Machiavelli Bonus Introduction

Some passages from Manent, Mahoney, and Strauss.

I finished the introduction, Anthony Grafton writes a great introduction.

As I said in the video, he and Pierre Manent arrive at the same conclusions, and often through the same pathways, despite Manent and Grafton holding different worldviews. To me, with vetted thinkers like this, that same conclusion offers weight to both, and means we should take what they say with gravity and it’s a worthwhile compass to help us grasp, understand, and enjoy The Prince.

Here are some passages I believe relevant to the introduction, and passages that will help us tackle this iconic work.

From: Natural Law and Human Rights: Toward a Recovery of Human Reason, Pierre Manent

These are curated from the introduction by Daniel J. Mahoney:

It wads the classics and the Christians who defended “reflective choice” and “free will,” the preconditions of all meaningful action. By contrast, Machiavelli, writing at the dawn of modernity, substituted a theoretical perspective on action that eclipsed the agent’s poin…