Political Philosophy and Ethics discussion

For a current example of Machiavellian politics, see the November 27, 2018 article "The Khashoggi killing had roots in a cutthroat Saudi family feud" by David Ignatius.

Fine idea for a thread topic. I'm a fan of Niccolo, (as far as it goes).

Couple of remarks to contribute: Not as well-known as his The Prince is his, The Discourses, or (more obscure, still) his military manual, The Art of War.

Something else worth knowing is the history of Niccolo's father. The elder Machiavelli (I don't have a good link, sorry) was himself quite a figure in his own day. Suffice to say that the acorn didn't fall far from the tree, in Niccolo's case.

A modern take: What Would Machiavelli Do?: The Ends Justify the Meanness (hopefully this was tongue-in-cheek)

The best translation of The Prince is Niccolὸ Machiavelli, The Prince, 2nd ed., trans. Harvey Mansfield (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998). I read the first edition of this translation in 1996 or 1997. I read the Mark Musa bilingual translation/edition in 1967.

The best translation of the Discourses is Niccolὸ Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, Kindle ed., trans. Harvey Mansfield and Nathan Tarcov (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009). The current Amazon price for the Kindle edition is $2.99. Amazon also has a hardcover edition (1996) of this translation for sale at $57.63. The paperback advertised on the Amazon site for the Mansfield-Tarcov translation is incorrect: it is by another translator, whom I do not know and for whom I cannot vouch. I have both the Kindle and hardcover of the Mansfield-Tarcov translation. This work is long and complicated, and I have only read part of it.

Harvey Mansfield and Nathan Tarcov adhere to the Straussian canons of accurate translation. For further information about this approach to translation see, inter alia, the list set forth in post 1 here. For other Straussian translations of Machiavelli, see Niccolὸ Machiavelli, Florentine Histories, trans. Laura F. Banfield and Harvey Mansfield (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990); and Niccolὸ Machiavelli, The Art of War, trans. Christopher Lynch (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005).

For other writings by and about Machiavelli, see my Goodreads list here.

a similar and very popular book from the same era:
The Book of the Courtier by Baldassare Castiglione

Alan I'm not sure where to place this remark so please delete it or I can place it elsewhere if you can steer me to a more appropriate location.

This is not earth-shaking but I did find it fascinating to stumble over such an influential political and military thinker which influenced the great nations in the early Twentieth-Century. Alfred Thayer Mahan, naval strategist. I'd never heard of him. A 'modern Machiavelli' if you will.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_...

Feliks,

Mahan is mentioned in Daniel Immerwahr's recent "How to Hide an Empire" about the external territories of the USA and how they are marginalised and minimised in popular thought. Immerwahr traces the decision retain the Phillipines as a colony of the USA, after it was seized from Spain, back to the thinking of Mahan, and traces its influence then in subsequent decisions building the American Empire. Its quite a persuasive argument.

Immerwahr is a great writer - highly recommend his book.

Cheers,
Stephen

That's mighty tantalizing. Thank you. I have two upcoming projects which are Philippines-related.

Anyway I came across mention of Mahan today because I was skimming the history of the late German empire. Not just Bismark and Hindenburg but their naval planners:
https://tinyurl.com/qtvy67a
https://tinyurl.com/qtvy67a
In today's fast-paced era it's often hard to recall how tumultuous other timeperiods truly were. Navies clashing, countries annexed, blockades, refugees and sieges.

I stumbled on this fascinating group! In the same vein as Machiavelli and others, I wish to flag the first English translation (I am the translator and introducer!) , The Politician's Breviary - A Companion to Leaders and Influencers and Those They Seek to Control (French Legacy Press, 2021). It is the first translation into English of the seventeenth-century Breviarium politicorum (1684), drawing inspiration from the legacy of Cardinal Jules Mazarin, King Louis XIV's mentor and prime minister. It captivated readers as had Machiavelli’s The Prince a hundred and fifty years earlier. Its principles and maxims unveil how to achieve and retain power and are even more relevant to guide today’s leaders and politicians. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0963YBJN6?...

Francois-Marie wrote: "I stumbled on this fascinating group! In the same vein as Machiavelli and others, I wish to flag the first English translation (I am the translator and introducer!) , The Politician's Breviary - A ..."

Thanks, Francois-Marie. Your book looks interesting, and I have downloaded it on Kindle. Oh, and thank you on behalf of all Americans for helping us win our War for Independence back in the day.

Thank you Alan for winning WWII for France. And for your great Ambassador to Paris Elihu Washburne during the siege of Paris in 1870.

I might add to this discussion that my reading group is reading Leo Strauss’ Thoughts on Machiavelli currently. We read Machiavelli’s Discourses on Livy a few months ago. And The Prince last year.

I will have more to say as we continue to make headway with Strauss.

Machiavelli’s Democratic Turn

Catherine H. Zuckert is a political philosophy professor who has authored many books and articles on political philosophy. Among those writings are some interesting reflections on Machiavelli. See, for example, her paper “Machiavelli’s Democratic Turn” (2018) at https://www.academia.edu/116310185/Ma.... Zuckert addresses the apparent contradictions between Machiavelli’s Prince and his Discourses on Livy.

