COML5851 - Machiavelli’s Political Thought and its Modern Readers

There is hardly an author who has been as controversial as Niccolò Machiavelli. The influence of this Italian political thinker on the theoretical imaginary of subsequent thinkers and writers has been huge. Yet, there have been strong disagreements on how to interpret Machiavelli’s ideas and questions still abound on the political meaning of his thought. Is there a core message of Machiavellian politics? Is he a political philosopher or a theorist or a ‘scientist’ of politics? Can we call him a realist? Or is he rather a republican or a plebeian actor and thinker, as recent scholars have pointed out? If so, what kind of republicanism or plebeian ideas can be found in his context and in his works? What has been the impact of his ideas in 20th century political thought? The goal of this course is two-fold. Each class will comment and discuss passages from The Prince and the Discourses or important modern and contemporary texts based on Machiavelli’s ideas. On the one hand, the course aims to directly analyze some key passage of the two main texts of Machiavelli, The Prince and the Discourses. The aim of this investigation is to stress the complexity of Machiavelli’s thought in its own context, which substantially challenges any attempt to reduce him to simple labels. Machiavelli’s texts will also be approached through a close and thorough reading as well as a comparison with the ideas of its own sources (especially Polybius, Dante, Petrarca, Plutarch, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero etc.). On the other hand, the course aims to analyze the influence of Machiavelli thought on some 20th century thinkers (The students will also read texts from Antonio Gramsci, Claude Lefort, Isaiah Berlin, Leo Strauss, Louis Althusser, next to the most recent scholarly historical literature in Machiavelli studies). This will allow the students to become familiar not only with Machiavelli’s texts but also with several thinker who have drawn on this author from completely different perspectives to shape their own political thought.