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139-427: Niccolò Machiavelli , Francis Bacon , René Descartes , and Galileo Galilei can all be said to be important initiators of the modern project, however the conceptual shift that prepared the way for the modern project likely began even earlier with the writings of Duns Scotus and William of Ockham . The success of Newtonian mechanics marked a major victory of the modern project and is sometimes credited with beginning

278-616: A skeptic Bayle only partially accepted the philosophy and principles of rationality. He did draw a strict boundary between morality and religion. The rigor of his Dictionnaire Historique et Critique influenced many of the Enlightenment Encyclopédistes . By the mid-18th century the French Enlightenment had found a focus in the project of the Encyclopédie . The philosophical movement

417-443: A "civil way of life". Commentators disagree about how much the two works agree with each other, as Machiavelli frequently refers to leaders of republics as "princes". Machiavelli even sometimes acts as an advisor to tyrants . Other scholars have pointed out the aggrandizing and imperialistic features of Machiavelli's republic. Nevertheless, it became one of the central texts of modern republicanism , and has often been argued to be

556-525: A God who punishes evil, the moral order of society was undermined; that is, since atheists gave themselves to no supreme authority and no law and had no fear of eternal consequences, they were far more likely to disrupt society. Bayle observed that, in his day, "prudent persons will always maintain an appearance of [religion]," and he believed that even atheists could hold concepts of honor and go beyond their own self-interest to create and interact in society. Locke said that if there were no God and no divine law,

695-607: A character to rule, who will inevitably attempt to replace the ruler. Machiavelli has become infamous for such political advice, ensuring that he would be remembered in history through the adjective "Machiavellian". Due to the treatise's controversial analysis on politics, the Catholic Church banned The Prince , putting it on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum . Humanists , including Erasmus ( c.  1466  – 1536), also viewed

834-470: A city, which he felt was a key to understanding its later development. Moreover, he studied the way people lived and aimed to inform leaders how they should rule and even how they themselves should live. Machiavelli denies the classical opinion that living virtuously always leads to happiness. For example, Machiavelli viewed misery as "one of the vices that enables a prince to rule." Machiavelli stated that "it would be best to be both loved and feared. But since

973-469: A condition of being. Heidegger's use of Entwurf thus moves the ground of the discussion from historicism to ontology. Leo Strauss says of the modern project that it no longer allows philosophy or science "to be understood as essentially contemplative," but instead requires that those two disciplines actively seek to relieve man's estate. The purpose thereof is to promote ever greater prosperity, freedom, and justice. This culture -related article

1112-579: A drab period in the history of science. The century saw significant advancements in the practice of medicine, mathematics, and physics; the development of biological taxonomy ; a new understanding of magnetism and electricity; and the maturation of chemistry as a discipline, which established the foundations of modern chemistry. The influence of science began appearing more commonly in poetry and literature. Some poetry became infused with scientific metaphor and imagery, while other poems were written directly about scientific topics. Richard Blackmore committed

1251-504: A few consistently made proposals concerning what was most new in Machiavelli's work. Machiavelli is sometimes seen as the prototype of a modern empirical scientist, building generalizations from experience and historical facts, and emphasizing the uselessness of theorizing with the imagination. He emancipated politics from theology and moral philosophy. He undertook to describe simply what rulers actually did and thus anticipated what

1390-575: A good religion based in instinctive morals and a belief in God should not theoretically need force to maintain order in its believers, and both Mendelssohn and Spinoza judged religion on its moral fruits, not the logic of its theology. Several novel ideas about religion developed with the Enlightenment, including deism and talk of atheism . According to Thomas Paine , deism is the simple belief in God

1529-561: A high priority on consistency. Others such as Hans Baron have argued that his ideas must have changed dramatically over time. Some have argued that his conclusions are best understood as a product of his times, experiences and education. Others, such as Leo Strauss and Harvey Mansfield , have argued strongly that there is a strong and deliberate consistency and distinctness, even arguing that this extends to all of Machiavelli's works including his comedies and letters. Commentators such as Leo Strauss have gone so far as to name Machiavelli as

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1668-556: A knighthood and a very lucrative government office. A common theme among most countries which derived Enlightenment ideas from Europe was the intentional non-inclusion of Enlightenment philosophies pertaining to slavery. Originally during the French Revolution, a revolution deeply inspired by Enlightenment philosophy, "France's revolutionary government had denounced slavery, but the property-holding 'revolutionaries' then remembered their bank accounts." Slavery frequently showed

1807-492: A man control more of his future, in the place of allowing fortune to do so. Najemy (1993) has argued that this same approach can be found in Machiavelli's approach to love and desire, as seen in his comedies and correspondence. Najemy shows how Machiavelli's friend Vettori argued against Machiavelli and cited a more traditional understanding of fortune. On the other hand, humanism in Machiavelli's time meant that classical pre-Christian ideas about virtue and prudence, including

1946-501: A more comprehensive work than The Prince . Major commentary on Machiavelli's work has focused on two issues: how unified and philosophical his work is and how innovative or traditional it is. There is some disagreement concerning how best to describe the unifying themes, if there are any, that can be found in Machiavelli's works, especially in the two major political works, The Prince and Discourses . Some commentators have described him as inconsistent, and perhaps as not even putting

2085-463: A scientific study of how humans behaved in ancient and primitive cultures with a strong awareness of the determining forces of modernity . Modern sociology largely originated from this movement, and Hume's philosophical concepts that directly influenced James Madison (and thus the U.S. Constitution), and as popularised by Dugald Stewart was the basis of classical liberalism . In 1776, Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations , often considered

2224-510: A sect was that it makes men weak and inactive, delivering politics into the hands of cruel and wicked men without a fight. Age of Enlightenment The Age of Enlightenment (also the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment ) was an intellectual and philosophical movement that occurred in Europe in the 17th and the 18th centuries. The Enlightenment featured a range of social ideas centered on

2363-519: A series of lessons on how a republic should be started and structured. It is a larger work than The Prince , and while it more openly explains the advantages of republics, it also contains many similar themes from his other works. For example, Machiavelli has noted that to save a republic from corruption, it is necessary to return it to a "kingly state" using violent means. He excuses Romulus for murdering his brother Remus and co-ruler Titus Tatius to gain absolute power for himself in that he established

