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ABSTRACT: In several texts, Machiavelli alludes to an unorthodox idea of the underworld. Hell is presented as an exclusive environment where only the greatest souls are welcome to discuss the [...]

In this article, I explore the meaning and function of Lycurgus in Machiavelli's thought. While the exemplarity of the mythical Spartan legislator progressively fades in Machiavelli's thought in favour of the Roman model, Lycurgus' reforms are central in Machiavelli's works on two issues of primary importance: wealth and land distribution. First, I analyse Machiavelli's use of the ancient sources on both Lycurgus and other Spartan legislators to show how the former builds a selective and strategically balanced reading of the ancient sources to build an image of the latter as a pro-popular ruler and of the subsequent Spartan reformers as followers not only of the mythical legislator generally, but also of his most controversial and popularly oriented attempts to reform property ownership in ancient Sparta. Lycurgus reveals how Machiavelli, far from seeing mixed government as the best form of government, promotes a strongly anti-aristocratic model. Second, I show that in Machiavelli's thought the Spartan question can largely be seen as a background for his reading of Roman history, particularly its most crucial, conflictual and controversial period--that in which the Gracchi brothers' attempted to achieve agrarian reform. Keywords: ancient legislators, economy, Florence, history of economic thought, history of political thought, Rome, Sparta, The Spartan regime has traditionally been represented as an oligarchy, often in opposition to Athenian democracy. (1) Against the isonomia of Athens, that is, equal rights or the equal share [...]

Writing a biography of Machiavelli, especially an 'intellectual' one, orientated towards the history of philosophical thought, is a challenge due to the extent of the documentation available, collected over the centuries. Nevertheless, any analysis of the origins of the Florentine author's thought using his letters as local government officer, before he was dismissed and wrote the great texts for which he is famous, takes us back to a larger philosophical problem. Indeed, Machiavelli is a precursor of the modern political expert. Such experts are characterized by their classic academic knowledge drawn as much from Antiquity and from Scholasticism as from the everyday political action in which they got literally caught up. From there came the idea of a new way of writing about politics. Machiavelli is the first one to do so, writing in order to give practical, concrete advice to follow in the real world. We define this new way of regarding Machiavelli's political writing as a 'programme', which his biography helps us to understand more completely. Keywords: Machiavelli, Intellectual Biography, Doctrine, Political Thought, <> (1) L'ecriture de l'histoire est prise en tenaille entre la necessite d'etablir les logiques du temps long pour produire du sens et celle, opposee, de restituer l'irreductibilite de l'action [...]

Abstract: This paper examines the reimagined value of Classical examples to discussions on human models of the self in the historiography, poetry, and philosophy of the Early Modern period. More [...]

This article politicises the discourse of emerging markets in global finance. The black-boxed appearance of credit markets easily obscures the significant amount of subjective evaluation and cultural work that underpins capital flows. This article reveals the colonial, masculine, and racial imagination that informs the articulation of emerging markets as geographies of risk and profit. This brings into view the postcolonial nature of contemporary finance and how colonialism's regimes of power and knowledge remain crucial for the reproduction of the global political economy. To illustrate this point, the article highlights the sociality of credit practices. Contrary to their mathematical appearance, credit is a relationship with the future, mediated by social imaginations of trust. Focusing on emerging markets as 'risk-versus-reward' investments, this article examines the long-term colonial histories embedded in modern investment discourses. The article aims to show the continuing relevance this history plays for emerging market economies in modern financial markets and their political economies. Keywords: creditworthiness, postcolonialism, rationality, risk, My morning routine is much like yours ... with one subtle difference ... [I] brush my teeth with bottled water. Yeah, bottled water. I don't bother with tap water because [...]

Among the most provocative passages in Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince is his discussion of whether it is better for a political leader to be loved or feared by his or [...]

The rise of populist leaders like Trump certainly raises issues of leadership and effectiveness. The current populist moment may be one of 'Cultural Backlash,' but there is also merit in [...]

Author(s): Luciano Floridi [sup.1] [sup.2] Author Affiliations: (Aff1) 0000 0004 1936 8948, grid.4991.5, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, , 1 St Giles, OX1 3JS, Oxford, UK (Aff2) 0000 0004 [...]

A persistent feature in Jesuit reports about the late Ming and early Qing was the notion that an enduring peace and concord pervaded the Chinese political system. Although the Jesuits did not invent this association, which was rooted in Greco-Roman historiography, the Jesuit encyclopaedist Antonio Possevino (1533-1611) was the first to link the 'perpetual peace' (perpetua pax) and 'supreme concord' (summa concordia) of the Chinese state to the Confucian intellectual tradition. As the Jesuits' missionary strategy developed under the tutelage of Matteo Ricci (1552-1610), 'public peace' (pax publica) and 'the calm of the Republic' (Republica quies) came to be perceived as the ultimate purpose of the Confucian precepts and one of the hinges on which the aims of Christianity, Confucianism and natural law can be reconciled. The supreme expression of the link between Confucianism and peace can be found in the Confucius Sinarum philosophus (1687), which presented for the first time an accessible translation of three of the four Confucian classics. Yet while retaining the view that pre-Qin Confucianism espoused peace as a central political aim, the Confucius Sinarum philosophus challenged the view that contemporary China could be regarded as a utopic actualization of Confucian peace. This paper will discuss this shift as an attempt to coopt the Chinese political experience as an argument against the pragmatic political philosophy known as 'reason of state', which was perceived by Jesuit thinkers as atheistic and immoral. Keywords: atheism, Confucianism, Confucius Sinarum philosophus, Philippe Couplet, heresy, Jesuit China mission, Machiavelli, Reason of State, A recurrent perception in Jesuit writings about the late Ming and early Qing was that the Chinese state was characterised by peace. While the Jesuits may have promoted this idea [...]

