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Bernard Mandeville and the rhetoric of social science
Author(s) -
Hundert E. J.
Publication year - 1986
Publication title -
journal of the history of the behavioral sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.216
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1520-6696
pISSN - 0022-5061
DOI - 10.1002/1520-6696(198610)22:4<311::aid-jhbs2300220402>3.0.co;2-d
Subject(s) - rhetoric , passions , rhetorical question , epistemology , sociology , ideal (ethics) , social science , environmental ethics , philosophy , linguistics
Mandeville's account of the place of rhetoric in the formation of society and of the concepts employed to comprehend it clarifies a number of his arguments and helps to explain their historical significance. Mandeville's theory consolidated a conceptual revolution in the understanding of the relations between motives and acts and resituated the passions as a problem in social analysis. It provides a way of understanding how these arguments played a unique role in the establishment of a rhetorical ideal of social science as they were reluctantly integrated into social theorizing during the two generations after Mandeville's death.