PSCI 3301 Lecture 2: Machiavelli the prince
13 Feb 2017
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Tuesday, january 10, 2017 4:38 pm: represents the shift from ancient to modern political philosophy and theory. We go from ancient idea virtue/the soul to the modern understanding of politics of usefulness. The purpose of politics was to perfect the soul: aristotle with the ethics and the politics - texts were symbiotic, all the ancient authors agree to it to some level. The purpose of life isn"t to understand, rather it is usefulness: we need to be useful people and transform the world in some fundamental way, politics is a science, a direct rejection to plato"s republic. The good person in politics will be destroyed: purpose of politics is to survive, to do this, must overthrow old order of things, need to overthrow philosophical order, need to overthrow the church. We"re starting with this text for a few reasons: great for getting into this type of reading.
