| This dissertation explores the ways in which the representation of the human found in Aesopic fables contributed to the development of the Homo oeconomicus, and the ways that the desire for maximized utility characteristic of economic man influenced the writing of Aesopic fables.;It shows how the use of animal figures in the rhetoric of 16th and 17th century political philosophy contributed to the emergence of the realist anthropology associated with the economic model known as the Homo oeconomicus. It examines how this ‘zooanthropology’ undermined classical conceptions of human nature, and considers the role played by fables and fabulists in the generation and propagation of the economic vision of human nature. With respect to the influence of economic man on the fables, the dissertation examines how the usage of animal figures in contemporary political philosophy altered the contents of collections of fables. Considering the form of the fables, it shows how 18 th century theorists developed a poetics that strived to maximize the use-value of the fables, thus creating a poetry ideally tailored for consumption by Homines oeconomici.;The dissertation is organized as follows. An opening Prologue introduces the notion of the Homo oeconomicus, highlighting the incompatibility of this idea of human nature with the classical virtues as they were understood by Aristotle. It also introduces the Aesopic fable as a genre, likewise emphasizing how the conception of human nature found in the fables differs from the Aristotelian one. The introductory sections discuss Smith, Mandeville, Machiavelli, Luther, and Hobbes, tracing the collapse of the older political-anthropological paradigm and the emergence of the new economic one. The following section discusses La Fontaine’s contribution to the anthropology of self-interest and in particular his influence on Mandeville. After this comes a discussion of the role of the fables in the propagation of economic ideologies, and an extended analysis of the fable poetics of the Enlightenment with particular attention given to La Fontaine, La Motte, Gellert, and Lessing. The dissertation closes with some reflections on the usage of animal fables in the rhetoric of two critics of modernity, Friedrich Nietzsche and Carl Schmitt. |
