State of Nature, Stages of Society: Enlightenment Conjectural History and Modern Social Discourse

by Frank Palmeri

Frank Palmeri sees the conjectural histories of Rousseau, Hume, Herder, and other Enlightenment philosophers as a template for the development of the social sciences in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Without documents or memorials, these thinkers, he argues, employed conjecture to formulate a naturalistic account of society's commercial and secular progression.

Palmeri finds evidence of speculative frameworks in the political...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0231175167
• ISBN13: 9780231175166
• Release Date: March 2016
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.1" x 9.1"
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher