Machiavellism

This article explores the ways in which Gramsci's engagement with Machiavelli and The Prince in particular result in three significant developments in the Prison Notebooks. First, I analyze how the 'heroic fury' of Gramsci's lifelong interest in Machiavelli's thought develops, during the composition of his carceral writings, into a novel approach to the reading of The Prince, giving rise to the famous notion of the 'modern Prince'. Second, I argue that the modern Prince should not be regarded merely as a distinctive (individual or collective) figure, but rather, should be understood as a dramatic development that unfolds throughout 'the discourse itself' of the Prison Notebooks, particularly in the crucial phase of reorganisation in the 'special notebooks' composed from 1932 onwards. Third and finally, I suggest that the combination of the two preceding themes is decisive for understanding the modern Prince as a distinctive form of political organization. Rather than equated with a generic conception of the '(communist) political party', this notion was developed as a part of Gramsci's larger argument regarding the necessity for anti-Fascist political forces in Italy in the early 1930s to grow into an antagonistic collective body guided by principles of 'living philology'.

Explaining the philosophy of Machiavelli on the example of street racing: power, deception, realist behaviour, realist ethics, violence. The article was first published on Drivetribe. The article is a part of the book "Introduction to Academic Driving" (Ost Neer, KPD, 2019).

Why Machiavelli’s iron rules are as timely and important today as five centuries ago?

Why Machiavelli?
Nobody else has dealt with the political and moral requirements of leadership with such brutal clarity as Machiavelli. Machiavelli s thoughts about the proper use of power have always fascinated the greatest thinkers. My Italian edition of The Prince has a long introduction by Hegel, a great fan of Machiavelli; since the book s publication,
virtually every major political philosopher has felt it necessary to write something on Machiavelli. Such obsessive attention bespeaks a passionate debate about Machiavelli’s meaning and his standing. Forty years ago. Sir Isaiah Berlin counted twenty different interpretations, ranging from Machiavelli - the Antichrist, to Machiavelli - the tortured
humanist. This will surely surprise most of those who read The Prince in school, since few great books are as clearly and unambiguously written, but the debate continues. It would also surprise Machiavelli, because most of his work is intended for men and women of action, above all for leaders: leaders of religions, leaders of armies and of states, whether monarchical or republican, dictatorial or democratic. He spent most of
his time in combat, on the battlefield or in the courtroom or the legislative chamber. He did not expect or desire to be carried off to scholarly libraries. He much preferred the company of military commanders, captains of industry, and men of the state, and they have
reciprocated his esteem. During the Italian campaign of the Second World War, the commanders of both armies - General Mark Clark of the United States and Field Marshal Albert Kesselring of Nazi Germany - declared Machiavelli’s Tuscan estate in Sant’Andrea in Percussina off limits to their troops. Neither one wanted to be responsible for any damage to the historic site.

Tesis para optar al grado de Magíster en Pensamiento Contemporáneo.

RESUMEN:
En la presente investigación se trabajará en torno a la relación entre religión y política en Nicolás Maquiavelo. En su obra, encontramos que la religión tiene una doble función para el autor: por un lado, una función privada; por el otro, una función pública. Como expresión de lo anterior, se analizará la figura bíblica del rey David a partir de sus textos políticos (El príncipe y Discursos sobre la primera década de Tito Livio), y particularmente, el breve discurso Exhortación a la penitencia. Este último discurso ha sido poco trabajado en sus argumentos teórico-políticos y las consecuencias que se desprenden sobre pensar la relación entre religión y política en el autor.
En esta investigación, sostendré que en Exhortación a la penitencia, y en particular, desde el análisis de la persona de David, se abre el campo de conocimiento sobre la relación entre religión y política en la obra maquiaveliana. En ese sentido, la pregunta que se abordará es ¿qué nos puede enseñar la figura de David sobre la relación entre religión y política en Maquiavelo?

This piece, published in the French and English academic blog Tocqueville21, evaluates James Burnham's recent "mini Renaissance" and critically analyzes the apocalyptic rhetoric that underlies his theory of "the managerial revolution."  I argue that those seeking to revive Burnham's works today cannot uncritically embrace his supposed "realistic" analysis of modern politics developed through his readings of "the Machiavellians." In fact, Burnham's supposedly "realist" theories about geopolitical developments in the 1940s are saturated with what George Orwell called "apocalyptic wish" and display a strong attraction to metanarratives on the philosophy of history that define much of American political thought. 

