) was a scientist and philosopher. ... Adam Smith (baptized June 5, 1723 O.S. / June 16 N.S. – July 17, 1790) was a Scottish moral philosopher and a pioneering political economist. ... 1670 was a common year beginning on a Saturday in countries using the Julian calendar and a Wednesday in countries using the Gregorian calendar. ... Events February 12 - British colonist James Oglethorpe founds Savannah, Georgia. ... A philosopher is a person who thinks deeply regarding people, society, the world, and/or the universe. ... List of satirists below - writers, cartoonists and others known for their involvement in satire - humourous social criticism. ... The Fable of The Bees, by Bernard de Mandeville, 1714. ...

Life

He was born in January 19, 1670, at or near Rotterdam in the Netherlands, where his father was a prominent physician. ^[1] On leaving the Erasmus school at Rotterdam he showed his ability by an Oratio scholastica de medicina (1685), and at Leiden University in 1689 he produced the thesis De brutorum operationibus, in which he advocated the Cartesian theory of automatism among animals. In 1691 he took his medical degree, pronouncing an inaugural disputation, De chylosi vitiata. He moved to England to learn the language^[2], and succeeded so remarkably that many refused to believe he was a foreigner. His father had been banished from Rotterdam in 1690 for involvement in the Costerman tax riots; Bernard himself may well have been involved.^[3] Rotterdam Location Coat of arms The coat of arms reads Sterker door Strijd, i. ... The Doctor by Samuel Luke Fildes This article is about the term physician, one type of doctor; for other uses of the word doctor see Doctor. ... Desiderius Erasmus in 1523 Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (also Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam) (October 27, probably 1466 – July 12, 1536) was a Dutch humanist and theologian. ... Rotterdam Location Coat of arms The coat of arms reads Sterker door Strijd, i. ... Leiden University, located in the city of Leiden, is the oldest university in the Netherlands. ... Cartesian means of or relating to the French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes. ... Automatism is the practice or theory of the spontaneous production of words (speech or writing), drawing, painting or other creative production, or behavior in general, without conscious self-control or self-censorship. ...

As a physician he was well respected and his literary works paid off very well. His conversational abilities won him the friendship of Lord Macclesfield (chief justice 1710-1718), who introduced him to Joseph Addison, described by Mandeville as "a parson in a tye-wig." He died of influenza on January 21, 1733 at Hackney. Thomas Parker, 1st Earl of Macclesfield (1666-1732) was an English politician. ... Joseph Addison, the Kit-cat portrait, circa 1703–1712, by Godfrey Kneller. ... Influenza, commonly known as the flu, is an infectious disease of birds and mammals caused by an RNA virus of the family Orthomyxoviridae (the influenza viruses). ... January 21 is the 21st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Events February 12 - British colonist James Oglethorpe founds Savannah, Georgia. ... Hackney Town Hall was built in the 1930s for the old Metropolitan Borough. ...

There is no surviving picture of Mandeville and many details of his life are obscure. The name Mandeville suggests a French origin, but his ancestors had lived in the Netherlands since at least the 16th century.^[4] There is no known connection between him and the 14th century Sir John Mandeville. (15th century - 16th century - 17th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 16th century was that century which lasted from 1501 to 1600. ... This 14th-century statue from south India depicts the gods Shiva (on the left) and Uma (on the right). ... Jehan de Mandeville (Sir John Mandeville), the name claimed by the compiler of a singular book of travels, written in French, and published between 1357 and 1371. ...

Fable of the Bees

In 1705 he published a longer poem under the title The Grumbling Hive, or Knaves Turn'd Honest (two hundred doggerel couplets). In 1714 it was republished as an integral part of the Fable of the Bees: or, Private Vices, Publick Benefits, consisting of a prose commentary, called Remarks, and an essay, An Enquiry into the Origin of Moral Virtue. In 1723 a later edition appeared, including An Essay on Charity and Charity Schools, and A Search into the Nature of Society. It was vigorously combated by, among others, Bishop Berkeley and William Law, author of The Serious Call, and in 1729 was made the subject of a prosecution for its immoral tendency. This essay criticized the charity schools, designed to educate the poor and in doing so, instill virtue in them. Mandeville disagreed with this idea, that education adds virtue because he did not believe that evil desires existed only in the poor but rather he saw the educated and wealthy as much more crafty. <ref.Cook,John.> Mandeville also believed that educating the poor increased their desires for material things, which defeated the purpose of the school and made it more difficult to provide for them. Doggerel describes verse considered of little literary value. ... Bishop George Berkeley George Berkeley (bark-lee) (March 12, 1685&#8211;January 14, 1753), also known as Bishop Berkeley, was an influential Irish philosopher whose primary philosophical achievement is the advancement of what has come to be called subjective idealism, summed up in his dictum, Esse est percipi (To be... William Law (1686 – April 9, 1761), English divine, was born at Kings Cliffe, Northamptonshire. ...

