They evince complete independence of traditional doctrines, though they are based on symbolism of numbers, on combinations of letters, and on abstract speculations rather than observation.
The earth is a star like other stars, is not the centre of the universe, is not at rest, nor are its poles fixed. The celestial bodies are not strictly spherical, nor are their orbits circular. The difference between theory and appearance is explained by relative motion. Had Copernicus been aware of these assertions he would probably have been encouraged by them to publish his own monumental work.
Like Nicole Oresme , Nicholas of Cusa also wrote about the possibility of the plurality of worlds. Norman Moore , M. In medicine he introduced an improvement which in an altered form has continued in use to this day.
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This improvement was the counting of the pulse which up to his time had been felt and discussed in many ways but never counted. Nicholas of Cusa proposed to compare the rate of pulses by weighing the quantity of water run out of a water clock while the pulse beat one hundred times. The manufacture of watches with second-hands has since given us a simpler method of counting, but the merit of introducing this useful kind of observation into clinical medicine belongs to Nicholas of Cusa. Although it was not adopted by the Church, his method was essentially the same one known today as the Borda count , which is used in many academic institutions, competitions, and even some political jurisdictions, in original form and a number of variations.
His proposal preceded Borda 's work by over three centuries. Nicholas' opinions on the Empire, which he hoped to reform and strengthen, were cited against papal claims of temporal power in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Protestant writers were happy to cite a cardinal against Rome's pretensions. Protestants, however, found his writings against the Hussites wrong. Nicholas seemed to Protestants to give the church too much power to interpret Scripture, instead of treating it as self interpreting and self-sufficient for salvation , the principle of sola scriptura.
Nicholas' own thought on the church changed with his departure from Basel. He tried arguing that the Basel assembly lacked the consent of the church throughout the world, especially the princes. Then he tried arguing that the church was unfolded from Peter explicatio Petri.
Thus he was able to propose to Pius II reform of the church, beginning with the pope himself. Then it was to spread through the Roman curia and outward throughout Christendom. Nicolas of Cusa noted that government was founded on the consent of the governed:. This visionary work imagined a summit meeting in Heaven of representatives of all nations and religions.
Niccolò Machiavelli - Wikipedia
Islam and the Hussite movement in Bohemia are represented. The conference agrees that there can be una religio in varietate rituum , a single faith manifested in different rites, as manifested in the eastern and western rites of the Catholic Church. The dialog presupposes the greater accuracy of Christianity but gives respect to other religions. While the arguments for the superiority of Christianity are still shown in this book, it also credits Judaism and Islam with sharing in the truth at least partially.
Cusanus' attitude toward the Jews was not always mild; on 21 September he ordered that Jews of Arnhem were to wear badges identifying them as such. The De pace fidei mentions the possibility that the Jews might not embrace the larger union of una religio in varietate rituum , but it dismisses them as politically insignificant.
This matches the decrees from Cusanus' legation restricting Jewish activities, restrictions later canceled by Pope Nicholas V. Nicholas was widely read, and his works were published in the sixteenth century in both Paris and Basel. In The Pursuit of God , A. Tozer refers to Nicholas as someone who had a vibrant Christian spirituality, stating in Chapter 7, "I should like to say more about this old man of God. He is not much known today anywhere among Christian believers, and among current Fundamentalists he is known not at all.
I feel that we could gain much from a little acquaintance with men of his spiritual flavor and the school of Christian thought which they represent…". From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For the lunar crater, see Cusanus crater.
For other uses, see CUSA disambiguation. Nicholas of Cusa, by Master of the Life of the Virgin. Todi , Umbria , Papal States. The Legacy of Learned Ignorance". Duclow, "Life and Works", in Christopher M. Izbicki, Gerald Christianson Eds. Harvard University Press, Cambridge University Press June 29, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation. Retrieved 3 May The Legacy of the Fifteenth Century , ed. Gerald Christianson, Thomas M. Izbicki and Christopher M. Catholic University of America Press, , pp. Izbicki, "'Their Cardinal Cusanus': Variorum, , IX, pp.