The conflict between ethics and realism in politics is as topical today as it ever was. Lipsius accesses it through ancient Greek and Roman literature, searching for a middle road between 'Machiavellian deviousness and impractical morality. The edition includes newly discovered source material which explains Lipsius' struggle with the Vatican religious authorities over his ideas.

In this essay, we use classical rhetorical theory to show that Machiavelli's Prince was not intended as advice for a prince, nor as "political science," but rather as a very subtle, but nevertheless powerful, critique of the Italian princes of his day, the Medici included. While not a new reading of the text (the notion of the Prince as a crypto-republican work goes back even before the Enlightenment to the very first years of its appearance), this article places such an interpretation on the firm base of rhetorical theory together with a close reading of the text. Classical rhetorical theory will thus be seen to be a powerful tool in the proper understanding of the text, a line of approach continuing the already important work of the past twenty years, which seeks to restore an appreciation of the fundamentally rhetorical nature of Machiavelli's literary technique and political thought. From this examination of the text against the background of rhetorical theory, one of the perennially vexing questions in the interpretation of Machiavelli's political thought--how to reconcile the apparently "princely" counsels of the Prince with the republican sentiments expressed in Machiavelli's other writings--can finally be resolved.

Throughout the history, a surfeit of intellectuals have propounded modus on how a leader should conduct himself and lead his charges, with every one dwelling on specific characteristics and traits, either ingrained or acquired. Italian realist Niccolò Machiavelli was one of them. He believed that his knowledge of the actions of eminent individuals was his forte; and therefore decided to offer it to Lorenzo di Piero de' Medici in his literary work, The Prince. In his “how- to” manual for political success, Machiavelli proposes a number of thought-provoking insights into leadership and how any leader who hopes to acquire new territory, retain existing dominions or regain lost principalities must act. He specifies rules of conduct for princes and rulers in a period of constant warfare and power struggles. Therefore, quite naturally and realistically, the guiding principle of the Prince is that “All armed prophets have conquered, while all unarmed prophets have been destroyed” (Machiavelli 24). Machiavelli's remark feeds off of ubiquitous atrocities and aggression—it is based upon the “realities” of the “real” world he observed, and due to those realities, his remark remain relevant even today.

The aim of this thesis is to psychoanalyze the central character, who has a Machiavellian and Narcissistic personality disorder, in William Shakespeare‟s Richard III, which is a semi-historical and semi-tragedy work, in terms of Freud‟s Narcissism and Machiavellism. This thesis deals with the will to power, which can be caused by both the psychological disorder and physical deformation of the main character and the evil consequences brought by this will to power.

Il principio della simulazione (e dissimulazione) viene istituzionalizzato da Machiavelli e trova immediatamente spazio non solo nella letteratura politica e nella trattatistica, ma permea anche sulle scene del teatro del Seicento e modifica il concetto di etica e di onestà.

Maquiavelo es sin duda uno de los pensadores más importante en la escena política en la época moderna. A su persona se le atribuye un pensamiento frío y calculista que poco y nada tiene que ver con ética o moral, incluso pasando a llevar el sentido común. Sin embargo, no se puede dejar de reconocer, las malas interpretaciones que ha presentado su pensamiento, no considerando su contexto histórico, su coyuntura en el cual se desenvuelve. Lo que hace de este pensador florentino un tipo extremadamente interesante de analizar, sobre todo teniendo en cuenta sus influencias tan fuertemente marcadas en la política posterior a su vida y que hasta el día de hoy marcan un precedente importante.

"La figura “pre-moderna” di Machiavelli è tornata con forza all’attenzione degli studiosi del pensiero politico, ma anche degli scienziati della politica e della politologia, per l’influenza che il suo pensiero ancora esercita in quella che in molti interpretano come la nostra “post-modernità”. Sebbene possa apparire paradossale, una parte significativa del dibattito sui percorsi della contemporanea politica democratica e sulle sue prospettive si svolge ancora oggi intorno ed attraverso Machiavelli e quei percorsi plurimi della sua fortuna che chiamiamo “machiavellismi”. Alcuni dei temi che tornano oggi di primo piano nel dibattito filosofico-politico – dal conflitto al riconoscimento, dalla guerra al governo repubblicano, dall’occasione alla virtù, per citarne solo alcuni – hanno in Machiavelli un luogo teorico ineludibile.
I saggi raccolti in questo volume ricostruiscono i momenti e le forme della presenza della riflessione del Machiavelli e di differenti “machiavellismi” nella cultura politica anglo-americana in un arco storico vasto, dal XVI al XX secolo. A partire dallo studio della circolazione delle prime traduzioni manoscritte del Principe per giungere all’influenza nel Novecento esercitata della riflessione storica e politica del segretario fiorentino, questa raccolta intende ricostruire quei passaggi teorici e storici che hanno indotto processi di vera e propria invenzione e costruzione di una nuova terminologia politica a partire dal vocabolario machiavelliano."

