Bernard Mandeville, or Bernard de Mandeville (15 November 1670, Rotterdam – 21 January 1733, Hackney), 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 became famous for The Fable of the Bees.
Mandeville was born on 15 November 1670, at Rotterdam in the Netherlands, where his father was a prominent physician. On leaving the Erasm...
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Bernard Mandeville, or Bernard de Mandeville (15 November 1670, Rotterdam – 21 January 1733, Hackney), 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 became famous for The Fable of the Bees.
Mandeville was born on 15 November 1670, at Rotterdam in the Netherlands, where his father was a prominent physician. 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, and succeeded so remarkably that many refused to believe he was a foreigner. His father had been banished from Rotterdam in 1693 for involvement in the Costerman tax...
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