Science Meets Politics: Machiavelli's Influence and the Birth of Political Science Gábor Almási

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Almási, Gábor, author.

Series:

History of European political and constitutional thought ; 15

History of European Political and Constitutional Thought 15

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource (460 pages) illustrations

Place of Publication:

Leiden Boston Brill 2025

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Machiavelli's early influence was more penetrating than has ever been believed, and this book explains why. The surprising answer leads the reader into the depths of the history of science, connecting Machiavelli's thought to new ways of thinking about experience, history, nature, and politics. Machiavelli's works resonated with readers not merely because of the political and moral questions they raised and answered, and this book argues that the ways in which Machiavelli engaged with these questions were of equal importance. His method reinforced the readers' own belief in the importance of an inductive and comparative approach, which relied on facts and numbers drawn from history and experience

Contents:

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1 On the Earliest Reception of Machiavelli's Ideas

2 Machiavelli: More Than a Republican Hero

3 Machiavelli and Early Modern 'Science'

4 Machiavelli the 'Scientist'?

5 The Structure and Rationale of This Book

1 What Was Science in Renaissance Florence?

1 The Sciences and the Arts

2 Medicine versus Law in Humanist Debates

3 Res et Verba

4 Science in the Florentine Chancery

2 Machiavelli's Science

1 From Machiavelli's Letter to Becchi to the Discourse on Valdichiana

2 The Ghiribizzi to Soderini

3 Machiavelli's Correspondence with Vettori

4 History and Reason

5 Machiavelli's Historical Revolt

6 The Perspective of Art

7 Machiavelli's Language and Method

8 Scientia, Authorities, and Humanism

3 Science and Method in Machiavelli's Early Reception

1 Guicciardini on Machiavelli's Method

2 Aristotelian Machiavelli / Machiavellian Aristotle?

3 Aristotle's Method in the Politics

4 The Question of Averroism

5 Machiavelli's First Aristotelian-Averroist Enthusiast: Agostino Nifo

6 Nifo's Plagiarism of The Prince

7 Girolamo Cardano Reads Machiavelli

8 Cardano's Views on Science

4 Experience, Reason, and History: Machiavelli Gains a Name for Himself

1 Cardinal Pole Grapples with 'Experience'

2 Machiavelli Read for Action

3 Machiavelli's Science in Le Prince: Gaspar d'Auvergne and the Cappel Family

4 Jacques Gohory's Microcosm and Macrocosm

5 Science and Experience Meet historia: Machiavelli's Latin Translations

6 Historia and Francesco Patrizi

7 Machiavelli and the ars historica in France

5 Machiavelli Goes Underground and Triumphs

1 The Tragedy of Saint Bartholomew

2 Gentillet's Anti-Machiavel (1576)

3 The Rise of a New Awareness

4 A Wealth of Political Literature

5 Machiavelli Triumphs in Language: the Medical Metaphors

6 Machiavelli Triumphs in Genre: the Hippocratic Aphorisms

6 The Advancement of Politics and Science

1 New Perspectives: the Global View

2 Botero's Comparative Vision of Greatness

3 The Perspective of Work and Action in Botero

4 The Perspective of Work and Action in Bacon

5 Facts, Information, and Numbers: New Knowledge for Politics

6 Bacon's Science: Power and Happiness?

7 Conclusions

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index

Description based on print version record

Other Format:

Print version Science Meets Politics: Machiavelli's Influence and the Birth of Political Science

ISBN:

9789004736948

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9789004633544 DOI

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license