Gerald Christianson and Thomas M. Brill, , pp. Perspectives on Nicholas of Cusa , ed. Columbia University Press, ; P. Philosopher of the Renaissance , ed. Hilary Gatti, Aldershot, Ashgate, , pp. In Search of God and Wisdom: Index Outline Lists of Catholics. Science Evolution Separation of church and state Relations Politics. Latin Church Eastern Catholic Churches: Criticism of the Catholic Church Anti-Catholicism. Health care Schools Universities. Catholicism portal Book Category. History of the Catholic Church. For Machiavelli, a truly great prince can never be conventionally religious himself, but he should make his people religious if he can.
According to Strauss , pp. Machiavelli's judgment that democracies need religion for practical political reasons was widespread among modern proponents of republics until approximately the time of the French Revolution. This therefore represents a point of disagreement between himself and late modernity. Despite the classical precedents, which Machiavelli was not the only one to promote in his time, Machiavelli's realism and willingness to argue that good ends justify bad things, is seen as a critical stimulus towards some of the most important theories of modern politics.
Firstly, particularly in the Discourses on Livy, Machiavelli is unusual in the positive side he sometimes seems to describe in factionalism in republics. For example, quite early in the Discourses, in Book I, chapter 4 , a chapter title announces that the disunion of the plebs and senate in Rome "kept Rome free. Similarly, the modern economic argument for capitalism , and most modern forms of economics, was often stated in the form of "public virtue from private vices. Mansfield however argues that Machiavelli's own aims have not been shared by those he influenced.
Machiavelli argued against seeing mere peace and economic growth as worthy aims on their own, if they would lead to what Mansfield calls the "taming of the prince. Machiavelli is most famous for a short political treatise, The Prince , written in but not published until , five years after his death. Although he privately circulated The Prince among friends, the only theoretical work to be printed in his lifetime was The Art of War , which was about military science.
Since the 16th century, generations of politicians remain attracted and repelled by its apparently neutral acceptance, or even positive encouragement, of the immorality of powerful men, described especially in The Prince but also in his other works. His works are sometimes even said to have contributed to the modern negative connotations of the words politics and politician , [35] and it is sometimes thought that it is because of him that Old Nick became an English term for the Devil.
While Machiavellianism is notable in the works of Machiavelli, Machiavelli's works are complex and he is generally agreed to have been more than just "Machiavellian" himself. Pocock saw him as a major source of the republicanism that spread throughout England and North America in the 17th and 18th centuries and Leo Strauss , whose view of Machiavelli is quite different in many ways, agreed about Machiavelli's influence on republicanism and argued that even though Machiavelli was a teacher of evil he had a nobility of spirit that led him to advocate ignoble actions.
Whatever his intentions, which are still debated today, he has become associated with any proposal where " the end justifies the means ". For example, Leo Strauss , p. Machiavelli is the only political thinker whose name has come into common use for designating a kind of politics, which exists and will continue to exist independently of his influence, a politics guided exclusively by considerations of expediency, which uses all means, fair or foul, iron or poison, for achieving its ends—its end being the aggrandizement of one's country or fatherland—but also using the fatherland in the service of the self-aggrandizement of the politician or statesman or one's party.
To quote Robert Bireley: Three principal writers took the field against Machiavelli between the publication of his works and their condemnation in and again by the Tridentine Index in These were the English cardinal Reginald Pole and the Portuguese bishop Jeronymo Osorio , both of whom lived for many years in Italy, and the Italian humanist and later bishop, Ambrogio Caterino Politi.
Machiavelli's ideas had a profound impact on political leaders throughout the modern west, helped by the new technology of the printing press. During the first generations after Machiavelli, his main influence was in non-Republican governments. In fact, he was apparently influencing both Catholic and Protestant kings. One of the most important early works dedicated to criticism of Machiavelli, especially The Prince , was that of the Huguenot , Innocent Gentillet , whose work commonly referred to as Discourse against Machiavelli or Anti Machiavel was published in Geneva in This became the theme of much future political discourse in Europe during the 17th century.
