🦊Machiavelli
Original nameNiccolò Machiavelli
Italian Political Philosopher, Author of The Prince
Those Who Reanswered "How Should We Live" · Modern & Contemporary Thinkers
Political PhilosophyPolitical RealismThe Prince
Who they are
Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) was a political philosopher of the Italian Renaissance whose chief work The Prince analyzes, in an extremely blunt and cold-eyed manner, how a ruler gains, consolidates, and maintains power, holding that political action should be judged by actual results rather than traditional moral dogma — that a ruler, for the stability of the state and his own rule, must at times "be a fox to recognize traps and a lion to frighten off the wolves," and must even, when necessary, break with the usual sense of good faith and mercy. This political philosophy, wholly stripped of moral preaching and facing squarely the real logic of power, was later called "Machiavellianism," and the word "Machiavellian" thereby became a byword for the unscrupulous and scheming — though this label to a considerable degree simplifies and even distorts the complexity of his own thought, for he was at the same time a staunch republican who deeply lamented the fall of the Florentine republic.
Primary sourcesMachiavelli, The PrinceMachiavelli, Discourses on Livy
Key stories
"Feared or Loved"
In The Prince Machiavelli posed a famous question: should a ruler be feared or loved by his subjects? His answer was that, if the two cannot both be had, being feared is far more reliable than being loved — for the bond of love depends on the subjects’ voluntary gratitude, fragile and changeable, while the bond of fear rests on dread of punishment, firmer and more controllable. This cold-eyed realist political judgment is among the most quoted and most controversial statements in The Prince.
A Fallen Politician’s Philosophical Turn
Machiavelli himself served for years in high diplomatic office in the Florentine republic, and after the Medici restoration was dismissed, once put to torture and interrogation, and thereafter retired to the countryside to devote himself to writing; The Prince was precisely a product of his attempt to win back the Medici’s favor and stage a political comeback — a work full of scheming calculation that is, in a sense, a projection of the author’s own political disgrace.
Version differences
"Machiavellian" as a byword for unscrupulous scheming considerably simplifies the complexity of his own thought — he was at the same time a staunch republican, and the Discourses on Livy shows his high esteem for the republican polity.
Echoes today
Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.
"Machiavellian" (an idiom)In modern political science and psychology (such as the "Dark Triad" personality theory) this adjective is widely used to describe a scheming, unscrupulous manner of action.