This article argues for a feminist reinterpretation of the 'radical Machiavelli' tradition which pushes Machiavelli's performative theory of power towards emancipation. I base my argument on a rereading of Niccolo Machiavelli's Mandragola, whose historical use of the mandrake legend, I claim, symptomatizes historically gendered forms of labour expropriation characteristic of early modern capitalism. Against the background of that historical contextualisation, I then argue against James Martel's interpretation of Machiavelli's theory of open secrets, as one that remains unable to extend to Lucrezia the democratic insights that he identifies in Callimaco and Ligurio's textual conspiracies. Dialectically relocating the political heroism of this play in Lucrezia's performance, I conclude, Machiavelli's comedy becomes nevertheless useful for a subaltern theory of democratic action. Keywords: conscripted heroism, feminist, Machiavelli, queer, radical, subaltern democracy, In this article I seek to bring the 'radical Machiavelli' tradition into dialectical confrontation with the 'feminist interpretations' tradition, by addressing what is most often overlooked in one but underlined [...]

Niccolo Machiavelli's works impacted Shakespeare's context directly through the availability of manuscript translations. There were also a variety of sources where Machiavelli's impact was indirect--for example, the mirror for princes genre, Innocent Gentillet's Discours Contre Machiavel (1576) and Marlowe's plays featuring the stage Machiavel. Shakespeare may also have known Edmund Spenser, who was familiar with The Prince (1532). Machiavelli's contribution to ideas about politics, across different borders and historical contexts, has been demonstrated by intellectual historians, Quentin Skinner and J.G. A. Pocock. They show Machiavelli's contribution to destabilising accepted myths about monarchical supremacy. This article discusses Hal's, Hamlet's and Kent's exercising of their political will as unique responses to the complicated political intrigues of 1 Henry IV, Hamlet and King Lear. These political mavericks demonstrate coherent psychological responses to poisonous political situations., Traditionally, Niccolo Machiavelli's influence on Shakespeare was seen only in the latter's depiction of villains. (1) Over the last twenty years, however, a number of scholars have embarked on thorough [...]

Practical judgment can be developed from a wide variety of life experiences upon one condition: the experiences in question are made meaningful through stories. By placing lived experience in narrative form one gains a flexible guide for action. Calculative analysis may usefully supplement, but cannot supplant, narrative knowledge for the decision-maker grappling with the 'wicked problems' of social and political life. There is no obvious, or perhaps even feasible, way to determine what constitutes the kind of story that will improve practical judgment and allow for better decisions. It is less the content of stories that requires attention than the process of narrative inquiry, interaction and understanding. Keywords: decision-making, interpretation, narrative, practical judgment, wicked problems, Decision-makers often face problems that are too dynamic and multifaceted for rational analysis to dispatch. They grapple with wicked problems. Wicked problems are in no way evil; they are simply [...]

This article analyses the way in which the life and works of Niccolo Machiavelli are misunderstood and misconstrued by writers and scholars, in the fields of management, personality research and primate studies. While adjectives like 'Machiavellian' and nouns like 'Machiavellianism' have become part of the vernacular, these scholarly usages trade on, perpetuate and reinforce stereotypes of Machiavelli in (1) a host of books and articles in management, (2) an instrument to assess personality that has been administered to thousands of subjects around the world, and (3) authoritative studies of primate behaviours from the Netherlands to Japan. The distorted Machiavelli depicted in these fields is but a shadow of the deft, insightful and elusive Machiavelli of The Prince, The Discourses, Mandragola, The Art of War, The Florentine Histories and more. We suggest that colleagues should recognise and rebut these shadowy Machiavellis in teaching, scholarship and research. If specialists in history and political science ignore them, they will continue to obscure the reality. Keywords: Antony Jay, Machiavelli, Machiavellian, Machiavellian Intelligence Hypothesis, Machiavellianism, Machiavellian Personality, Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) remains a major figure in the history of European ideas. New translations and editions of his books appear, while Ph.D. dissertations and monographs continue to debate their [...]

1 Measure for Measure is a very odd play. Shakespeare juxtaposes the brothels and the prison of Vienna to the court and the church, and there is much doubt about [...]

'Be sure, gentlemen of the jury, that if I had long ago attempted to take part in politics, I should have died long ago, and benefited neither you nor myself. [...]

Since the fall of communism in 1991, Boris Mironov's two-volume work, The Social History of Russia (the Eighteenth to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century): The Genesis of Individualism, the [...]