Caught a fresh angle on Machiavelli this week (at least it was fresh to me; a slant I'd never considered before).

I've lost the link but the reviewer commented in passing something to the akin that, "It was Machiavelli who was the first thinker to overturn the existing medieval view of political leaders, which extended back to classical times and Plato".

Turning my steps to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, I found this is fairly supported. I'm rather taken aback, at the same time I'm forced to agree.

To me, Machiavelli always exhibited a low, mean, and mean-spirited mentality. He always struck me similarly as did Nietzsche and Hobbes. I'm surprised to assess him in this new way.

In his scheme of things, morality benefits a leader not at all; so it should be shed. According to Niccolo, there's no point in appointing --or valuing --leaders with ethics.

I've not read his full outpouring. But I'm a bit more impressed with him now (even though, I still dislike him).

I suppose it's true that ethic-less leaders are the kind we are accustomed to in the modern age, so much so that we hardly even register any man otherwise.

Just thinking out loud here.

Feliks wrote: "Caught a fresh angle on Machiavelli this week (at least it was fresh to me; a slant I'd never considered before).

I've lost the link but the reviewer commented in passing something to the akin tha..."

Machiavelli is a complicated figure. His infamous handbook The Prince must be balanced with his more nuanced and scholarly Discourses on Livy. On the surface at least, these two works seem to contradict each other. His Letters also reveal the complexities of his personality, thought, and actions. I do not pretend to understand him fully. The bottom line, however, is that he inaugurated modern political philosophy by attacking what we would now call (not entirely accurately) “idealistic” ancient and medieval political philosophy. Yet, his favorite author was Titus Livy.

For further study, see Leo Strauss’s book Thoughts on Machiavelli, which itself is very difficult to understand.

Back in the late 1960s, when I was in High School and taking an Advanced Placement (college credit) course in philosophy, the most recent book I could find on this subject was Giuseppe Prezzolini, “Machiavelli: A Study of the Life, Work, Influence and Originality of an Obscure Florentine Civil Servant Who Has Become Our Contemporary” (English translation 1967). It is overly simple, but engaging, and the “influence” chapters are filled with unexpected examples — and misunderstandings (e.g. John Adams on the Discourses). I think it is still a good place to begin. Used copies are available on Amazon.

re: msgs #14 & #15

Thank you both.

I recall now what prompted me on all this. One of my acquaintances here on Goodreads reviewed Xenophon's The Education of Cyrus.

In passing, I learned that this book was (apparently) one Niccolo occasionally carried around with him, out of habit of referring to it so often. [Presumably, since he disagreed with so many of Xenophon's conclusions?]

At the same time, I caught a mention that Leo Strauss had treated the subject too.

It's all mighty fascinating; I wish I had more leisure time to explore it.

Nietzsche on Machiavelli is hard to pin down. He mostly praises him as a stylist, I think in implied contrast to Kant and Hegel. He paid attention to Machiavelli’s more obscure (to non-Italians) literary works, too. This aspect was very important to Nietzsche, who liked to compare himself to Goethe and Heine.

I wrote a paper (in early 1967, if I recall correctly) for a college history course on Machiavelli’s play Mandragola plus his letters in light of his political philosophy. I believe I have the paper in one of my storage boxes, but I don’t have time to look for it right now. At that time, I was struck by several of Machiavelli’s statements in these writings, especially in his letters.

The Discourses is based, formally, on the first ten books of Livy’s History of Rome from the Foundation. Ironically, the late French comparativist Georges Dumezil spent a great deal of effort demonstrating, I think correctly, that the first five of those books were not only legendary but an heroic transposition of Indo-European mythology (e.g., resemblances between the war with Lars Porsenna and Norse Ragnarok). So Machiavelli was analyzing political and social ideas at least as old as the Bronze Age, as redacted in Iron Age Italy under Etruscan and Greek influence.

re: #19, fascinating stuff

I myself very much enjoyed Livy as a kid but --if I recall correctly --I admired Arrian even more so. No idea why.

I very much enjoyed those first five books in the Aubrey de Selincourt translation (Penguin Classics). I was not surprised by Michael Grant’s analysis of them as legends promulgated by the main patrician families to aggrandize their ancestors — indeed it seemed obvious — but Grant, a classicist, seemed unable to understand Dumezil, due in part to ignorance of non-classical mythologies. For example, Grant didn’t know the difference between one-handed Tyr and Thor, at least not enough to prevent the confusion from appearing in print in the paperback second edition of Roman Myths.

Forgot to add: which completely obscured the comparison between Tyr and Mucius Scaevola, both of whom sacrificed a hand to validate a false oath to an enemy (of the gods or Rome, respectively). Not to mention Heimdall on Bifrost Bridge and Horatius at the Tiber Bridge, etc.