2502-529: A sign of major innovation in Machiavelli, because classical materialists did not share the Socratic regard for political life, while Machiavelli clearly did. Thucydides Some scholars note the similarity between Machiavelli and the Greek historian Thucydides , since both emphasized power politics . Strauss argued that Machiavelli may indeed have been influenced by pre-Socratic philosophers , but he felt it

2641-482: A society based on reason and that women as well as men should be treated as rational beings. She is best known for her work A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). Science played an important role in Enlightenment discourse and thought. Many Enlightenment writers and thinkers had backgrounds in the sciences and associated scientific advancement with the overthrow of religion and traditional authority in favour of

2780-578: A stomach ailment at the age of 58 after receiving his last rites . He was buried at the Church of Santa Croce in Florence. In 1789 George Nassau Clavering , and Pietro Leopoldo, Grand Duke of Tuscany , initiated the construction of a monument on Machiavelli's tomb. It was sculpted by Innocenzo Spinazzi , with an epitaph by Doctor Ferroni inscribed on it. Machiavelli's best-known book Il Principe contains several maxims concerning politics. Instead of

2919-503: A student of Socrates more known as a historian, rhetorician and soldier, was a major source of Socratic ideas for Machiavelli, sometimes not in line with Aristotle. While interest in Plato was increasing in Florence during Machiavelli's lifetime, Machiavelli does not show particular interest in him, but was indirectly influenced by his readings of authors such as Polybius , Plutarch and Cicero . The major difference between Machiavelli and

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3058-581: A true faith in God. For moderate Christians, this meant a return to simple Scripture. Locke abandoned the corpus of theological commentary in favor of an "unprejudiced examination" of the Word of God alone . He determined the essence of Christianity to be a belief in Christ the redeemer and recommended avoiding more detailed debate. Anthony Collins , one of the English freethinkers , published his "Essay concerning

3197-401: A well-known correspondence with more politically connected friends, attempting to become involved once again in political life. In a letter to Francesco Vettori , he described his experience: When evening comes, I go back home, and go to my study. On the threshold, I take off my work clothes, covered in mud and filth, and I put on the clothes an ambassador would wear. Decently dressed, I enter

3336-407: A wide range of influences is in itself not controversial. Their relative importance is however a subject of ongoing discussion. It is possible to summarize some of the main influences emphasized by different commentators. The Mirror of Princes genre Gilbert (1938) summarized the similarities between The Prince and the genre it obviously imitates, the so-called " Mirror of Princes " style. This

3475-615: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This philosophy -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Niccol%C3%B2 Machiavelli Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (3 May 1469 – 21 June 1527) was a Florentine diplomat, author, philosopher, and historian who lived during the Italian Renaissance . He is best known for his political treatise The Prince ( Il Principe ), written around 1513 but not published until 1532, five years after his death. He has often been called

3614-426: Is grounded in a ruler's habitual authority and force. It is precisely because of the ruler's authority over-and-against the subject that the subject tacitly consents, and Hume says that the subjects would "never imagine that their consent made him sovereign," rather the authority did so. Similarly, Ferguson did not believe citizens built the state, rather polities grew out of social development. In his 1767 An Essay on

3753-425: Is simply a "realist" or "pragmatist" who accurately states that moral values, in reality, do not greatly affect the decisions that political leaders make. German philosopher Ernst Cassirer (1946) held that Machiavelli simply adopts the stance of a political scientist – a Galileo of politics – in distinguishing between the "facts" of political life and the "values" of moral judgment. On

3892-457: Is that which provides, in his words, "the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers." Much of what is incorporated in the scientific method (the nature of knowledge, evidence, experience, and causation) and some modern attitudes towards the relationship between science and religion were developed by Hutcheson's protégés in Edinburgh : David Hume and Adam Smith. Hume became a major figure in

4031-519: The Realpolitik of figures such as Otto von Bismarck . Machiavelli was born in Florence , Italy, the third child and first son of attorney Bernardo di Niccolò Machiavelli and his wife, Bartolomea di Stefano Nelli, on 3 May 1469. The Machiavelli family is believed to be descended from the old marquesses of Tuscany and to have produced thirteen Florentine Gonfalonieres of Justice , one of

4170-605: The philosophes of the French Enlightenment were not revolutionaries and many were members of the nobility, their ideas played an important part in undermining the legitimacy of the Old Regime and shaping the French Revolution . Francis Hutcheson , a moral philosopher and founding figure of the Scottish Enlightenment , described the utilitarian and consequentialist principle that virtue

4309-800: The Counter-Enlightenment by Sir Isaiah Berlin . The Age of Enlightenment was preceded by and closely associated with the Scientific Revolution . Earlier philosophers whose work influenced the Enlightenment included Francis Bacon , Pierre Gassendi , René Descartes , Thomas Hobbes , Baruch Spinoza , John Locke , Pierre Bayle , and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz . Some of figures of the Enlightenment included Cesare Beccaria , George Berkeley , Denis Diderot , David Hume , Immanuel Kant , Lord Monboddo , Montesquieu , Jean-Jacques Rousseau , Adam Smith , Hugo Grotius , and Voltaire . One influential Enlightenment publication

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4448-498: The Declaration of Independence ; and Madison incorporated these ideals into the U.S. Constitution during its framing in 1787. Locke, one of the most influential Enlightenment thinkers, based his governance philosophy in social contract theory, a subject that permeated Enlightenment political thought. English philosopher Thomas Hobbes ushered in this new debate with his work Leviathan in 1651. Hobbes also developed some of

4587-600: The Enlightenment . The use of the word "project" in this case is related to Heidegger's use of Entwurf , often translated as project or projection , in Being and Time . "An Entwurf in Heidegger's sense is not a particular plan or project; it is what makes any plan or project possible." The use of Entwurf is in direct response to German philosophers who saw the "modern" as a moment unfolding in history rather than as

4726-476: The French Revolution of 1789—both had some intellectual influence from Thomas Jefferson. One view of the political changes that occurred during the Enlightenment is that the " consent of the governed " philosophy as delineated by Locke in Two Treatises of Government (1689) represented a paradigm shift from the old governance paradigm under feudalism known as the " divine right of kings ." In this view,

4865-638: The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom . Jefferson's political ideals were greatly influenced by the writings of Locke, Bacon, and Newton, whom he considered the three greatest men that ever lived. The Enlightenment took hold in most European countries and influenced nations globally, often with a specific local emphasis. For example, in France it became associated with anti-government and anti-Church radicalism, while in Germany it reached deep into

