Thoughts on Machiavelli

Thoughts on Machiavelli PDF Author: Leo Strauss
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022623097X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
The esteemed philosopher’s assessment of good, evil, and the value of Machiavelli. Leo Strauss argued that the most visible fact about Machiavelli’s doctrine is also the most useful one: Machiavelli seems to be a teacher of wickedness. Strauss sought to incorporate this idea in his interpretation without permitting it to overwhelm or exhaust his exegesis of The Prince and Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy. “We are in sympathy,” he writes, “with the simple opinion about Machiavelli [namely, the wickedness of his teaching], not only because it is wholesome, but above all because a failure to take that opinion seriously prevents one from doing justice to what is truly admirable in Machiavelli: the intrepidity of his thought, the grandeur of his vision, and the graceful subtlety of his speech.” This critique of the founder of modern political philosophy by this prominent twentieth-century scholar is an essential text for students of both authors.

Thoughts on Machiavelli

Thoughts on Machiavelli PDF Author: Leo Strauss
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022623097X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 350

Get Book Here

Book Description
The esteemed philosopher’s assessment of good, evil, and the value of Machiavelli. Leo Strauss argued that the most visible fact about Machiavelli’s doctrine is also the most useful one: Machiavelli seems to be a teacher of wickedness. Strauss sought to incorporate this idea in his interpretation without permitting it to overwhelm or exhaust his exegesis of The Prince and Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy. “We are in sympathy,” he writes, “with the simple opinion about Machiavelli [namely, the wickedness of his teaching], not only because it is wholesome, but above all because a failure to take that opinion seriously prevents one from doing justice to what is truly admirable in Machiavelli: the intrepidity of his thought, the grandeur of his vision, and the graceful subtlety of his speech.” This critique of the founder of modern political philosophy by this prominent twentieth-century scholar is an essential text for students of both authors.

Thoughts on Machiavelli

Thoughts on Machiavelli PDF Author: Leo Strauss
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226777022
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 349

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Book Description
Leo Strauss argued that the most visible fact about Machiavelli's doctrine is also the most useful one: Machiavelli seems to be a teacher of wickedness. Strauss sought to incorporate this idea in his interpretation without permitting it to overwhelm or exhaust his exegesis of The Prince and the Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy. "We are in sympathy," he writes, "with the simple opinion about Machiavelli [namely, the wickedness of his teaching], not only because it is wholesome, but above all because a failure to take that opinion seriously prevents one from doing justice to what is truly admirable in Machiavelli: the intrepidity of his thought, the grandeur of his vision, and the graceful subtlety of his speech." This critique of the founder of modern political philosophy by this prominent twentieth-century scholar is an essential text for students of both authors.

The Stakes

The Stakes PDF Author: Michael Anton
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1684510732
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 441

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Book Description
AMERICA AT THE POINT OF NO RETURN The next election is the most important one America has faced in more than a century. That’s not campaign hype. America is divided as almost never before—with contesting political factions regarding themselves not as rivals but as enemies. And the frightening thing is that, in large part, they’re right. The Democratic Party has become the party of “identity politics”—and every one of those identities is defined against a unifying national heritage of patriotism, pride in America’s past, and hope for a shared future. Offering only antagonism based on group identity—whether race, sex, or something else—the Democrats look forward to imposing nationally what they have achieved in California: one-party rule in a lockdown nation, where the ruling class makes every decision and doles out benefits to favored groups. Against them is a divided Republican Party. Gravely misunderstanding the opposition, old-style Republicans still seek bipartisanship and accommodation, wrongly assuming that Democrats care about playing by the tiresome old rules laid down in the Constitution and other fundamental charters of American liberty. The new core of the Republican Party is the populists and nationalists, who are tired of losing. The party’s only hope of victory, they are all that stand between the United States as we have traditionally understood it and a revolution—less dramatic in appearance but just as consequential as the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. Michael Anton, the author of the most scathing, memorable, and quoted essay of the 2016 campaign season, “The Flight 93 Election”—which Rush Limbaugh called “one of the greatest columns ever written”—now explains in depth why the stakes have risen even higher. Ranging across every hot-button political topic of our time—from immigration to nationalism to war—and informed by a profound understanding of classical and American political philosophy, The Stakes will transform the way you view politics and America’s future.

Political Philosophy and the Challenge of Revealed Religion

Political Philosophy and the Challenge of Revealed Religion PDF Author: Heinrich Meier
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022627585X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 211

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Book Description
Meier's guiding insight here is that philosophy must prove its right and its necessity in the face of the claim to truth and demand obedience of itsmost powerful opponent, revealed religion.

The Prince

The Prince PDF Author: Niccolo Machiavelli
Publisher: Wyatt North Publishing, LLC
ISBN: 164798145X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
Written in the 16th century, The Prince remains one of the most influential books on political theory. Its author, Niccolo Machiavelli was an Italian diplomat and political theorist, and is considered the father of modern political thought.

