21 Pages Posted: 1 May 2014

Date Written: April 30, 2014

Abstract

The article deals with the epistemological background of the early modern theories of sociability: taking as a starting point the ‘prudential theorems’ from the sixth chapter of Hobbes’ Leviathan, the author examines in consecutive order the Cartesian foundations of sociability in Samuel Pufendorf’s theory of the natural right, the sensualist scienza del commercio of Celestino Galiani, and the refutation of both Cartesian ‘hypothetical metaphysics’ and ‘politics of merchants’ on the grounds of ‘practical Platonism’ by Paolo Mattia Doria.