5004-625: The religious persecution of faiths other than those formally established and often controlled outright by the State. By contrast, other intellectual currents included arguments in favour of anti-Christianity , Deism , and even Atheism , accompanied by demands for secular states , bans on religious education, suppression of Monasteries , the suppression of the Jesuits , and the expulsion of religious orders . Contemporary criticism, particularly of these anti-religious concepts, has since been dubbed

5143-468: The skeptical philosophical and empiricist traditions of philosophy. Kant tried to reconcile rationalism and religious belief, individual freedom and political authority, as well as map out a view of the public sphere through private and public reason. Kant's work continued to shape German thought and indeed all of European philosophy, well into the 20th century. Mary Wollstonecraft was one of England's earliest feminist philosophers. She argued for

5282-544: The state of nature as a condition in which humans are rational and follow natural law, in which all men are born equal and with the right to life , liberty, and property. However, when one citizen breaks the law of nature both the transgressor and the victim enter into a state of war, from which it is virtually impossible to break free. Therefore, Locke said that individuals enter into civil society to protect their natural rights via an "unbiased judge" or common authority, such as courts. In contrast, Rousseau's conception relies on

5421-459: The "deliberate purpose of dealing with a new ruler who will need to establish himself in defiance of custom". Normally, these types of works were addressed only to hereditary princes. (Xenophon is also an exception in this regard.) Classical republicanism Commentators such as Quentin Skinner and J.G.A. Pocock , in the so-called "Cambridge School" of interpretation, have asserted that some of

5560-648: The Affairs of Europe now turn." Locke's theory of natural rights has influenced many political documents, including the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the French National Constituent Assembly's Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen . Some philosophes argued that the establishment of a contractual basis of rights would lead to the market mechanism and capitalism , the scientific method, religious tolerance , and

5699-473: The Church had come to accept, allowed practical decisions to be guided too much by imaginary ideals and encouraged people to lazily leave events up to providence or, as he would put it, chance, luck or fortune. While Christianity sees modesty as a virtue and pride as sinful, Machiavelli took a more classical position, seeing ambition, spiritedness, and the pursuit of glory as good and natural things, and part of

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5838-771: The Creator with no reference to the Bible or any other miraculous source. Instead, the deist relies solely on personal reason to guide his creed , which was eminently agreeable to many thinkers of the time. Atheism was much discussed, but there were few proponents. Wilson and Reill note: "In fact, very few enlightened intellectuals, even when they were vocal critics of Christianity, were true atheists. Rather, they were critics of orthodox belief, wedded rather to skepticism, deism, vitalism, or perhaps pantheism." Some followed Pierre Bayle and argued that atheists could indeed be moral men. Many others like Voltaire held that without belief in

5977-572: The Criminal Trial, 1787), which established him as an international authority on criminal law. The Enlightenment has long been seen as the foundation of modern Western political and intellectual culture. The Enlightenment brought political modernization to the West, in terms of introducing democratic values and institutions and the creation of modern, liberal democracies. This thesis has been widely accepted by scholars and has been reinforced by

6116-554: The English (1733) and Philosophical Dictionary (1764); Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature (1740); Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws (1748); Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality (1754) and The Social Contract (1762); Cesare Beccaria's On Crimes and Punishments (1764); Adam Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and The Wealth of Nations (1776); and Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (1781). Bacon's empiricism and Descartes' rationalist philosophy laid

6255-564: The Florentine Republic on diplomatic visits to France, Germany, and elsewhere in Italy. Despairing of the opportunity to remain directly involved in political matters, after a time he began to participate in intellectual groups in Florence and wrote several plays that (unlike his works on political theory) were both popular and widely known in his lifetime. Politics remained his main passion, and to satisfy this interest, he maintained

6394-522: The French government, was eager to accept Frederick's invitation to live at his palace. Frederick explained: "My principal occupation is to combat ignorance and prejudice... to enlighten minds, cultivate morality, and to make people as happy as it suits human nature, and as the means at my disposal permit." The Enlightenment has been frequently linked to the American Revolution of 1776 and

6533-613: The Great and Theseus (he treated pagan and Christian patriarchs in the same way) as the greatest of new princes, the glorious and brutal founders of the most novel innovations in politics, and men whom Machiavelli assures us have always used a large amount of armed force and murder against their own people. He estimated that these sects last from 1,666 to 3,000 years each time, which, as pointed out by Leo Strauss, would mean that Christianity became due to start finishing about 150 years after Machiavelli. Machiavelli's concern with Christianity as

6672-547: The Great of Prussia, Catherine the Great of Russia, Leopold II of Tuscany and Joseph II of Austria. Joseph was over-enthusiastic, announcing many reforms that had little support so that revolts broke out and his regime became a comedy of errors, and nearly all his programs were reversed. Senior ministers Pombal in Portugal and Johann Friedrich Struensee in Denmark also governed according to Enlightenment ideals. In Poland,

6811-725: The History of Civil Society , Ferguson uses the four stages of progress, a theory that was popular in Scotland at the time, to explain how humans advance from a hunting and gathering society to a commercial and civil society without agreeing to a social contract. Both Rousseau's and Locke's social contract theories rest on the presupposition of natural rights , which are not a result of law or custom but are things that all men have in pre-political societies and are therefore universal and inalienable. The most famous natural right formulation comes from Locke's Second Treatise, when he introduces

6950-761: The Newtonian system to verse in Creation, a Philosophical Poem in Seven Books (1712). After Newton's death in 1727, poems were composed in his honour for decades. James Thomson penned his "Poem to the Memory of Newton," which mourned the loss of Newton and praised his science and legacy. Hume and other Scottish Enlightenment thinkers developed a " science of man ," which was expressed historically in works by authors including James Burnett , Adam Ferguson , John Millar , and William Robertson , all of whom merged

7089-729: The Republic of Florence from 1498 to 1512, when the Medici were out of power. After his death Machiavelli's name came to evoke unscrupulous acts of the sort he advised most famously in his work, The Prince . He claimed that his experience and reading of history showed him that politics has always involved deception, treachery, and crime. He advised rulers to do likewise when political necessity requires it, and argued specifically that successful reformers of states should not be blamed for killing other leaders who could block change. Machiavelli's Prince has been surrounded by controversy since it

