Machiavelli, Niccolò [addendum] | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

Many readers come to Machiavelli with their minds made up about who he was and what he espoused. A more balanced assessment must take into account many approaches to his work and possible influences from the classical world.

In order to evaluate Machiavelli one must first decide what he was doing and second decide how to balance the assessment of the texts. The traditional assessment of Machiavelli is "expedient egoist." Under this reading one would cite passages from The Prince in which rulers are advised to employ deceit and cruelty for the sake of political advantage. However, it is unclear whether these passages should be taken at face value or rather as an invective set in its European historical perspective: (a) a striving to connect to the past—particularly to the Roman Empire and its eloquent Republican spokesman, Cicero; and (b) a chafing with the Papal authority over the legacy of the Roman Empire—especially the bogus "Donation of Constantine." In this forged document the Roman Emperor Constantine supposedly granted the whole of the Roman Empire to the pope who, in turn, allowed the daily duties of running the secular to fall upon the emperor. This document sought to establish a legal claim for the pope's universal secular power. It could be that Machiavelli, in the first case, was interested in espousing the republican message of Cicero. It could also be, in the second case that Machiavelli was consciously breaking away from established forms of exposition in order to create another mode of political discourse.

In recent scholarship (over the second half of the twentieth century) Ernst Cassirer (1946) believed that Machiavelli espoused a clear and coherent argument based upon a vision that moved the modern world forward in a realistic fashion. Isaiah Berlin (1972 [1953]\) followed in asserting that Machiavelli put forth a cogent secular vision that was consistent. Leo Strauss (1958) agreed that the vision was consistent, but said that both from the points of view in The Prince and of The Discourses on Livy that Machiavelli was a teacher of evil (namely, an expedient egoist).

Certainly, the worldviews presented in The Prince and The Discourses on Livy appear both different and the same. They are different in that in the former case there seem to be many aphorisms that violate ethical laws whereas in the latter it seems that Machiavelli is concerned to uphold public morality—such as eliminating public corruption for the sake of the republic. One might reasonably ask whether the same person wrote both works.

However, they are similar in that they are both pragmatically oriented toward solving problems. Thus, we are faced with one interpretative option of which work should be seen as representing the author's "true vision"? Because of the caveats mentioned above, (a) and (b), some of the so-called "Cambridge School" (Pocock, Skinner, and Viroli) have accentuated the emphasis upon the rule of law, common good, and general republicanism as seen from the Discourses as evidence that Machiavelli was really a forward-thinking republican thinker.

If [this]\ reading of Machiavelli is correct, then he is a thinker who is not an advocate of expedient egoism, but rather is a thinker who saw various dead ends in the way political philosophy was being explored. To start anew he tries to jettison the views of the reigning paradigm and start afresh. This is an interesting interpretation, but it has one possible flaw: Machiavelli does not spend time on theoretical foundations. Any theory asserted to be present there must be read into the text. And so what theory might support his pragmatic observations?

Two candidates are Aristotle and Cicero. At this period of history, Aristotle's Politics and Ethics had recently been translated into Latin. Cicero had been the established authority (because of his association with Rome and because of the rhetorical structure of the Discourses) and so most commentators seem to think that he is the dominant influence. Another argument along this line is that Aristotle thought that civic virtue derived from man fulfilling his nature in the context of society (so that politics flows from ethics). Machiavelli does not employ such an explanatory framework. Can his texts be read from this perspective? Perhaps, but it may be a stretch because the practicality of Machiavelli works against Aristotle's essentialism.

The candidate left standing is Cicero. If this is the case, then Cicero's presence best describes the Muse of Machiavelli. The structure of the Discourses seems to suggest this as it follows the classical rhetorical form: (for example, observe the titles of the first three chapters: (1) What Have been Universally the Beginnings of Any City Whatever, and What was That of Rome; (2) Of How Many Species Are Republics, and Which Was the Roman Republic; (3) What Accidents Made the Tribunes of the Plebs Be Created in Rome, Which Made the Republic More Perfect).

However, once this is accepted, then other results may follow. The postmodernists assert that literary constructions can substitute for a traditional exposition of the pursuit of a universal Truth (as per Aristotle). Instead, the use of Ciceronian rhetoric might resonate with the etymology of "rhetoric" à la speaking in public or engaging in discourse with others. If this understanding is correct, then the philosophy of discourse and construction from discourse as per Foucault, Ricoeur, Derrida, or Habermas might be more apropos than the use of rhetoric as a means of transmitting already settled truths.

Such an interpretation may have many advantages. First, it might resolve the contradictions between the various texts of Machiavelli. This is because contradictions are only a problem if one is creating a systematic work of philosophy, such as was aspired to by Aristotle or Thomas. Second, it might blunt the traditional "bad boy" image of Machiavelli by bringing him into the realm of merely revealing various approaches to the questions of what policies might be necessary for running a state. By bringing out various options and interacting with them, Machiavelli might be eschewing the conventional method of discourse (even though he employs traditional forms) in favor of creating a new realpolitik.

This reinvigorated conception would find its sources in the way politics are actually practiced. So, for example, The Prince might be seen not as a way things ought to be, but a description of the way things are. If we are to go anywhere, here is the starting point. Let us all accept this. And in the Discourses if Rome is a model of a civilization that worked well for a long time, then the focus should be upon what can be done to correct the flaws that brought it down. Under this sort of reading, the exploration of politics is not about creating treatises on political theory, but instead of initiating a dialogue among readers about the "deal points" in running a state. The completion of the text lies in the audience.

Aristotle; Berlin, Isaiah; Cassirer, Ernst; Cicero, Marcus Tullius; Derrida, Jacques; Foucault, Michel; Habermas, Jürgen; Political Philosophy, History Of; Ricoeur, Paul; Social and Political Philosophy; Thomas Aquinas, St.

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