The book was primarily written as a political satire on the state of England in 1705, when the Tories were accusing John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough and the ministry of advocating the French War for personal reasons. In The Grumbling Hive Mandeville describes a thiving bee community until many of the bees decide to seek honesty and virtue. Without their desire for personal gain the colony loses the hive, thus concluding that without private vices there exists no public benefit. <ref.Cook.John.> The edition of 1723 was presented as a nuisance by the Grand Jury of Middlesex, was denounced in the London Journal by "Theophilus Philo-Britannus," and attacked by many writers, notably by Archibald Campbell (1691-1756) in his Aretelogia (published as his own by Alexander Innes in 1728; afterwards by Campbell, under his own name, in 1733, as Enquiry into the Original of Moral Virtue). The Fable was reprinted in 1729, a ninth edition appeared in 1755, and it has often been reprinted in more recent times. Berkeley attacked it in the second dialogue of the Alciphron (1732) and John Brown criticized him in his Essay upon Shaftesbury's Characteristics (1751). 1867 edition of the satirical magazine Punch, a British satirical magazine, ground-breaking on popular literature satire. ... The term Tory (from Irish Gaelic tóraighe, an outlaw or guerrilla fighter, during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms — literally meaning pursued man) applied to the Tory Party, the ancestor of the modern UK Conservative Party. ... John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, in his Garter robes John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, KG, PC (26 May 1650 – 16 June 1722) was an English military officer during the War of the Spanish Succession. ... Combatants France Việt Minh Strength 500,000 at least 63,000, but estimates 100,000-950,000 Casualties 94,581 dead 78,127 wounded 40,000 captured 300,000+ dead 500,000+ wounded 100,000 captured The First Indochina War, also known as the French Indochina War, the French... Middlesex is one of the 39 historic counties of England and the second smallest (after Rutland). ... For other people with the same name see Archibald Campbell Argyll. ... John Brown (November 5, 1715 - 1766), British divine and author, was born at Rothbury, Northumberland. ...

Ideas

Mandeville's philosophy gave great offence at the time, and has always been stigmatized as false, cynical and degrading. His main thesis is that the actions of men cannot be divided into lower and higher. The higher life of man is a mere fiction introduced by philosophers and rulers to simplify government and the relations of society. In fact, virtue (which he defined as "every performance by which man, contrary to the impulse of nature, should endeavour the benefit of others, or the conquest of his own passions, out of a rational ambition of being good") is actually detrimental to the state in its commercial and intellectual progress. This is because it is the vices (i.e., the self-regarding actions of men) which alone, by means of inventions and the circulation of capital in connection with luxurious living, stimulate society into action and progress. Young people interacting within an ethnically diverse society. ... Personification of virtue (Greek ἀρετή) in Celsus Library in Ephesos, Turkey Virtue (Latin virtus; Greek ) is moral excellence of a person. ... Rational may be: the adjective for the state of rationality acting according to the philosophical principles of rationalism a mathematical term for certain numbers; the rational numbers the software company Rational Software; now owned by IBM, and formerly Rational Software Corporation This is a disambiguation page &#8212; a navigational aid... A state is a set of institutions that possess the authority to make the rules that govern the people in one or more societies, having internal and external sovereignty over a definite territory. ... Vice is the opposite of virtue. ... In politics, a capital (also called capital city or political capital — although the latter phrase has a second meaning based on an alternative sense of capital) is the principal city or town associated with a countrys government. ...