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7228-557: The Scientific Revolution as the creators of scientific knowledge, in contrast to the scholasticism of the university. Some societies created or retained links to universities, but contemporary sources distinguished universities from scientific societies by claiming that the university's utility was in the transmission of knowledge while societies functioned to create knowledge. As the role of universities in institutionalized science began to diminish, learned societies became

7367-706: The Socratics, according to Strauss, is Machiavelli's materialism, and therefore his rejection of both a teleological view of nature and of the view that philosophy is higher than politics. With their teleological understanding of things, Socratics argued that by nature, everything that acts, acts towards some end, as if nature desired them, but Machiavelli claimed that such things happen by blind chance or human action. Classical materialism Strauss argued that Machiavelli may have seen himself as influenced by some ideas from classical materialists such as Democritus , Epicurus and Lucretius . Strauss however sees this also as

7506-681: The Use of Reason in Propositions the Evidence whereof depends on Human Testimony" (1707), in which he rejects the distinction between "above reason" and "contrary to reason," and demands that revelation should conform to man's natural ideas of God. In the Jefferson Bible , Thomas Jefferson went further and dropped any passages dealing with miracles, visitations of angels, and the resurrection of Jesus after his death , as he tried to extract

7645-472: The absolutist government was very strong. The early enlightenment emerged in protest to these circumstances, gaining ground under the support of Madame de Pompadour , the mistress of Louis XV . Called the Siècle des Lumières, the philosophical movement of the Enlightenment had already started by the early 18th century, when Pierre Bayle launched the popular and scholarly Enlightenment critique of religion. As

7784-421: The advent of new technologies being invented in both good and bad governments. Strauss argued that the unavoidable nature of such arms races, which existed before modern times and led to the collapse of peaceful civilizations, show that classical-minded men "had to admit in other words that in an important respect the good city has to take its bearings by the practice of bad cities or that the bad impose their law on

7923-432: The advice – tyrants or good rulers. That Machiavelli strove for realism is not doubted, but for four centuries scholars have debated how best to describe his morality. The Prince made the word Machiavellian a byword for deceit, despotism, and political manipulation. Leo Strauss declared himself inclined toward the traditional view that Machiavelli was self-consciously a "teacher of evil", since he counsels

8062-460: The ancient courts of rulers who have long since died. There, I am warmly welcomed, and I feed on the only food I find nourishing and was born to savour. I am not ashamed to talk to them and ask them to explain their actions and they, out of kindness, answer me. Four hours go by without my feeling any anxiety. I forget every worry. I am no longer afraid of poverty or frightened of death. I live entirely through them. Machiavelli died on 21 June 1527 from

8201-405: The authority of the monarchy and religious officials and paved the way for the political revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries. A variety of 19th-century movements, including liberalism, socialism , and neoclassicism , trace their intellectual heritage to the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment was marked by an increasing awareness of the relationship between the mind and the everyday media of

8340-419: The book negatively. As a treatise, its primary intellectual contribution to the history of political thought is the fundamental break between political realism and political idealism , due to it being a manual on acquiring and keeping political power. In contrast with Plato and Aristotle , Machiavelli insisted that an imaginary ideal society is not a model by which a prince should orient himself. Concerning

8479-743: The city for a year. In 1513, the Medici accused him of conspiracy against them and had him imprisoned. Despite being subjected to torture (" with the rope ", in which the prisoner is hanged from his bound wrists from the back, forcing the arms to bear the body's weight and dislocating the shoulders), he denied involvement and was released after three weeks. Machiavelli then retired to his farm estate at Sant'Andrea in Percussina , near San Casciano in Val di Pesa , where he devoted himself to studying and writing political treatises. During this period, he represented

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8618-536: The clergy of all churches and was a plea for deism. Roy Porter argues that the reasons for this neglect were the assumptions that the movement was primarily French-inspired, that it was largely a-religious or anti-clerical, and that it stood in outspoken defiance to the established order. Porter admits that after the 1720s England could claim thinkers to equal Diderot , Voltaire, or Rousseau. However, its leading intellectuals such as Gibbon, Edmund Burke and Samuel Johnson were all quite conservative and supportive of

8757-503: The cornerstone of organized science. Official scientific societies were chartered by the state to provide technical expertise. Most societies were granted permission to oversee their own publications, control the election of new members and the administration of the society. In the 18th century, a tremendous number of official academies and societies were founded in Europe, and by 1789 there were over 70 official scientific societies. In reference to this growth, Bernard de Fontenelle coined

8896-458: The deliberate originator of modernity itself. Others have argued that Machiavelli is only a particularly interesting example of trends which were happening around him. In any case, Machiavelli presented himself at various times as someone reminding Italians of the old virtues of the Romans and Greeks, and other times as someone promoting a completely new approach to politics. That Machiavelli had

9035-520: The development of free speech and thought. There were immediate practical results. The experiments of Antoine Lavoisier were used to create the first modern chemical plants in Paris, and the experiments of the Montgolfier brothers enabled them to launch the first manned flight in a hot air balloon in 1783. Broadly speaking, Enlightenment science greatly valued empiricism and rational thought and

9174-519: The differences and similarities in Machiavelli's advice to ruthless and tyrannical princes in The Prince and his more republican exhortations in Discourses on Livy , a few commentators assert that The Prince , although written as advice for a monarchical prince, contains arguments for the superiority of republican regimes, similar to those found in the Discourses . In the 18th century, the work

9313-615: The entire Enlightenment include England and others ignore it, although they do include coverage of such major intellectuals as Joseph Addison , Edward Gibbon , John Locke, Isaac Newton, Alexander Pope , Joshua Reynolds , and Jonathan Swift . Freethinking , a term describing those who stood in opposition to the institution of the Church, and the literal belief in the Bible, can be said to have begun in England no later than 1713, when Anthony Collins wrote his "Discourse of Free-thinking," which gained substantial popularity. This essay attacked

9452-615: The exhortations in his other works of political philosophy. While less well known than The Prince , the Discourses on Livy (composed c.  1517 ) has been said to have paved the way for modern republicanism . His works were a major influence on Enlightenment authors who revived interest in classical republicanism , such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and James Harrington . Machiavelli's political realism has continued to influence generations of academics and politicians, including Hannah Arendt , and his approach has been compared to

9591-475: The father of modern political philosophy and political science . For many years he served as a senior official in the Florentine Republic with responsibilities in diplomatic and military affairs. He wrote comedies, carnival songs, and poetry. His personal correspondence is also important to historians and scholars of Italian correspondence. He worked as secretary to the second chancery of

