| Popis: |
The interpretation I offer of Machiavelli calls for a redefinition of the terms in which his legacy to modernity has been understood to date. I take as my starting point Strauss’s interpretation of this legacy because he proposes one of its strongest version, and one which is adopted, in its central points, even by thinkers who wish to defend, rather than reject, the project of modernity. Stated baldly, Strauss argues that modern political thought, from Machiavelli and Hobbes, through Rousseau, Kant and Hegel, culminating in Nietzsche, is thoroughly historicist,1 by which he means that it cannot “answer the question of right and wrong or of the best social order in a universally valid manner, in a manner valid for all historical epochs, as political philosophy requires.”2 |