Private vice, public benefit

Mandeville arrives at a very contemporaneously vile conclusion: vice as a necessary condition for economic prosperity. His viewpoint is more severe when juxtaposed to Adam Smith's. Both Smith and Mandeville believed that individuals’ collective actions bring about a public benefit. However, what sets his philosophy apart from Smith’s is his catalyst to that public benefit. Smith believed in a virtuous self-interest which results in invisible cooperation. For the most part, Smith saw no need for a guide to garner that public benefit. On the other hand, Mandeville believed it was vicious greed which led to invisible cooperation if properly channeled. Mandeville’s qualification of proper channeling further parts his philosophy with Smith’s laissez-faire attitude. Essentially, Mandeville called for politicians to ensure that the passions of man would result in a public benefit. It was his stated belief in the Fable of the Bees that "Private Vices by the dextrous Management of a skilful Politician may be turned into Publick Benefits” (Mandeville, 369). Adam Smith (baptized June 5, 1723 O.S. / June 16 N.S. – July 17, 1790) was a Scottish moral philosopher and a pioneering political economist. ... Laissez-faire is short for laissez faire, laissez passer, a French phrase meaning to let things alone, let them pass. First used by the eighteenth century Physiocrats as an injunction against government interference with trade, it is now used as a synonym for strict free market economics. ... Bernard de Mandeville (1670- January 19 or 21, 1733?), was a philosopher and satirist. ...

In the Fable he shows a society possessed of all the virtues "blest with content and honesty," falling into apathy and utterly paralyzed. The absence of self-love (cf. Hobbes) is the death of progress. The so-called higher virtues are mere hypocrisy, and arise from the selfish desire to be superior to the brutes. "The moral virtues are the political offspring which flattery begot upon pride." Similarly he arrives at the great paradox that "private vices are public benefits." In psychology, self-esteem or self-worth is a persons self-image at an emotional level; circumventing reason and logic. ... Hobbes redirects here. ... Look up hypocrisy in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up paradox in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Among other things, Mandeville argues that the basest and vilest behaviors produce positive economic effects. A libertine, for example, is a vicious character, and yet his spending will employ tailors, servants, perfumers, cooks, and distressed women. These persons, in turn, will employ bakers, carpenters, and the like. Therefore, the rapaciousness and violence of the base passions of the libertine benefit society in general. Similar satirical arguments were made by the Restoration and Augustan satirists. Libertine has come to mean one free from restraint, particularly from social and religious norms and morals. ... King Charles II, the first monarch to rule after the English Restoration. ...

The Division of Labour

Mandeville was an early describer of the Division of labour, and Adam Smith makes use of some of his examples.^[5] Mandeville says: Division of labour is the specialization of cooperative labour in specific, circumscribed tasks and roles, intended to increase efficiency of output. ... Adam Smith (baptized June 5, 1723 O.S. / June 16 N.S. – July 17, 1790) was a Scottish moral philosopher and a pioneering political economist. ...

But if one will wholly apply himself to the making of Bows and Arrows, whilst another provides Food, a third builds Huts, a fourth makes Garments, and a fifth Utensils, they not only become useful to one another, but the Callings and Employments themselves will in the same Number of Years receive much greater Improvements, than if all had been promiscuously follow’d by every one of the Five...

In Watch-making, which is come to a higher degree of Perfection, than it would have been arrived at yet, if the whole had always remain’d the Employment of one Person; and I am persuaded, that even the Plenty we have of Clocks and Watches, as well as the Exactness and Beauty they may be made of, are chiefly owing to the Division that has been made of that Art into many Branches. (The Fable of the Bees, Volume two).

The Fable of The Bees, by Bernard de Mandeville, 1714. ...

Influence

While the author probably had no intention of subverting morality, his views of human nature were certainly cynical and degrading. Another of his works, A Search into the Nature of Society (1723), appended to the later versions of the Fable, also startled the public mind, which his last works, Free Thoughts on Religion (1720) and An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour and the Usefulness of Christianity (1732) did little to reassure. The work in which he approximates most nearly to modern views is his account of the origin of society. His a priori theories should be compared with Henry Maine's historical inquiries (Ancient Law). He endeavours to show that all social laws are the crystallized results of selfish aggrandizement and protective alliances among the weak. Denying any form of moral sense or conscience, he regards all the social virtues as evolved from the instinct for self-preservation, the give-and-take arrangements between the partners in a defensive and offensive alliance, and the feelings of pride and vanity artificially fed by politicians, as an antidote to dissension and chaos. Morality refers to the concept of human ethics which pertains to matters of good and evil — also referred to as right or wrong — used within three contexts: individual conscience; systems of principles and judgments — sometimes called moral values —shared within a cultural, religious, secular or philosophical community; and codes of... For other uses, see Human nature (disambiguation). ... Christianity is a monotheistic[1] religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented in the New Testament. ... The terms a priori and a posteriori are used in philosophy to distinguish between two different types of propositional knowledge. ... Sir Henry James Sumner Maine (August 15, 1822 - February 3, 1888), English comparative jurist and historian, son of Dr James Maine, of Kelso, Roxburghshire. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ... Self preservation is part of an animals instinct that demands that the organism survives. ...

