Niccolo_Machiavelli

Niccolo Machiavelli Niccolo Machiavelli is revered as the founder of modern political philosophy. He was considered a “realist” because he concerned himself only with the political situations that actually arose in reality; where as previous philosophers were concerned largely with the theoretical politics of an “idealist” prefect society. Machiavelli presents Medici with a sort of guidebook of successful political practices. Machiavelli goes against Platonic philosophy. Whereas Plato believed that human kind was virtuous by nature, with evil men being but a small fraction of the species, Machiavelli felt that it was virtuous who were a minority in a world of evil men. Machiavelli goes on to say that the evil majority would generally overcome the virtuous few. Thus it is the duty of rulers to safeguard themselves from the evil men by committing non-virtuous acts. Rather than contemplating how one might change human nature, Machiavelli was more interested in using it to serve his own ends. Machiavelli begins by saying that the most difficult thing for a ruler to do is to acquire a new kingdom. This may be accomplished one of two ways, “either by the arms of others or by one’s machiavelli, force, evil, successful, ruler, political, one, men, goes, virtuous, virtue, say, politics, own, others, means, man, loved, human, however, good, feared, fear, both, being, because, arms, using, two, time, thus, rather, philosophy, one’s, niccolo