This includes the Catholic Counter Reformation writers summarised by Bireley: They accepted the need for a prince to be concerned with reputation, and even a need for cunning and deceit, but compared to Machiavelli, and like later modernist writers, they emphasized economic progress much more than the riskier ventures of war. These authors tended to cite Tacitus as their source for realist political advice, rather than Machiavelli, and this pretense came to be known as " Tacitism ". Modern materialist philosophy developed in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, starting in the generations after Machiavelli.
This philosophy tended to be republican, more in the original spirit of Machiavellian, but as with the Catholic authors Machiavelli's realism and encouragement of using innovation to try to control one's own fortune were more accepted than his emphasis upon war and politics. Not only was innovative economics and politics a result, but also modern science , leading some commentators to say that the 18th century Enlightenment involved a "humanitarian" moderating of Machiavellianism.
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Although he was not always mentioned by name as an inspiration, due to his controversy, he is also thought to have been an influence for other major philosophers, such as Montaigne , [54] Descartes , [55] Hobbes , Locke [56] and Montesquieu. Although Jean-Jacques Rousseau is associated with very different political ideas, it is important to view Machiavelli's work from different points of view rather than just the traditional notion.
For example, Rousseau viewed Machiavelli's work as a satirical piece in which Machiavelli exposes the faults of a one-man rule rather than exalting amorality. In the seventeenth century it was in England that Machiavelli's ideas were most substantially developed and adapted, and that republicanism came once more to life; and out of seventeenth-century English republicanism there were to emerge in the next century not only a theme of English political and historical reflection—of the writings of the Bolingbroke circle and of Gibbon and of early parliamentary radicals—but a stimulus to the Enlightenment in Scotland, on the Continent, and in America.
Scholars have argued that Machiavelli was a major indirect and direct influence upon the political thinking of the Founding Fathers of the United States due to his overwhelming favoritism of republicanism and the republic type of government. According to John McCormick, it is still very much debatable whether or not Machiavelli was "an advisor of tyranny or partisan of liberty. The Founding Father who perhaps most studied and valued Machiavelli as a political philosopher was John Adams , who profusely commented on the Italian's thought in his work, A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America.
For Adams, Machiavelli restored empirical reason to politics, while his analysis of factions was commendable. Adams likewise agreed with the Florentine that human nature was immutable and driven by passions. He also accepted Machiavelli's belief that all societies were subject to cyclical periods of growth and decay. For Adams, Machiavelli lacked only a clear understanding of the institutions necessary for good government. The 20th-century Italian Communist Antonio Gramsci drew great inspiration from Machiavelli's writings on ethics, morals, and how they relate to the State and revolution in his writings on Passive Revolution , and how a society can be manipulated by controlling popular notions of morality.
Joseph Stalin read The Prince and annotated his own copy. In the 20th century there was also renewed interest in Machiavelli's La Mandragola , which received numerous stagings, including several in New York, at the New York Shakespeare Festival in and the Riverside Shakespeare Company in , as a musical comedy by Peer Raben in Munich's antiteater in , and at London's National Theatre in Machiavelli's best-known book Il Principe contains several maxims concerning politics. Instead of 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 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 immorally at the right times. Machiavelli believed as a ruler, it 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. Scholars often note that Machiavelli glorifies instrumentality in state building, an approach embodied by the saying " The ends justify the means.
Nicholas of Cusa
Violence may be necessary for the successful stabilisation of power and introduction of new legal institutions. Force may be used to eliminate political rivals, to coerce resistant populations, and to purge the community of other men strong enough of 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". Humanists also viewed the book negatively, including Erasmus of Rotterdam.
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 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 , many have concluded 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 was even called a satire , for example by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Other interpretations include for example that of Antonio Gramsci , who argued that Machiavelli's audience for this work was not even the ruling class but the common people because the rulers already knew these methods through their education.
The Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livy , published in , written , often referred to simply as the "Discourses" or Discorsi , is nominally a discussion regarding the classical history of early Ancient Rome although it strays very far from this subject matter and also uses contemporary political examples to illustrate points.