This paper focuses on the various uses of Machiavelli’s figure and thought during the French Revolution, precisely from the Terror to the Directory. Although Jacobins declare themselves anti-machiavellian, in Robespierre’s speeches at the National Convention and at the Jacobin Club some argumentations are drawn from Machiavelli’s Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio. Robespierre finds in Machiavelli’s political thought not only a strong reference to found a new and well working Republic, but also a theoretical justification and inspiration for the political practice of the Terror. After the coup of 9 Thermidor and the fall of Robespierre, the members of the new regime, called the Thermidorians, propose a very different use of Machiavelli: opposing Jacobin and Rousseauian abstractionism, they consider the Florentine thinker as a champion of political realism and they use his name to justify a moderate approach to politics and a stronger executive power. But, among the apologists of the Thermidorian regime, we can find also the Machiavelli considered a symbol of a politics ruthless. Pierre-Louis Roederer, for example, uses the ‘black legend’ of Machiavelli to delegitimize political enemies and to legitimate Bonaparte’s rise to power. In short, through the analysis of these various uses of Machiavelli’s thought the paper try to reconstruct some political dynamics during this turbulent period of French History.

Für diese Arbeit bezüglich Friedrich des Großen Antwort an Niccolò Machiavellis "Der Fürst" wurde die japanische "SHIn-Ken"-Technik verwendet, bei der nicht Gegensätze sondern Ähnlichkeiten großer Geister herausgearbeitet werden, wodurch das Einzelwerk vertieft wahrgenommen wird.
Ziel dieser Technik ist primär Verständnis mithilfe von Vernetzung zu vermitteln. Wissen wird zwar ebenfalls vermittelt, aber das Erschaffen kerygmatischer Denker steht im Vordergrund.

La "terribilità", la sconvolgente capacità di guardare lucidamente la "verità effettuale" dell'agire umano, senza il velo di alcuna ipocrisia. È questa caratteristica, spesso taciuta, di Verga, a emergere da questo libro, che propone alcuni temi rileggendone l'intera opera: quello, machiavelliano, della ferinità come componente essenziale, costitutiva, dell'umani-tà stessa; quello della guerra, della lotta, dei conflitti, sia della Storia sia delle storie individuali; quello dello "spatriare", per necessità, che dalle sue pagine si proietta sugli infiniti drammi vissuti da moltitudini di esseri umani, sulle intere generazioni partite per "là dove muore il sole", e su chi, oggi, privo di tutto, giunge dal mare sulle stesse spiagge dei Malavoglia. Difficile, anche arduo da sopportare, questo sguardo di Verga sulle "cose" del mondo, che non arretra di fronte al male, ma che vuole conoscerlo e rappresentarlo, senza infingimenti e facili illusioni. Ma proprio per questo coraggioso riconoscimento, per questa amara consapevolezza, per le sue negazioni, profonde istanze possono anche sorgere in chi oggi voglia rileggere la sua opera, e riesca a "stare con lui", con il terribile e grande Verga, riscoprendone la voce immanente di autentica pietà per il dolore del mondo.

در بخش نخست این مقاله به زمینه‌های بازآفرینی و نیز فرض‌های محتمل در بروز شکلی از بدکرداری سیاسی پرداخته شد که می‌توان آنرا ماکیاولیسم خمینی‌مآب نامید. این پاره به بازاندیشی برخی از مفاهیم در اندیشه سیاسی ماکیاولی می‌پردازد و نمونه‌های بدفهمی و مسخ آنرا برمی‌سنجد و در پایان به اهمیت آفرینش یا تعمیق گونه‌ای ایمان‌ورزی به آرمان "خیر جمعی" و نیز بایستگی پاسداشت از واپسین گنجینه ایمانی ایرانیان اشاره می‌کند.

In this paper, I discuss contemporary readings of Machiavelli (styled ‘radical’) that perceive in his work the foundations for what they conceive as a political ontology — an ontology based on force, potency and conflictuality. I contest this interpretation, both for philological and theoretical reasons. Through readings of Foucault, Deleuze, Esposito, Negri and Abensour (among others), I interrogate the notion of Machiavelli’s ‘realism’, and challenge the traditional articulation between ‘force’ and ‘reality’ with reference to Derrida's writings on force, potency and virtuality. This essay takes aim not only at the fashionable notion of ‘political ontology’, but also at the use that is made of it in allegedly progressive circles within disciplines such as political science and International Relations.

