How Machiavellian was Machiavelli? Public lecture by Quentin Skinner 

Machiavelli was a genius when it came to uncovering and explaining the complexity of human behavior and how that applies especially in politics. People often forget to put him in the context of his time and have a broader picture of things. They would appreciate his writings more.

00:01 Introduction to Machiavelli 03:25 The Prince Practical advice about statecraft, to new princes 05:25 Virtu Indispensable set of qualities to succeed Principle task of understanding The Prince is to understand Virtu 1. Power to offset Fortuna (luck) 2. Power to get lucky (Fortuna is not providence), ability to seize opportunities 3. Enables you to maintain your state, standing, as a ruler 4. Maintain the jurisdictions and institutions of the state 15:50 Hiero of Syracuse 16:40 Avoid being hated and despised Ok to be feared 18:15 Getting power Many ways Only one way to maintain power - Virtu 19:05 Goal should be glory Do great things 21:30 Other books on advice to princes Justice is essential Cicero - faith, keep your word Seneca - liberality/generosity, clemency (going beyond being just) Three princely virtues - justice, generosity, clemency 26:50 Chapter 15 Machiavelli disagrees, departs massively from conventional advice Follow the three princely virtues only as long as they help you maintain your state (consequentialism) Princely judgement (Virtu) is judging when that is right 32:00 Chapter 18 How far should you keep your promises? Keep your word only if it helps you maintain your state This is confirmed by experience e.g. Pope Alexander VI So that people don't care, be brilliant at dissembling, like a fox 35:05 Summary Be good if possible, be evil when necessary That's a virtuous prince But this is a crude analysis 36:10 However, that is only true for justice Not for liberality or clemency - How Machiavellian was Machiavelli? If they ruin you, how can they be virtuous? 38:10 Thucydides Corcya civil war The first casualty is moral language Evil acts excused as virtues, good actions denigrated 41:00 Aristotle, Art of Rhetoric Manipulate moral language to excuse vices (rhetoric) Quintilian - paradiastole (re-describing vices by using neighboring virtues) Interpretation #2 Thucydides - the rhetorical trick is *pointing out* the re-description of vices as virtues Rutilius Lupus, Rhetorical ad Herennium 47:00 Chapter 16 Concerning Liberality What passes for the virtue of liberality (generosity) is the vice of extravagance Liberality can cause you to raise taxes ==> hatred ==> lose state Therefore being miserly is not a vice 48:00 Chapter 17 Concerning Cruelty and Clemency What passes for the virtue of clemency is the vice of over indulgence Scipio was lax 50:25 Louis XII Parsimonious, therefore could fight wars without raising taxes, therefore generous 51:10 Cesare Borgia Cruel at the outset, but brought peace and prosperity, therefore merciful 51:45 Summary Political virtue - will it help you maintain your state? Justice - often needs to be avoided True liberality always works True clemency always works

12:30 ‘Moses cheated because God told him what to do, so that doesn’t really count’ I find this statement quite hilarious

Professor Skinner, I admire your interpretation of Machiavelli's writing. Excellent! 👏👏❤

I’ll quote this to be the most true short describing sentence for the “prince “ book and among the many unjust and cruel explanations for machiavelli’s great mental faculties “The prince must be someone willing to do evil that good shall come of it “ Thank you for the good lecture .

This is the finest commentary on Machiavelli I have seen or read.

Im a big Machiavelli fan and i would like to thank you for this most interesting lecture prof. Skinner

This is a captivating and rich lecture on another incredible mind! Thanks very much to Prof. Skinner!

In italian, the word "stato" can mean also a state of something, for example a mental state or an emotional state.

The study of the Machiavellian thought or idea is a complex one and this lecture has done great justice introducing its literature. Thank you professor.

The first thoroughly enjoyable and absorbing lecture i have ever seen on the subject of Machiavelli

Thoroughly absorbing- an amazing lecture and lecturer

Wonderful lecture and fantasticly delivered

Great lecture!

Excellent lecture! Thanks!

Thank you kindly Sir!

Brilliant lecture. I especially loved you touching upon disguising vices and when is virtue a vice. Thank you.

About 40 minutes in, I think he aptly describes a lot if what's going in today's society regarding the seizing of moral language to advance partisan ideals and redescribing vices as their closely related virtues.

I play this every night b4 going to bed sad I wish I could find more like this

The analysis of chapter XV should be its own a TED talk. As a descendant of the man, this is a great class.

Best talk I’ve heard on Machiavelli, thank you very much.

Great lecture. 👏👏👏👏

Thank you Professor! A lot.

Excellent lecture.

Notable clase del profesor Skinneer acerca de cómo se maneja realmente el poder desde siempre y hasta hoy y en el futuro......

Just a note, by empeor Antoninus, Machiavelli means Caracalla. Today we distinguish between Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, and Caesar Marcus Aurelius Severus Antoninus Pius Augustus (Caracalla), as Antoninus (because he was the first emperor with such a surname), Marcus Aurelius (cutting it short to avoid confusion) and Caracalla (a nickname), since he had stolen the name in order to associate himself to previous greater emeperors. This is the same thing we do today for Caligula. Ancient historians called him Divus Gaius to distinguish him, bur his real name was Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus (which however was also the name of many other prominant Roman figures including emperors). Bad emperors in general today are just called by nicknames. Great emeperors always keep their favorite name (usually… Augustus is agustus, despite the fact that all emperors were called Augustus). However during the renaissance Caracalla was still called by his prefered name (his fake surname) of Antoninus. The real antoninus was called Antoninus Pius. For example, the baths of Caracalla in the Noli map of Rome are called antoninian baths. As opposed to the baths of Caracalla as we call them today.