9730-952: The first modern geologist. Several Americans, especially Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, played a major role in bringing Enlightenment ideas to the New World and in influencing British and French thinkers. Franklin was influential for his political activism and for his advances in physics. The cultural exchange during the Age of Enlightenment ran in both directions across the Atlantic. Thinkers such as Paine, Locke, and Rousseau all take Native American cultural practices as examples of natural freedom. The Americans closely followed English and Scottish political ideas, as well as some French thinkers such as Montesquieu. As deists, they were influenced by ideas of John Toland and Matthew Tindal . There

9869-501: The first work on modern economics as it had an immediate impact on British economic policy that continues into the 21st century. It was immediately preceded and influenced by Anne Robert Jacques Turgot 's drafts of Reflections on the Formation and Distribution of Wealth (1766). Smith acknowledged indebtedness and possibly was the original English translator. Beccaria, a jurist, criminologist, philosopher, and politician and one of

10008-446: The foundation for enlightenment thinking. Descartes' attempt to construct the sciences on a secure metaphysical foundation was not as successful as his method of doubt applied in philosophic areas leading to a dualistic doctrine of mind and matter. His skepticism was refined by Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) and Hume's writings in the 1740s. His dualism was challenged by Spinoza's uncompromising assertion of

10147-1054: The founding of new modes and orders. His advice to princes was therefore certainly not limited to discussing how to maintain a state. It has been argued that Machiavelli's promotion of innovation led directly to the argument for progress as an aim of politics and civilization . But while a belief that humanity can control its own future, control nature, and "progress" has been long-lasting, Machiavelli's followers, starting with his own friend Guicciardini , have tended to prefer peaceful progress through economic development, and not warlike progress. As Harvey Mansfield (1995 , p. 74) wrote: "In attempting other, more regular and scientific modes of overcoming fortune, Machiavelli's successors formalized and emasculated his notion of virtue." Machiavelli however, along with some of his classical predecessors, saw ambition and spiritedness, and therefore war, as inevitable and part of human nature . Strauss concludes his 1958 book Thoughts on Machiavelli by proposing that this promotion of progress leads directly to

10286-419: The fundamentals of European liberal thought: the right of the individual, the natural equality of all men, the artificial character of the political order (which led to the later distinction between civil society and the state), the view that all legitimate political power must be " representative " and based on the consent of the people, and a liberal interpretation of law which leaves people free to do whatever

10425-460: The good". Strauss (1958 , pp. 298–299) Machiavelli shows repeatedly that he saw religion as man-made, and that the value of religion lies in its contribution to social order and the rules of morality must be dispensed with if security requires it. In The Prince , the Discourses and in the Life of Castruccio Castracani he describes "prophets", as he calls them, like Moses , Romulus , Cyrus

10564-410: The government lacked authority in the realm of individual conscience, as this was something rational people could not cede to the government for it or others to control. For Locke, this created a natural right in the liberty of conscience, which he said must therefore remain protected from any government authority. These views on religious tolerance and the importance of individual conscience, along with

10703-502: The great Enlightenment writers, became famous for his masterpiece Dei delitti e delle pene (Of Crimes and Punishments, 1764). His treatise, translated into 22 languages, condemned torture and the death penalty and was a founding work in the field of penology and the classical school of criminology by promoting criminal justice . Francesco Mario Pagano wrote important studies such as Saggi politici (Political Essays, 1783); and Considerazioni sul processo criminale (Considerations on

10842-404: The inevitable result of the radical opposition created in the 18th century between the monarchy and the men of letters of the Enlightenment. These men of letters constituted a sort of "substitute aristocracy that was both all-powerful and without real power." This illusory power came from the rise of "public opinion," born when absolutist centralization removed the nobility and the bourgeoisie from

10981-495: The key to imposing reforms designed by the intellectuals. Voltaire despised democracy and said the absolute monarch must be enlightened and must act as dictated by reason and justice—in other words, be a " philosopher-king ." In several nations, rulers welcomed leaders of the Enlightenment at court and asked them to help design laws and programs to reform the system, typically to build stronger states. These rulers are called "enlightened despots" by historians. They included Frederick

11120-405: The large-scale studies by Robert Darnton , Roy Porter , and, most recently, by Jonathan Israel. Enlightenment thought was deeply influential in the political realm. European rulers such as Catherine II of Russia , Joseph II of Austria , and Frederick II of Prussia tried to apply Enlightenment thought on religious and political tolerance, which became known as enlightened absolutism . Many of

11259-486: The late Middle Ages . It existed both in the Catholicised form presented by Thomas Aquinas , and in the more controversial " Averroist " form of authors like Marsilius of Padua . Machiavelli was critical of Catholic political thinking and may have been influenced by Averroism. But he rarely cites Plato and Aristotle, and most likely did not approve of them. Leo Strauss argued that the strong influence of Xenophon ,

11398-413: The latest proposed year being the death of Immanuel Kant in 1804. In reality, historical periods do not have clearly defined start or end dates. Philosophers and scientists of the period widely circulated their ideas through meetings at scientific academies , Masonic lodges , literary salons , coffeehouses and in printed books , journals , and pamphlets . The ideas of the Enlightenment undermined

11537-465: The law does not explicitly forbid. Both Locke and Rousseau developed social contract theories in Two Treatises of Government and Discourse on Inequality , respectively. While quite different works, Locke, Hobbes, and Rousseau agreed that a social contract, in which the government's authority lies in the consent of the governed , is necessary for man to live in civil society. Locke defines

11676-462: The law of nature because a person cannot surrender their own rights: freedom is absolute, and no one can take it away. Locke argues that one person cannot enslave another because it is morally reprehensible, although he introduces a caveat by saying that enslavement of a lawful captive in time of war would not go against one's natural rights. The leaders of the Enlightenment were not especially democratic, as they more often look to absolute monarchs as

11815-402: The leaders were banished from the city, a strategy which Machiavelli had favoured from the outset. From 1502 to 1503, he witnessed the brutal reality of the state-building methods of Cesare Borgia (1475–1507) and his father, Pope Alexander VI , who were then engaged in the process of trying to bring a large part of central Italy under their possession. The pretext of defending Church interests