In this project we shall use the literary and retorical strategies in Tacitist texts to write a history of Tacitism via the struggles and controversies that surrounded it. By interpreting the rhetorical make-up and strategies of each of the selected texts in its contemporary social and political context, we can obtain a picture of the controversies and contested ideas at stake in that context.

This history of Tacitism will not only shed light on a crucial early phase in the emergence of modern political thought and attitudes, but it will also show how European societies in the past dealt with the complicated interplay of politics and religion, and that of politics and law; how clashes between power and justice and between conflicting principles were perceived, interpreted and negotiated in society; how secularisation was contested and defended; and how clashes and tensions between majority and minority opinion were countered and (eventually, in most cases) resolved. Thus it will provide material for useful comparisons to illuminate the politics of the present.

http://www.centropgm.unifi.it/cache/quaderni/44/0216.pdf

An unpublished speech of Alberico Gentili to the Oxford scholars in defence of jurisprudence.
Several manuscripts of Alberico Gentili (S. Ginesio 1552 - London 1608) are conserved in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. In 1580 the Italian jurist, exiled for his adherence to the Reformation doctrine, arrived in England where in 1587 was appointed regius professor of civil law at Oxford University. Here, after the publication of Dialogi (1582) and Lectiones et epistolae (1583-1584), he ran into a number of problems, initially with Jean Hotman and the humanistic circles and later with the theological-puritan ones. The speech - which is published here in Appendix - is conserved in the Collection D'Orville 612 and has been written after 12 March 1594, at the end of a bitter controversy with the puritan theologian John Rainolds. The controversy had developed between 1593 and 1594 and it was about the competence of the jurist and the theologian. In it Gentili, besides defending himself from the accusation of being trico italicus, machiauelicus et athaeus, he also protects the good reasons of the iurisprudentia in the light of its long history and the merit of those who, over the centuries, had professed legal science.

Un discorso inedito di Alberico Gentili agli accademici di Oxford in difesa della "iurisprudentia".

Nella Bodleian Library di Oxford sono conservati numerosi manoscritti di Alberico Gentili (S. Ginesio 1552 – Londra 1608). Il giurista italiano, esule per la sua adesione alle dottrine della Riforma, giunge in Inghilterra nel 1580 dove, nel 1587, viene nominato regius professor of civil law. Qui, dopo la pubblicazione dei Dialogi (1582) e delle Lectiones et epistolae (1583-1584) incontra numerose difficoltà, dapprima con Jean Hotman e con alcuni ambienti umanistici, e successivamente con quelli teologici puritani. Il discorso che qui si pubblica in Appendice, è conservato nel Fondo D’Orville 612, e viene scritto dopo il 12 marzo 1594, al termine di un’aspra polemica con il teologo puritano John Rainolds, che si era sviluppata fra 1593 e 1594 circa le competenze del giurista e del teologo. In essa Gentili, oltre a difendere sé stesso dalle accuse di “trico italicus, machiauelicus et athaeus”, difende le buone ragioni del diritto alla luce della sua lunghissima storia e del valore di coloro che, nel corso dei secoli, avevano professato la scienza giuridica.

In an essay entitled "On the Rearming of Heaven: the Machiavellism of Tommaso Campanella", published in the "Journal of the History of Ideas" (xlix, 1988), J. M. Headley notes that after Aristotle «the greatest single intellectual antagonist of Campanella was Niccolò Machiavelli». This antagonism, even though it is undeniable, is just one of many aspects of the dialogue between the Calabrian friar and the Florentine secretary, since the former has learned some of the political lessons taught by the latter in his most important works. For example, the last pages of Campanella's Aforismi politici, dedicated to examining both the reasons why republics fall and the means to avoid them, are characterised by the presence of machiavellian themes which, when highlighted, enable to understand the complex and many-sided nature of the aformentioned dialogue.

AAIS 2018 - SANT'ANNA INSTITUTE, SORRENTO 14-17 JUNE

Machiavelli Today:
Contemporary Representations of the Most Unsettling Aspects of Power

CALL FOR PAPERS



Niccolò Machiavelli is the first modern writer who describes the unsaid and secret aspects of power.
This panel aims to explore contemporary representations of such aspects of power through cinema, literature, and media in Italy as well as abroad.
Please send title, brief abstract (150-200 words), and short biographical blurb to Andrea Polegato (Andrea.Polegato@unt.edu) by December 30.