Douglas_Knight comments on [Link] Machiavelli in historical context - Less Wrong

6 Post author: Cyan 31 July 2012 07:41PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (17)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Douglas_Knight 01 August 2012 12:03:41AM 0 points [-]

If he is making public that which everyone is thinking, but afraid to say, then his historical importance is not in any of the passages you quote, but that he writes a book about it.

Comment author: Cyan 01 August 2012 12:30:31AM *  0 points [-]

Yup. From the OP:

In writing Il Principe, Machiavelli committed to posterity two major breakthroughs [emphasis added]

Comment author: gwern 01 August 2012 01:19:30AM *  2 points [-]

One of the claims Dietz makes is that Machiavelli made no attempt at all to publicize The Prince; he wrote & delivered it to the respective palace, and that was it.

Comment author: Douglas_Knight 01 August 2012 01:39:33AM *  0 points [-]

So what if he meant to do it gently in the Discourses on Livy rather than brazenly in the Prince?


Added: note that the Discourses were also banned. Subtracted: actually, that might have been a blanket ban, providing no evidence.

Comment author: Cyan 01 August 2012 01:37:06AM *  0 points [-]

It seems entirely plausible to me that it was written with no other goal than gaining patronage. I'll update the post.