11954-826: The limitations of the Enlightenment ideology as it pertained to European colonialism, since many colonies of Europe operated on a plantation economy fueled by slave labor. In 1791, the Haitian Revolution , a slave rebellion by emancipated slaves against French colonial rule in the colony of Saint-Domingue , broke out. European nations and the United States, despite the strong support for Enlightenment ideals, refused to "[give support] to Saint-Domingue's anti-colonial struggle." The very existence of an English Enlightenment has been hotly debated by scholars. The majority of textbooks on British history make little or no mention of an English Enlightenment. Some surveys of

12093-485: The main goal of enlightenment. According to Derek Hirst , the 1640s and 1650s saw a revived economy characterised by growth in manufacturing, the elaboration of financial and credit instruments, and the commercialisation of communication. The gentry found time for leisure activities, such as horse racing and bowling. In the high culture important innovations included the development of a mass market for music, increased scientific research, and an expansion of publishing. All

12232-506: The major political and intellectual figures behind the American Revolution associated themselves closely with the Enlightenment: Benjamin Franklin visited Europe repeatedly and contributed actively to the scientific and political debates there and brought the newest ideas back to Philadelphia; Thomas Jefferson closely followed European ideas and later incorporated some of the ideals of the Enlightenment into

12371-446: The middle classes, where it expressed a spiritualistic and nationalistic tone without threatening governments or established churches. Government responses varied widely. In France, the government was hostile, and the philosophes fought against its censorship, sometimes being imprisoned or hounded into exile. The British government, for the most part, ignored the Enlightenment's leaders in England and Scotland, although it did give Newton

12510-582: The model constitution of 1791 expressed Enlightenment ideals, but was in effect for only one year before the nation was partitioned among its neighbors. More enduring were the cultural achievements, which created a nationalist spirit in Poland. Frederick the Great, the king of Prussia from 1740 to 1786, saw himself as a leader of the Enlightenment and patronized philosophers and scientists at his court in Berlin. Voltaire, who had been imprisoned and maltreated by

12649-454: The moral and collective legislative body constituted by citizens. Locke is known for his statement that individuals have a right to "Life, Liberty, and Property," and his belief that the natural right to property is derived from labor. Tutored by Locke, Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury , wrote in 1706: "There is a mighty Light which spreads its self over the world especially in those two free Nations of England and Holland; on whom

12788-441: The more traditional target audience of a hereditary prince, it concentrates on the possibility of a "new prince". To retain power, the hereditary prince must carefully balance the interests of a variety of institutions to which the people are accustomed. By contrast, a new prince has the more difficult task in ruling: He must first stabilise his newfound power in order to build an enduring political structure. Machiavelli suggests that

12927-445: The noble is destroyed by the base. Therefore Thucydides' History arouses in the reader a sadness which is never aroused by Machiavelli's books. In Machiavelli we find comedies, parodies, and satires but nothing reminding of tragedy. One half of humanity remains outside of his thought. There is no tragedy in Machiavelli because he has no sense of the sacredness of "the common". – Strauss (1958 , p. 292) Amongst commentators, there are

13066-477: The offices of a group of nine citizens selected by drawing lots every two months and who formed the government, or Signoria ; he was never, though, a full citizen of Florence because of the nature of Florentine citizenship in that time even under the republican regime. Machiavelli married Marietta Corsini in 1501. They had seven children, five sons and two daughters: Primerana, Bernardo, Lodovico, Guido, Piero  [ it ] , Baccina and Totto. Machiavelli

13205-546: The organization of states into self-governing republics through democratic means. In this view, the tendency of the philosophes in particular to apply rationality to every problem is considered the essential change. Although much of Enlightenment political thought was dominated by social contract theorists, Hume and Ferguson criticized this camp. Hume's essay Of the Original Contract argues that governments derived from consent are rarely seen and civil government

13344-419: The other hand, Walter Russell Mead has argued that The Prince ' s advice presupposes the importance of ideas like legitimacy in making changes to the political system. Machiavelli is generally seen as being critical of Christianity as it existed in his time, specifically its effect upon politics, and also everyday life. In his opinion, Christianity, along with the teleological Aristotelianism that

13483-600: The political sphere. The "literary politics" that resulted promoted a discourse of equality and was hence in fundamental opposition to the monarchical regime. De Tocqueville "clearly designates... the cultural effects of transformation in the forms of the exercise of power." It does not require great art or magnificently trained eloquence, to prove that Christians should tolerate each other. I, however, am going further: I say that we should regard all men as our brothers. What? The Turk my brother? The Chinaman my brother? The Jew? The Siam? Yes, without doubt; are we not all children of

13622-423: The possibility of trying to control one's future, were not unique to him. But humanists did not go so far as to promote the extra glory of deliberately aiming to establish a new state, in defiance of traditions and laws. While Machiavelli's approach had classical precedents, it has been argued that it did more than just bring back old ideas and that Machiavelli was not a typical humanist. Strauss (1958) argues that

13761-566: The practical Christian moral code of the New Testament . Enlightenment scholars sought to curtail the political power of organized religion and thereby prevent another age of intolerant religious war. Spinoza determined to remove politics from contemporary and historical theology (e.g., disregarding Judaic law ). Moses Mendelssohn advised affording no political weight to any organized religion but instead recommended that each person follow what they found most convincing. They believed

13900-427: The princes to avoid the values of justice, mercy, temperance, wisdom, and love of their people in preference to the use of cruelty, violence, fear, and deception. Strauss takes up this opinion because he asserted that failure to accept the traditional opinion misses the "intrepidity of his thought" and "the graceful subtlety of his speech". Italian anti-fascist philosopher Benedetto Croce (1925) concludes Machiavelli

14039-418: The publication of Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica (1687) as the culmination of the Scientific Revolution and the beginning of the Enlightenment. European historians traditionally dated its beginning with the death of Louis XIV of France in 1715 and its end with the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789. Many historians now date the end of the Enlightenment as the start of the 19th century, with

14178-465: The radical tendency separated the basis of morality entirely from theology. Both lines of thought were eventually opposed by a conservative Counter-Enlightenment which sought a return to faith. In the mid-18th century, Paris became the center of philosophic and scientific activity challenging traditional doctrines and dogmas. After the Edict of Fontainebleau in 1685, the relationship between church and