Yes, the origin story of Rome is, of course, mythical in one way or another. Although I read the first several books of Livy in the 1990s, I cannot remember much of it now. I still have the paperback of that and succeeding books, which I will probably reread (and read further) at some point after I finish writing (and publish) my last book, Reason and Human Government, (scheduled for publication by the end of 2025).

All the surviving books of Livy are worth reading, speaking from experience, but comparison to Polybius is usually helpful in recognizing his biases (although both are pro-Roman), which are often self-evident, but not always.

Ian wrote: "All the surviving books of Livy are worth reading, speaking from experience, but comparison to Polybius is usually helpful in recognizing his biases (although both are pro-Roman), which are often s..."

Thanks, Ian. I'll keep that in mind.

I’ve been thinking about Arrian and Livy for a bit. I read the de translation of Livy while I was taking Latin in junior high or high school (ninth or tenth grade), but, due to the vagaries of brick and mortar bookstores, didn’t find his Arrian until I was in college, so my basis for comparison is a little skewed from years. I trusted Arrian a great deal more to have selected and weighed his sources for what, when you come to think of it, is a really fantastic story.

Have you seen the Oxford Worlds Classics translation? It includes the Indica, which I don’t think is in a modern popular translation otherwise. And the current price of the Kindle edition is very low.

Spell Correction seems to have suppressed “de Selincourt.” And that should be “the Oxford” edition.

Thanks again, Ian. I appreciate your scholarly comments. I’m focusing right now on completing my forthcoming (hopefully published by the end of 2025) book, Reason and Human Government. It is all drafted, except for the final chapter, “Political Leadership During the Cuban Missile Crisis,” on which I have been working (along with the now-completed draft of the lengthy appendix, “The Historical Background of the Cuban Missile Crisis”) for many weeks. I wrote a case study (which I believe was never published; the textbook company that was my employer subsequently went out of business) on the Cuban Missile Crisis during the 1970s, but so many primary-source documents relating to the Cuban Missile Crisis were not declassified, in the United States and in the Soviet Union, until decades later. I’m now studying the US primary sources as well as fascinating books regarding declassified Soviet sources (which, of course, are in Russian) on the Cuban Missile Crisis and its context in the Cold War. One question is whether Khrushchev was motivated primarily by ideology or by issues of strategic power when he attempted to make Cuba a Soviet military base in 1962. It turns out, of course, that he was motivated by both considerations, though publicly (and to Castro, who didn’t believe it for a minute) Khrushchev said it was only about defending Cuba. This, of course, harks back to Machiavelli and to the famous twentieth-century theorist of international political realism, Hans J. Morgenthau. I am currently rereading portions of Morgenthau’s classic book Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, which I first read in his course on international politics at the University of Chicago in the autumn of 1965. I’m looking at both the third edition (1961), which I read for his course, and the sixth edition (1985), revised (and updated) by his protégé Kenneth W. Thompson. I don’t agree entirely with Morgenthau, but he does insist on a rational and evidence-based analysis of international relations as distinguished from ideological demagoguery unmoored from historical reality. A classic example of the latter is the publicly expressed view of Eisenhower’s first secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, that the US should militarily “roll back” the post-World War II Communist regimes allied with the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe.

re: #28 AEJ

Alan, it almost seems as if you might well have split your treatise on governance into two volumes? One for international relations and one for domestic? Whew!

Feliks wrote: "re: #28 AEJ

Alan, it almost seems as if you might well have split your treatise on governance into two volumes? One for international relations and one for domestic? Whew!"

It is a work of political philosophy, so it covers both (in one volume). You can see the drafts of everything except chapter 5 ("Political Leadership During the Cuban Missile Crisis") on my Academia.edu profile page (https://chicago.academia.edu/AlanJohnson). After I finish drafting chapter 5, I may post that draft also at that location. However, I will then do the final draft of the entire book. When the book is ready for publication, I'll put a PDF of the entire thing (replica of the paperback) at the same location, while deleting all the drafts. The book will also be available on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle ebook editions. I plan (hope) to have the book published by the end of 2025.

I have owed you thanks for the review that prevented me from wasting money on Cipolla on Human Stupidity. I have admired his works on the intersections of economics with demographics and technology (a couple were textbooks or suggested reading at UCLA), and was inclined to trust him, although it was based on speculation rather than research I could sometimes check.

re: msg #31

Ian S., you're a Briton but attended UCLA?

When you were there did you encounter Prof. Eugen Weber?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugen_W...

Sorry if there has been any confusion. I am definitely an American.

Unfortunately I never met Eugen Weber. His classes were always crowded, and often conflicted with courses I needed for my major. I did watch his PBS series of lectures, and read a number of his books, of which my favorite was Peasants Into Frenchmen. Not substitutes, but the best I could do.

I also read his journalism and reviews in The Los Angeles Times, now that I think of it.

I may have figured out a source of confusion. I was an English Major at UCLA, and sometimes refer to that as a defining intellectual experience, although not recently: and I am not sure where you would have seen it.