The Machiavelli Nights

Convenor: Dr Gianluigi Sassu (Visiting Fellow, IGRS)

A series of four seminars exploring the thought of Niccolo Machiavelli in relation to rhetoric and language.

Friday, 3 February 2012
6 - 8 p.m.
Room ST 276, Stewart House

Politics as a Language: Machiavelli's Ai Palleschi
Machiavelli's short Orazione ai Palleschi is an example of his peculiar approach to politics. He maintains that politics should be interpreted as a sign rather than explained as a physical process. Any political phenomenon is primarily a sign with meanings. By stating this Machiavelli thereby produces a theory on the rhetorical nature of politics, but also, in the same act, he does rhetoric and propaganda on his own and for his own purposes. Therefore, in this letter he gives a practical example of a political act which is not only a communicative act, but also a dual act: it entails, at the same time, critiques and making of ideology.

Friday, 9 March 2012
6 - 8 p.m.
Room ST 276, Stewart House

Two Machiavellian Virtues: Language and Meta-Language
We can ascribe two different meanings to the word virtù in Machiavelli. Firstly, a code-virtue, that is, a fixed set of behaviours and moral stances capable of strengthening an individual or a society; in this sense, Machiavelli thinks akin to the Roman virtues of vis, animus, and other prevalently military and political values, which had already been praised by most humanists like Leonardo Bruni. Secondly, what I call meta-language-virtue and which constitutes the real originality of Machiavelli: that is, a meta-linguistical competence, the ability to go beyond any fixed code, and therefore beyond good and evil.

Friday, 11 May 2012
6 - 8 p.m.
Room ST 276, Stewart House

Can Virtue be Taught? Facts, Values and Meta-Language in Machiavelli
Virtù can be attained and can be indicated; there can be a training in virtue, as in the arts. Training is based upon intuitive skills which are cultivated by the study of history. We can trace some feature of meta-linguistic virtù: first of all, it is an ability to change one's own style, availing oneself of irony and humour. Secondly, it is a capacity to go beyond all cultural codes, including those of good and evil, and acknowledge them as arbitrary codes.

Friday, 1 June 2012
6 - 8 p.m.
Room ST 276, Stewart House

Can Mass Virtue Exist? Audience and Citizenship in Machiavelli
The people are the receiver or the audience of political discourses. The audience is not a source of political and cultural meaning: its function is to preserve them. A virtuous people is capable of implementing a cultural or moral code and make it endure, provided that a virtuous prince (which may be a collective one, or a leading class) operates as the original creator. The people have an utterly passive role, while the prince has an active one. That said, anyone can have an active function as creator of meaning; anyone can therefore be a prince, with no-one excluded by reason of nature, class or culture.

ALL WELCOME