David Stevens

Machiavelli › Questions

Did Machiavelli invent political science?

No. But he opened the door it walks through: writing about what rulers do, not what they ought to do.

The short answer

No. Aristotle had compared over a hundred and fifty constitutions eighteen centuries earlier. Nor did he invent the modern state, which was built by lawyers, tax collectors and standing armies over three hundred years, or reason of state, a phrase made famous by a book attacking him.

What he did do

Before him, the advice written for princes described the prince they ought to be. After him it was possible to write about what rulers do: in a living language, from evidence, about named men of his own day. His phrase for it, in chapter 15 of The Prince, is the effectual truth of things.

Bacon's thanks

In 1605 Francis Bacon wrote: We are much beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do. He meant it in defence of virtue. You cannot join the serpent's wisdom to the dove's innocence without knowing the serpent exactly.

What serious people still argue about

The philosopher Isaiah Berlin argued in 1972 that what Machiavelli found was a moral structure: that Christian virtue and civic virtue are two complete systems of value that cannot be combined, and politics forces a choice between them. That is Berlin's claim about Machiavelli, not Machiavelli's about himself, but it is why he is still read.

More about Machiavelli

Something to read first

The trial file

A short piece, free: what the documents in Galileo’s own trial file actually say, including the two pages that decided it. It isn’t sold anywhere, and it’s the fastest way to see how these books are built.

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