Discourses on Livy

Discourses on Livy PDF Author: Niccolò Machiavelli
Publisher: e-artnow
ISBN: 8026885007
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 495

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Book Description
Machiavelli saw history in general as a way to learn useful lessons from the past for the present, and also as a type of analysis which could be built upon, as long as each generation did not forget the works of the past. In "Discourses on Livy" Machiavelli discusses what can be learned from roman period and many other eras as well, including the politics of his lifetime. This is a work of political history and philosophy written in the early 16th. The title identifies the work's subject as the first ten books of Livy's Ab urbe condita, which relate the expansion of Rome through the end of the Third Samnite War in 293 BC. Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (1469 – 1527) was an Italian diplomat, politician, historian, philosopher, humanist, and writer. He has often been called the father of modern political science. He was for many years a senior official in the Florentine Republic, with responsibilities in diplomatic and military affairs. He served as a secretary to the Second Chancery of the Republic of Florence from 1498 to 1512, when the Medici were out of power.He wrote his most well-known work The Prince in 1513, having been exiled from city affairs.

Discourses on Strauss

Discourses on Strauss PDF Author: Kim A. Sorensen
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780268041175
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
Sorensen examines Strauss's political theory by turning to his distinction between revelation and reason, religion and philosophy. The author maintains that Strauss viewed these as two fundamentally different worldviews and as alternate ways of understanding the good life by way of a reading of Strauss's Thoughts on Machiavelli.

Machiavelli's Virtue

Machiavelli's Virtue PDF Author: Harvey C. Mansfield
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226503720
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description
Uniting thirty years of authoritative scholarship by a master of textual detail, Machiavelli's Virtue is a comprehensive statement on the founder of modern politics. Harvey Mansfield reveals the role of sects in Machiavelli's politics, his advice on how to rule indirectly, and the ultimately partisan character of his project, and shows him to be the founder of such modern and diverse institutions as the impersonal state and the energetic executive. Accessible and elegant, this groundbreaking interpretation explains the puzzles and reveals the ambition of Machiavelli's thought. "The book brings together essays that have mapped [Mansfield's] paths of reflection over the past thirty years. . . . The ground, one would think, is ancient and familiar, but Mansfield manages to draw out some understandings, or recognitions, jarringly new."—Hadley Arkes, New Criterion "Mansfield's book more than rewards the close reading it demands."—Colin Walters, Washington Times "[A] masterly new book on the Renaissance courtier, statesman and political philosopher. . . . Mansfield seeks to rescue Machiavelli from liberalism's anodyne rehabilitation."—Roger Kimball, The Wall Street Journal

Machiavelli's God

Machiavelli's God PDF Author: Maurizio Viroli
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069115449X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
How Machiavelli's Christianity shaped his political thought To many readers of The Prince, Machiavelli appears to be deeply un-Christian or even anti-Christian, a cynic who thinks rulers should use religion only to keep their subjects in check. But in Machiavelli's God, Maurizio Viroli, one of the world's leading authorities on Machiavelli, argues that Machiavelli, far from opposing Christianity, thought it was crucial to republican social and political renewal—but that first it needed to be renewed itself. And without understanding this, Viroli contends, it is impossible to comprehend Machiavelli's thought. Viroli places Machiavelli in the context of Florence's republican Christianity, which was founded on the idea that the true Christian is a citizen who serves the common good. In this tradition, God participates in human affairs, supports and rewards those who govern justly, and desires men to make the earthly city similar to the divine one. Building on this tradition, Machiavelli advocated a religion of virtue, and he believed that, without this faith, free republics could not be established, defend themselves against corruption, or survive. Viroli makes a powerful case that Machiavelli, far from being a pagan or atheist, was a prophet of a true religion of liberty, a way of moral and political living that would rediscover and pursue charity and justice. The translation of this work has been funded by SEPS—Segretariato Europeo per le Pubblicazioni Scientifiche.

Machiavelli's Politics

Machiavelli's Politics PDF Author: Catherine H. Zuckert
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022643480X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 511

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Book Description
Machiavelli is popularly known as a teacher of tyrants, a key proponent of the unscrupulous “Machiavellian” politics laid down in his landmark political treatise The Prince. Others cite the Discourses on Livy to argue that Machiavelli is actually a passionate advocate of republican politics who saw the need for occasional harsh measures to maintain political order. Which best characterizes the teachings of the prolific Italian philosopher? With Machiavelli’s Politics, Catherine H. Zuckert turns this question on its head with a major reinterpretation of Machiavelli’s prose works that reveals a surprisingly cohesive view of politics. Starting with Machiavelli’s two major political works, Zuckert persuasively shows that the moral revolution Machiavelli sets out in The Prince lays the foundation for the new form of democratic republic he proposes in the Discourses. Distrusting ambitious politicians to serve the public interest of their own accord, Machiavelli sought to persuade them in The Prince that the best way to achieve their own ambitions was to secure the desires and ambitions of their subjects and fellow citizens. In the Discourses, he then describes the types of laws and institutions that would balance the conflict between the two in a way that would secure the liberty of most, if not all. In the second half of her book, Zuckert places selected later works—La Mandragola, The Art of War, The Life of Castruccio Castracani, Clizia, and Florentine Histories—under scrutiny, showing how Machiavelli further developed certain aspects of his thought in these works. In The Art of War, for example, he explains more concretely how and to what extent the principles of organization he advanced in The Prince and the Discourses ought to be applied in modern circumstances. Because human beings act primarily on passions, Machiavelli attempts to show readers what those passions are and how they can be guided to have productive rather than destructive results. A stunning and ambitious analysis, Machiavelli’s Politics brilliantly shows how many conflicting perspectives do inform Machiavelli’s teachings, but that one needs to consider all of his works in order to understand how they cohere into a unified political view. This is a magisterial work that cannot be ignored if a comprehensive understanding of the philosopher is to be obtained.