Why is the world orderly, and how does order occur? Humans inhabit many systems - natural, social, political, economic, cognitive, and others - with seemingly obscure origins. In the eighteenth century, older certainties, rooted in divine providence or mechanistic explanations, began to fall away. In their place arose a new appreciation for complexity and randomness along with an ability to see the world's orders - whether natural or manmade - as self-organizing. If large systems were left to their own devices, eighteenth-century Europeans came to believe, order would emerge on its own without any need for external design or direction. In Invisible Hands, Jonathan Sheehan and Dror Wahrman trace the versatile language of self-organization in the eighteenth-century West. Across an array of domains, including religion, philosophy, science, politics, economy, and law, they show how and why this way of thinking entered the public view and then spread in diverse and often surprising forms. Offering a new synthesis of intellectual and cultural developments, Invisible Hands is a landmark contribution to the history of the Enlightenment.
- ISBN10 0226752054
- ISBN13 9780226752051
- Publish Date 29 May 2015
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint University of Chicago Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 384
- Language English
- URL http://wiley.com/remtitle.cgi?isbn=9780226752051