Machiavelli presents it as 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.
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Commentators disagree about how much the two works agree with each other, frequently referring to leaders of democracies as "princes". It includes early versions of the concept of checks and balances and asserts the superiority of a republic over a principality. It became one of the central texts of republicanism , and has often been argued to be a superior work to The Prince. Besides being a statesman and political scientist, Machiavelli also translated classical works, and was a playwright Clizia , Mandragola , a poet Sonetti , Canzoni , Ottave , Canti carnascialeschi , and a novelist Belfagor arcidiavolo.
Della Lingua Italian for "Of the Language" , a dialogue about Italy's language is normally attributed to Machiavelli. Machiavelli's literary executor, Giuliano de' Ricci, also reported having seen that Machiavelli, his grandfather, made a comedy in the style of Aristophanes which included living Florentines as characters, and to be titled Le Maschere. It has been suggested that due to such things as this and his style of writing to his superiors generally, there was very likely some animosity to Machiavelli even before the return of the Medici.
Christopher Marlowe 's play The Jew of Malta ca. It is a brilliant introduction to the people and events that gave us the word 'Machiavellian. Television dramas centering on the early Renaissance have also made use of Machiavelli to underscore his influence in early modern political philosophy. Machiavelli has been featured as a supporting character in The Tudors — , [81] [82] Borgia — and The Borgias — Brotherhood , in which he is portrayed as a member of the secret society of Assassins. A highly fictionalised version of Machiavelli appears in the BBC children's TV series Leonardo — , [83] in which he is "Mac", a black streetwise hustler who is best friends with fellow teenagers Leonardo da Vinci , Mona Lisa , and Lorenzo di Medici.
In the episode "Ewings Unite! Ewing wills his copy of The Prince to his adopted nephew Christopher Ewing , telling him to "use it, because being smart and sneaky is an unbeatable combination. The character's personality and behaviour seem to portray Cesare Borgia rather than Machiavelli himself, suggesting that the writers may have confused the two. Together with his defence attorney Lucrezia Borgia Helen McCrory , he presents examples from history to the devil to support his political theories and appeal his sentence in Hell. The portrayal of Machiavelli draws from his later writings and observations of the chaotic events of his youth before rising from obscurity to be appointed as Second Chancellor of the Florentine Republic at the age of twenty-nine, only one month after Savonarola's execution.
The American rapper Tupac Shakur studied Machiavelli while in prison and became greatly influenced by his work. Upon his release from prison, Tupac honored Machiavelli in by changing his own rap name from 2Pac to Makaveli. In the crime drama A Bronx Tale , local mob boss Sonny tells his young protege Calogero that while he was doing a year sentence in jail, he passed the time and stayed out of trouble by reading Machiavelli, whom he describes as "a famous writer from years ago"—and then tells him how Machiavelli's philosophy, including his famous advice about how it is preferable for a leader to be feared rather than loved if he cannot be both—have made him a successful mob boss.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For other uses, see Machiavelli disambiguation.
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Communitarianism Democracy Liberalism Monarchism. Machiavelli as a dramatist. Italy portal Biography portal. The Cambridge Companion to Machiavelli. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 1 November Their personal correspondence, Northern Illinois University Press. Translated and edited by James B. Atkinson and David Sices. Both made good confessions and received the Holy Viaticum. Machiavelli and political theory under the English Republic p. The Classic Texts and their Continuing Relevance". Retrieved 28 October See Kennington Chapter 4.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. Retrieved 19 March Machiavelli and Hume" in Rahe Locke's Machiavellian Teaching" in Rahe Shklar "Montesquieu and the new republicanism" in Bock Intellectuals, Culture, and the Party , ed.
James Martin New York: Retrieved 18 October Also see Black , pp. The Jew of Malta. Retrieved 12 May Western Thinker's in Political Science. Literature for Young Adults: Books and More for Contemporary Readers. Retrieved September 5, The Anne Boleyn Files. Retrieved February 8, How Game of Thrones reached highbrow status".
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