Mandeville's ironic paradoxes are interesting mainly as a criticism of the "amiable" idealism of Shaftesbury, and in comparison with the serious egoistic systems of Hobbes and Helvétius. It is mere prejudice to deny that Mandeville had considerable philosophic insight; at the same time he was mainly negative or critical, and, as he himself said, he was writing for "the entertainment of people of knowledge and education." He can be said to have removed obstacles for the coming utilitarianism. Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (February 26, 1671 - February 4, 1713), was an English politician, philosopher and writer. ... Claude Adrien Helvétius (February 26, 1715 - December 26, 1771) was a French philosopher and litterateur. ... Utilitarianism (from the Latin utilis, useful) is the ethical doctrine that the moral worth of an action is solely determined by its contribution to overall utility. ...

Works

• Typhon: a Burlesque Poem (1704)
• Aesop Dress'd, or a Collection of Fables writ in Familiar Verse (1704)
• The Planter's Charity (1704)
• The Virgin Unmasked (1709, 1724, 1731, 1742), a work in which, the coarser side of his nature is prominent
• Treatise of the Hypochondriack and Hysterick Passions (1711, 1715, 1730) admired by Johnson (Mandeville here protests against speculative therapeutics, and advances fanciful theories of his own about animal spirits in connection with "stomachic ferment": he shows a knowledge of Locke's methods, and an admiration for Sydenham)
• The Fable of the Bees (1714)
• Free Thoughts on Religion (1720)
• A Modest Defence of Publick Stews (1724)
• An Enquiry into the Causes of the Frequent Executions at Tyburn (1725)
• The Origin of Honour and the Usefulness of Christianity in War (1732).

Other works attributed, wrongly, to him are The World Unmasked (1736) and Zoologia medicinalis hibernica (1744). Aesop, as depicted in the Nuremberg Chronicle by Hartmann Schedel. ... For other persons named Samuel Johnson, see Samuel Johnson (disambiguation). ... This article is about John Locke, the English philosopher. ... Thomas Sydenham. ... The Fable of The Bees, by Bernard de Mandeville, 1714. ... Tyburn was a former village in the county of Middlesex close to the current location of Marble Arch. ...

References

1. ^ http://[www.bernard-mandeville.nl|Project Bernard Mandeville]
2. ^ [1] Britannica Student Encyclopedia
3. ^ The Literary Encyclopedia
4. ^ The Literary Encyclopedia
5. ^ The Wealth Of Nations, Glasgow Edition, footnote to page 27, section I.ii.3

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
• See Hill's Boswell, iii. 291-293; Leslie Stephen's English Thought in the Eighteenth Century; Alexander Bain's Moral Science (593-598); Windel-ia.nd's History of Ethics (Eng. trans. Tufts); JM Robertson, Pioneer Humanists (1907); P Sakmann, Bernard de Mandeville und die Bienenfabel-Controverse (Freiburg, 1897)
• Mandeville, Bernard. Fable of the Bees, I, p 369, in the appended "A Search into the Nature of Society."

Encyclopædia Britannica, the 11th edition The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition (1910–1911) is perhaps the most famous edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. ... The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge&#8212;writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others&#8212;in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ... Sir Leslie Stephen (November 28, 1832 – February 22, 1904) was an English author and critic, the father of two famous daughters, Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell. ... Alexander Bain A different Alexander Bain invented the electric clock, facsimile machine and earth battery. ...

External links

• Some books can be freely obtained on the website of manybooks.net
• Works by Bernard de Mandeville at Project Gutenberg
• Project Bernard Mandeville - in Dutch, but with some English translations and many biographical details.
• Summary of his life. Includes a link to the 1705 poem The Grumbling Hive
• Entry in the Literary Encyclopedia
• Included in a History of Vegetarianism
• [2] A scholarly bibliography by Charles W. A. Prior.
• [3] Several downloads of works by Mandeville, including The Fable of the Bees
• [4] Text of The Fable of the Bees, plus Mandeville on 'Moral Virtue'.