The proto-sociology of Mandeville and Hume

Abstract

While sociologists have largely turned their back on the foundations of their discipline as a science of society, historians have recently focused on the first classical period of modern social science in the eighteenth century from this perspective. Mikko Tolonen has recently revised established interpretations of David Hume's and Bernard Mandeville's work. Mandeville has usually been considered to continue the Hobbesian tradition of the ‘selfish theory’, but the author claims that the second volume contains an essentially different view of the social origins of passions as well as the social order. Hume follows this train of thought and arrives at a theory of modern society that turns the Hobbesian tradition upside down. Government is necessary for the social order, but now it is seen to result from civil society processes, not as being their cause. Mandeville's idea of pride, sovereignty, or self-liking is central in Hume's argument. It links Hume's work to Adam Smith's theory of sympathy, but also to later sociological theories of social order that is based on autonomy of society's members rather than force.

Keywords:

• autonomy
• Hobbes
• Hume
• Mandeville
• social order
• sociology

Notes on contributor

Pekka Sulkunen is Professor of Sociology at the University of Helsinki, and Senior Research Fellow at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies. His books include The Saturated Society – Regulating Lifestyles in Consumer Culture (Sage 2009) where he discusses the connection between theories of the social order by Hume, Smith and Bopurdieu.