Nicholas Machiavelli, although he is well known for your thoughts on real power dynamics, also wrote comedies and poems. A well-known painting by Santi di Tito, completed in the mid-1600s, many years after this thinker's death, presents him still young and with a smile that confirms the ironic or humorous tone with which recent biographies portray it.
He did not elaborate a political theory or a deep reflection on the essence of power, as might be expected of a philosopher in the classical sense. In any case, his reflections are original and based on a wealth of historical events. His political thinking was guided by the facts he experienced and his interpretations based on circumstances historical, thus moving away from abstractions or idealizations.
Biography of Nicolas Machiavelli
NicholasMachiavelli (Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli) lived during the Rebirth Italian. Born in 1469, in the city of Florence (Italy),
belonged to a family of few possessions and acted as a secretary who took care of foreign affairs (a service equivalent today to that of a diplomat). His father, Bernardo di Niccolò di Bouoninsegna, was well versed in law and little is known about his mother, Bartolomea di Stefano Nelli. Two older sisters, Primavera and Margherita, and the youngest Totto completed the family.There are few records of his youth, but he is indicated as a good-natured and cheerful person. He married Marietta Corsini, in 1501, and they had four sons and two daughters. Despite his absences, because of his travels, he provided help through helpers. Even though he was appointed as a caring father, family life did not satisfy him and he frequented taverns and parties around the city.
He has always been dedicated, however, to studies, a recommendation he left to his son Guido in a letter. The twists and turns in politics and power struggles he witnessed on these missions in his own city are what give his writings their famous realism. It is the end of Lorenzo de Medici's government that marks the beginning of Machiavelli's missions in the service of the Republic, when he was almost 30 years old.
O secretary position it is granted in 1498, by an appointment of the Grand Council, and soon after it begins to be sent in diplomatic missions. Through his many missions, he acquires experience as a strategist and seminally expresses his political thinking in reports and speeches about these experiences. In 1505, a problem related to mercenaries, in the war against the city of Pisa, causes the authorities to accept the proposal to form a national army.
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The Medici manage to return to power in 1512, and in February 1513 Nicolas Machiavelli is unjustly involved in an attempted conspiracy. imprisoned in a cell close to where he used to work. Refuses forced confession, even under torture.
He is released a few weeks later, but leaves Florence and heads for his home in Sant'Andrea in Percussina (a place that still exists today). The loss of office and the sudden departure leave Nicolau Machiavelli dismayed, but the time serves as an opportunity to write his reflections on the art of governing.
You main writings in which he exposes his political thinking — The prince and Comments on the first decade of Tito Lívio - they are published posthumously, around 1532, but he even read excerpts from them on specific occasions, and some manuscripts circulated soon after they were finished. He also starts writing his pieces, the most relevant one entitled the mandrake, which was performed in Venice and continued to be applauded afterwards.
In mid 1520, he resumed some political activities, even without the prestige of the past, and Julius de' Medici commissioned history of florence, which was completed five years later, but also published posthumously. Even with the fall of the Medici and the return of the Republic in 1527, he has no desire to take up again the position to which he devoted years of his satisfied life. Francesco Tarugi is named, and the great Florentine thinker falls ill shortly thereafter. His son Piero, in a letter, comments that Nicolau Machiavelli died after taking a medicine that caused him severe stomach pains, on June 21, 1527.
Know more: Modern philosophy: philosophical period of which Machiavelli was part
Main ideas
Nicolau Machiavelli's best known work is certainly The prince, which begins to be written in mid 1512. In him ideas are clearly exposed, and his political thought understands politics as an end in itself. The evaluation of the actions of a ruler is based on the facts that are presented and not valuations of any scope.
It's straightforward about your prince's goal: conquer and hold power. It is true that the practical means of achieving success depend on various circumstances, which is why the reading of this work is permeated by the conceptual pair fortune and virtu. A few readings are enough to realize that these terms are not used in a common sense.
Per fortune, means the indication of circumstantial and unpredictable aspects that result in benefit or harm. This is not a supernatural force, but the natural unfolding of everything that involves or affects the human (decisions, illnesses, etc.). Already virtue it is the personal characteristics that help the ruler to secure his objective. It is, for example, about cunning, virility and flexibility.
The precepts would be between law and force, as the ruler should not base his decisions on what he imagines be the case, but realize that people are not essentially good and could adopt shady ways for their purposes. Nicolas Machiavelli knew that decisions depended on the context., that's why his reflections are inherent to the dynamics of power: it is necessary to appear kind, but to know how to use violence.
“History was for Machiavelli the great teacher, the surest source of teachings, because what happened in the past inevitably tended, in his view, to be repeated in the present and the future. All things in the world, at all times, he said, find their parallel in ancient times. Which results from the fact that they are run by men, who have and have always had the same passions, in such a way that necessarily the effects are always the same.” |1|
In Comments on the first decade of Tito Lívio, work also referred to simply as discorsi, the author proposes comparisons of some political situations of his time with facts that occurred in Antique, so that good examples of how to act politically could be disseminated. Examples that should not only be admired, but imitated. Although it was written almost at the same time as his best-known work, it did not have the same repercussion. It is in this book, in any case, that we find the exposition of some republican ideas, in which the ancient Rome.
In The art of war(1521), Machiavelli presents a dialogue between two characters about military themes: the formation of an army, its armaments, etc. This writing can be interpreted as a recommendation to the formation of a national force of citizens rather than the hiring of mercenaries, which was the practice in Florence of his time. The objective would be not only protection against external enemies but also against the excesses of an eventual tyrannical ruler
His ideas continue to be the subject of countless reflections and formed the basis of realistic thinking in political science. It is a misinterpretation to attribute a certain utilitarianism to Nicolau Machiavelli, since he did not propose as a rule that “the ends justify the means”. it can be said that the immorality attributed to his reflections is the result of a historically decontextualized and textually selective reading.
Read too: Thomas Hobbes: Philosopher Influenced by Machiavelli's Ideas
Main works and citations
The prince
“One might wonder how Agathocles and the like, after endless betrayals and cruelties, could live securely in their homeland and to defend themselves from external enemies for a long time, without their subjects ever having conspired against them, while many others, employing cruelty, failed to maintain their states, neither in times of peace nor in uncertain times of war. I believe this results from misused or well-used cruelty. Cruelties (if it is legitimate to speak well of evil) that are done at once out of necessity are well used. to guarantee themselves and then no longer insist on doing it, but they render as much utility as possible to the subjects. Poorly employed are those that, even though they are few at first, grow with time, rather than becoming extinct.”
Comments on the first decade of Tito Lívio
“It is evident that the common interest is only respected in the Republics: everything that can bring general advantage is achieved in them without obstacles. If a certain measure harms one or another individual, there are so many that it favors, that it arrives always making it prevail, despite resistance, due to the small number of people harmed.”
"It is necessary that a single man imprint the form and spirit on which the organization of the State depends. [...] Thus, the wise legislator, animated by the exclusive desire to serve not his personal interests, but those of the public: of to work not for his own heirs, but for the common homeland, he will spare no effort to retain in his hands all the authority."
Grades
|1| ESCOREL, Lauro. Introduction to Machiavelli's Political Thought. Rio de Janeiro: Simões Organization, 1958.
By Dr. Marco Oliveira
Philosophy teacher