Excellent, wonderful speaker..!

Nice ☺️ and clear lecture 👍 on the Prince by Machiavelli.

Great illuminating Lecture☺️👍

fantastic lecture

Correct me if I'm wrong but the professor's citation of Thucydides description of the perversion of moral language is uncanny in its similarities between Orwell's description of double think.

Great video

Insightful lecture! Thank you so much for this! :)

Wonderful lecture. Thank you

love from persia andfire the sound guy

My gosh That was utterly brilliant! Piercingly insightful, and absolutely fascinating.

Thanks for this youtube post

one of the amazing professors to learn from! Thank you sir indeed

Thank you

Thank you.

very good one

There are some mistakes in subtitles, one of them is when he uses latin words but are targeted as italian word

very good lecture.

Per par condicio lo dico in italiano. Il termine "virtù" aveva, ai tempi di Machiavelli, e anche adesso, il significato di "forza", in particolare, di una forza che agisce e crea delle conseguenze. In italiano parliamo tuttora di virtù di una legge, di un ragionamento, o di un farmaco.

A good leader should show leadership by force if necessary and by deeds instead of words, however, a charismatic leader with a strong character and personality could take him very far. Virtud means his attributes and his skills. Thank you very much.

That point about Clemency and Liberality was extremely interesting and something I missed in my reading of The Prince

This is exactly what Machiavelli would have wanted us to believe

Where can I physically attend lectures like these?

What a fucking boss!! I loved this lecture!

have anyone of you read the book 'Quest for Freedom. An Interview with Quentin Skinner'? I'd really recommend it.

Grandioso

Consequentialism, when applied to the shortest period of time becomes opportunism and when applied to eternity becomes idealism. To what temporal horizon does Machiavelli bind his judgement of virtue?

I can't find that justice quote attributed to Saki. Are you sure he said it?

Now we're asking the real questions

there is quentin tarantino... and quentin skinnner

What's wrong with the sound

super

ugh I cant hear him. the volume is too low even with all my volume settings maxed out

What should i major in and what career should i pursue to be like him

I wonder how high machiavelli would of scored on Robert Hare's psychopathic test.

cool

a good explanation about the concept of virtù.

Watched all of it 53:46

his italian accent was on point

Lmao "severus" as his bame implies 🔥🔥🔥😂😂😂😂

Increasingly topical. All we need now is reality.. oh hang on..

Glory is greater than oneself , to be a glorious figure , according to Machiavelli was to restore Rome , how is that a personal credit ? Obviously no man is an island , Machiavelli was a masterful recruiter who valued the Republic , Glory is shared and lasting if the Republic is maintained .

In these 50 minutes, I was taken 100 meters below my intellectual depth

Virtue

14:32

how can someone be so naive to say these issues doesn't hold now , because we are in a "Democracy " ....weird , ! Where has he been..oh yes academia !

19:30

He forgot one of his own rules as an adviser to power ...do not offer advice unless asked for it from the ruler..the reason being that a ruler must never see you as smarter or a threat to him/her..

17:34, lets see if trump retains in the following term

A lightweight beginner by today standard

After the watching the whole speech I liked the last part when talks about vices and virtue... i dont like their first part definition of virtue with their examples, also how described clemency, and justice

The Art of Politics?

The word is strongly rooted in Amalekite' s " overture ". Its literal meaning : " Be Instructed, O Jerusalem !" ( Prof. Chomsky would have said it , probably 100 times an hour that, that is which makes "the Prince of the selfish gin ")

would he consider duterte a machiavellian?

I've only listened to 16 minutes of this lecture and have found much from this professor to disagree with. However, I'm all for Nicollo M. being a topic of discussion though...

whos here because of BBM? lol

Luck?

Machiavelli cleared the bush, Thomas Hobbs built the building.

Ok, both "Romagna" and "Romania" are nice countries... but not they aren't the same thing 😏

He wrote The Prince in order to preserve his life. He could have been afraid of The Mdecis.

Seneca bad luck that was .... hahaha

He says if Smith hadn't had a heart attack we would never have heard of Tony Blair. This he says is an example of fortuna at work. Hmm. For a Machiavelli scholar he isn't very Machiavellian, is he.

Why does he have to say men are source material here, did feminists break in here as well?

This awesome video makes me disgust the popular culture depiction of him.

Talks too much about concepts and thoughts, its far away from reality and living politics you extract anything... its just like schollars speech and Machiavelli its a practical guidebook from that time on how princes and rulers should behave and act to adquire Power or Mantain their thrones.

machiavelli and ayn rand >>>kant nietzche >>than fyodor or schopenhaeur.

Sleepy Joe is Scipio

Nothing "successful" about Tony Blair - a hollow nothing in an empty suit.

PINKLAWANS ARE NOT ALLOWED ON THIS CHANNEL.

Not near as Machiavellian as Christ and that bs kingdom

I think he's trying to fool the world my opinon I don't believe he can even see straight therefore it's not a proven fact