Machiavelli. The First Century. Studies in Enthusiasm, Hostility, and Irrelevance - by Sidney Anglo (original) (raw)
Related papers
Machiavelli at a Crossroads. The Birth of Modern Thinking
2012
This paper is an attempt of clarification on Machiavelli's place in the History of Philosophy and, more specifically, to reflect on his role in the birth of Modern Thought. Assuming that Machiavelli is an innovator of political philosophy, the question is if he is also a modern thinker. In this paper, I uphold the idea that this controversy happens because Machiavelli positioned himself at a crossroads by taking a tradition (a Roman and, in a certain sense, a Greek one too) and trying to adapt it to a new context: the Florence of the early 16th century. This gave rise to a set of complex, sometimes apparently contradictory ideas, different aspects of which were taken up by some of the 17th century's most important thinkers as Descartes or Spinoza, leading to differing concepts of man's position in relation to the state.
This paper argues that Machiavelli's method, his inductive and comparative use of history and experience for political analysis, and his fashioning of historical-political analysis as 'science', played an important and still unrecognised role in his reception in the sixteenth century. It makes the case that Machiavelli's inductive reasoning and stress on historia and experientia offered a model for scientific method that open-minded sixteenth-century scholars, eager to understand, organise and augment human knowledge (scientia), could fit to their own epistemology. By focusing on the question of method―a crucial issue for sixteenth-century contemporaries―the paper offers more than a key to the understanding of Machiavelli's positive reception. It also helps in apprehending the crucial importance of Lucretius to Machiavelli's scholarship; the role of the late Renaissance fascination with historia in his reception; and the breadth of appropriation of his method exactly in the decades when anti-Machiavellianism became official politics all over Europe. These claims are sustained through the cases of Machiavelli's early translators and promulgators; the French legal humanists and historiographers; the Swiss, Italian and French scholars engaging with medicine, Paracelsism and astronomy; the authors of political maxims from all over Europe; and finally Francis Bacon.
Special Issue on Machiavelli, Italian Culture, 32/2, 2014
This special issue joins the celebrations related to the five-hundredth anniversary of The Prince's completion by adding four new papers written by scholars, who, although all very established in their respective fields and countries, are, for different reasons, not as well known to the English-speaking world of Machiavelli studies as they might be.
In his book, The Prince, written in 1513, Niccolò Machiavelli argued for the autonomy of politics from religion and ethics, essentially creating the discipline of political sciences. His ideas enjoyed a great popularity in the following centuries, and were admired, and more often criticized and also despised, by a large number of philosophers and politicians. Our purpose in this paper is to examine the reception and interpretation of Machiavelli's ideas in Europe in the interwar period, in particular in the authoritarian ideologies of fascist political actors.
Don't Judge a Book by Its Cover, Or A Man by His Book: In Defense of Niccolo Machiavelli
In contemporary discourse, the figure of Machiavelli has become the caricature of the unethical politician, who serves self-interest regardless of moral implications. However, this representation of his character is hasty and not founded upon the realities of historical evidence. This paper will argue that popular contemporary perceptions of Machiavelli and " Machiavellianism " are misguided, by examining its validity vis a vis biographical and textual evidence within Machiavelli's works, and the influence of external actors and forces.
Confusion verging on chaos aptly describes Italian politics between any two points in time. That being said, the amount of outright violence, political backstabbing and social upheaval Machiavelli had to put up with - as a successful bureaucrat and diplomat first (1498-1512), and later as a disgraced citizen (1512-27) is, with few if any exceptions, virtually unmatched in the history of Italian philosophy. At any rate, it is conspicuous enough to put him in a league of his own (among political thinkers). All the more so since, in Machiavelli's own words, his claim to originality rested on a return to the things themselves and the 'real truth' they convey through experience, as opposed to the traditional proclivity towards speculation regarding 'imaginary things', most notably by portraying fanciful characters and devising political regimes that can only exist on paper. Indeed, philosophers had long been lecturing- either in flawless syllogistic fashion or in vivid rhetorical style - both rulers and subjects on how they should behave and interact. However, they had taken little notice of how they actually go about their business. Alternatively, what does unbiased, direct observation of the present and extensive, informed reading of the past teach us about the ways of the world?
Machiavelli's ironies (Paper delivered at Renaissance Studies conference, Montreal 2011)
My book, Machiavelli's Ethics, argues that Machiavelli wrote as a moral and political philosopher who had a coherent theory of justice, consistently defended the rule of law, and did not hold that "the ends justify the means." I dissent from the view that he initiated a sharp break with ancient as well as Christian morality, and suggest that he renews a tradition of ancient ethics based on prudent self-restraint. These arguments hold true for the Prince as well as the Discourses, Florentine Histories, and other works. Several reviewers have asked: how could anyone arrive at such a bowdlerised reading of Machiavelli? This paper explains how I came to develop my arguments.