14317-477: The rationalist philosophy of Descartes , Hobbes , Spinoza , Leibniz , and John Locke . Some date the beginning of the Enlightenment to the publication of René Descartes ' Discourse on the Method in 1637, with his method of systematically disbelieving everything unless there was a well-founded reason for accepting it, and featuring his famous dictum, Cogito, ergo sum ("I think, therefore I am"). Others cite

14456-415: The republican themes in Machiavelli's political works, particularly the Discourses on Livy , can be found in medieval Italian literature which was influenced by classical authors such as Sallust . Classical political philosophy: Xenophon, Plato and Aristotle The Socratic school of classical political philosophy, especially Aristotle , had become a major influence upon European political thinking in

14595-417: The result would be moral anarchy: every individual "could have no law but his own will, no end but himself. He would be a god to himself, and the satisfaction of his own will the sole measure and end of all his actions." The "Radical Enlightenment" promoted the concept of separating church and state, an idea that is often credited to Locke. According to his principle of the social contract, Locke said that

14734-407: The revolutions were caused by the fact that this governance paradigm shift often could not be resolved peacefully and therefore violent revolution was the result. A governance philosophy where the king was never wrong would be in direct conflict with one whereby citizens by natural law had to consent to the acts and rulings of their government. Alexis de Tocqueville proposed the French Revolution as

14873-501: The same father and creatures of the same God? Voltaire (1763) Enlightenment era religious commentary was a response to the preceding century of religious conflict in Europe, especially the Thirty Years' War . Theologians of the Enlightenment wanted to reform their faith to its generally non-confrontational roots and to limit the capacity for religious controversy to spill over into politics and warfare while still maintaining

15012-423: The saying, often attributed to interpretations of The Prince , " The ends justify the means ". Fraud and deceit are held by Machiavelli as necessary for a prince to use. Violence may be necessary for the successful stabilization of power and introduction of new political institutions. Force may be used to eliminate political rivals, destroy resistant populations, and purge the community of other men strong enough of

15151-409: The sciences for distancing man from nature and not operating to make people happier. Science during the Enlightenment was dominated by scientific societies and academies , which had largely replaced universities as centres of scientific research and development. Societies and academies were also the backbone of the maturation of the scientific profession. Scientific academies and societies grew out of

15290-598: The second chancery, a medieval writing office that put Machiavelli in charge of the production of official Florentine government documents. Shortly thereafter, he was also made the secretary of the Dieci di Libertà e Pace . In the first decade of the sixteenth century, he carried out several diplomatic missions, most notably to the papacy in Rome. Florence sent him to Pistoia to pacify the leaders of two opposing factions which had broken into riots in 1501 and 1502; when this failed,

15429-403: The social benefits of stability and security can be achieved in the face of moral corruption. Machiavelli believed that public and private morality had to be understood as two different things in order to rule well. As a result, a ruler must be concerned not only with reputation, but also must be positively willing to act unscrupulously at the right times. Machiavelli believed that, for a ruler, it

15568-737: The social contract, became particularly influential in the American colonies and the drafting of the United States Constitution. In a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in Connecticut, Thomas Jefferson calls for a "wall of separation between church and state" at the federal level. He previously had supported successful efforts to disestablish the Church of England in Virginia and authored

15707-414: The standing order. Porter says the reason was that Enlightenment had come early to England and had succeeded such that the culture had accepted political liberalism, philosophical empiricism, and religious toleration, positions which intellectuals on the continent had to fight against powerful odds. Furthermore, England rejected the collectivism of the continent and emphasized the improvement of individuals as

15846-411: The state of nature. For Locke, the law of nature is grounded on mutual security or the idea that one cannot infringe on another's natural rights, as every man is equal and has the same inalienable rights. These natural rights include perfect equality and freedom, as well as the right to preserve life and property. Locke argues against indentured servitude on the basis that enslaving oneself goes against

15985-417: The supposition that "civil man" is corrupted, while "natural man" has no want he cannot fulfill himself. Natural man is only taken out of the state of nature when the inequality associated with private property is established. Rousseau said that people join into civil society via the social contract to achieve unity while preserving individual freedom. This is embodied in the sovereignty of the general will ,

16124-465: The term "the Age of Academies" to describe the 18th century. Another important development was the popularization of science among an increasingly literate population. Philosophes introduced the public to many scientific theories, most notably through the Encyclopédie and the popularization of Newtonianism by Voltaire and Émilie du Châtelet . Some historians have marked the 18th century as

16263-530: The trends were discussed in depth at the newly established coffee houses . In the Scottish Enlightenment , the principles of sociability, equality, and utility were disseminated in schools and universities, many of which used sophisticated teaching methods which blended philosophy with daily life. Scotland's major cities created an intellectual infrastructure of mutually supporting institutions such as schools, universities, reading societies, libraries, periodicals, museums, and masonic lodges. The Scottish network

16402-416: The two rarely come together, anyone compelled to choose will find greater security in being feared than in being loved." In much of Machiavelli's work, he often states that the ruler must adopt unsavoury policies for the sake of the continuance of his regime. A related and more controversial proposal often made is that he described how to do things in politics in a way which seemed neutral concerning who used

16541-647: The unity of matter in his Tractatus (1670) and Ethics (1677). According to Jonathan Israel , these laid down two distinct lines of Enlightenment thought: first, the moderate variety, following Descartes, Locke, and Christian Wolff , which sought accommodation between reform and the traditional systems of power and faith, and, second, the Radical Enlightenment, inspired by the philosophy of Spinoza, advocating democracy, individual liberty, freedom of expression, and eradication of religious authority. The moderate variety tended to be deistic whereas

16680-469: The value of knowledge learned by way of rationalism and of empiricism and political ideals such as natural law , liberty , and progress , toleration and fraternity , constitutional government , and the formal separation of church and state . The Enlightenment was preceded by and overlaps the Scientific Revolution and the work of Johannes Kepler , Galileo Galilei , Francis Bacon , Pierre Gassendi , and Isaac Newton , among others, as well as

16819-409: The virtue and prudence that good princes should have. Therefore, while it was traditional to say that leaders should have virtues, especially prudence, Machiavelli's use of the words virtù and prudenza was unusual for his time, implying a spirited and immodest ambition. Mansfield describes his usage of virtù as a "compromise with evil". Famously, Machiavelli argued that virtue and prudence can help

16958-429: The war that makes their allegiance fickle and often unreliable when most needed), and instead staffed his army with citizens, a policy that yielded some positive results. By February 1506 he was able to have four hundred farmers marching on parade, suited (including iron breastplates), and armed with lances and small firearms. Under his command, Florentine citizen-soldiers conquered Pisa in 1509. Machiavelli's success

17097-521: The way Machiavelli combines classical ideas is new. While Xenophon and Plato also described realistic politics and were closer to Machiavelli than Aristotle was, they, like Aristotle, also saw philosophy as something higher than politics. Machiavelli was apparently a materialist who objected to explanations involving formal and final causation , or teleology . Machiavelli's promotion of ambition among leaders while denying any higher standard meant that he encouraged risk-taking, and innovation, most famously

17236-584: The world, and by an emphasis on the scientific method and reductionism , along with increased questioning of religious dogma — an attitude captured by Kant's essay Answering the Question: What Is Enlightenment? , where the phrase sapere aude ('dare to know') can be found. The central doctrines of the Enlightenment were individual liberty , representative government, the rule of law , and religious freedom , in contrast to an absolute monarchy or single party state and

17375-599: Was "predominantly liberal Calvinist , Newtonian, and 'design' oriented in character which played a major role in the further development of the transatlantic Enlightenment." In France, Voltaire said "we look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilization." The focus of the Scottish Enlightenment ranged from intellectual and economic matters to the specifically scientific as in the work of William Cullen , physician and chemist; James Anderson , agronomist ; Joseph Black , physicist and chemist; and James Hutton,

17514-424: Was a classically influenced genre, with models at least as far back as Xenophon and Isocrates . While Gilbert emphasized the similarities, however, he agreed with all other commentators that Machiavelli was particularly novel in the way he used this genre, even when compared to his contemporaries such as Baldassare Castiglione and Erasmus . One of the major innovations Gilbert noted was that Machiavelli focused on

17653-413: Was a new combination: ...contemporary readers are reminded by Machiavelli's teaching of Thucydides; they find in both authors the same "realism", i.e., the same denial of the power of the gods or of justice and the same sensitivity to harsh necessity and elusive chance. Yet Thucydides never calls in question the intrinsic superiority of nobility to baseness, a superiority that shines forth particularly when

17792-497: Was better to be widely feared than to be greatly loved; a loved ruler retains authority by obligation, while a feared leader rules by fear of punishment. As a political theorist, Machiavelli emphasized the "necessity" for the methodical exercise of brute force or deceit, including extermination of entire noble families, to head off any chance of a challenge to the prince's authority. Scholars often note that Machiavelli glorifies instrumentality in state building, an approach embodied by

17931-527: Was born in a tumultuous era. The Italian city-states , and the families and individuals who ran them could rise and fall suddenly, as popes and the kings of France, Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire waged acquisitive wars for regional influence and control. Political-military alliances continually changed, featuring condottieri (mercenary leaders), who changed sides without warning, and the rise and fall of many short-lived governments. Machiavelli

18070-409: Was embedded with the Enlightenment ideal of advancement and progress. The study of science, under the heading of natural philosophy , was divided into physics and a conglomerate grouping of chemistry and natural history , which included anatomy , biology , geology, mineralogy , and zoology . As with most Enlightenment views, the benefits of science were not seen universally: Rousseau criticized

18209-591: Was even called a satire , for example by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778). Scholars such as Leo Strauss (1899–1973) and Harvey Mansfield ( b.  1932 ) have stated that sections of The Prince and his other works have deliberately esoteric statements throughout them. However, Mansfield states that this is the result of Machiavelli's seeing grave and serious things as humorous because they are "manipulable by men", and sees them as grave because they "answer human necessities". The Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) argued that Machiavelli's audience

18348-406: Was later called the scientific spirit in which questions of good and bad are ignored, and the observer attempts to discover only what really happens. Machiavelli felt that his early schooling along the lines of traditional classical education was essentially useless for the purpose of understanding politics. Nevertheless, he advocated intensive study of the past, particularly regarding the founding of

18487-502: Was led by Voltaire and Rousseau, who argued for a society based upon reason rather than faith and Catholic doctrine, for a new civil order based on natural law , and for science based on experiments and observation. The political philosopher Montesquieu introduced the idea of a separation of powers in a government, a concept which was enthusiastically adopted by the authors of the United States Constitution . While

18626-452: Was published. Some consider it to be a straightforward description of political reality. Others view The Prince as a manual, teaching would-be tyrants how they should seize and maintain power. Even into recent times, some scholars, such as Leo Strauss , have restated the traditional opinion that Machiavelli was a "teacher of evil". Even though Machiavelli has become most famous for his work on principalities, scholars also give attention to

18765-597: Was short-lived. In August 1512, the Medici, backed by Pope Julius II , used Spanish troops to defeat the Florentines at Prato . In the wake of the siege, Piero Soderini resigned as Florentine head of state and fled into exile. The experience would, like Machiavelli's time in foreign courts and with the Borgia, heavily influence his political writings. The Florentine city-state and the republic were dissolved, with Machiavelli then being removed from office and banished from

18904-406: Was taught grammar, rhetoric, and Latin by his teacher, Paolo da Ronciglione. It is unknown whether Machiavelli knew Greek; Florence was at the time one of the centres of Greek scholarship in Europe. In 1494 Florence restored the republic , expelling the Medici family that had ruled Florence for some sixty years. Shortly after the execution of Savonarola , Machiavelli was appointed to an office of

19043-539: Was the Encyclopédie ( Encyclopedia ). Published between 1751 and 1772 in 35 volumes, it was compiled by Diderot, Jean le Rond d'Alembert , and a team of 150 others. The Encyclopédie helped in spreading the ideas of the Enlightenment across Europe and beyond. Other publications of the Enlightenment included Berkeley's A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710), Voltaire's Letters on

19182-587: Was the common people, as opposed to the ruling class, who were already made aware of the methods described through their education. The Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livius , written around 1517, and published in 1531, often referred to simply as the Discourses or Discorsi , is nominally a discussion regarding the classical history of early Ancient Rome , although it strays far from this subject matter and also uses contemporary political examples to illustrate points. Machiavelli presents it as

19321-575: Was used as a partial justification by the Borgias. Other excursions to the court of Louis XII and the Spanish court influenced his writings such as The Prince . At the start of the 16th century, Machiavelli conceived of a militia for Florence, and he then began recruiting and creating it. He distrusted mercenaries (a distrust that he explained in his official reports and then later in his theoretical works for their unpatriotic and uninvested nature in

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