Machiavelli's Effectual Truth
Creating the Modern World

Machiavelli, master conspirator of effectual truth, meets his equal in Montesquieu, who takes the task of maintaining the modern world.

Harvey C. Mansfield (Author)

9781009320122, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 30 September 2023

250 pages
28 x 19 x 2.1 cm, 0.599 kg

'Having long reigned as the foremost interpreter of Machiavelli's thought, Harvey Mansfield offers a provocative examination of Machiavelli's significant, but overlooked, term- 'the effectual truth.' Mansfield finds monumental significance in Machiavelli's neologism, which shaped the history of modern political philosophy and hence our contemporary world. This is a challenging work, full of insight as well as wry humor that demands - but also rewards - reflection.' Vickie B. Sullivan, Cornelia M. Jackson Professor of Political Science, Tufts University

Machiavelli is said to be a Renaissance thinker, yet in a notable phrase he invented, 'the effectual truth,' he attacked the high-sounding humanism typical of the Renaissance, while mounting a conspiracy against the classical and Christian values of his time. In Machiavelli's Effectual Truth this overlooked phrase is studied and explained for the first time. The upshot of 'effectual truth' for any individual is to not depend on anyone or anything outside yourself to keep you free and secure. Mansfield argues that this phrase reveals Machiavelli's approach to modern science, with its focus on the efficient cause and concern for fact. He inquires into the effect Machiavelli expected from his own writings, who believed his philosophy would have an effect that future philosophers could not ignore. His plan, according to Mansfield, was to bring about a desired effect and thus to create his own future and ours.

1. Machiavelli's succession problem
2. Machiavelli's world
3. Leo Strauss on The Prince
4. The cuckold in Machiavelli's Mandragola
5. Leonardo Bruni and Machiavelli on civic humanism
6. Montesquieu and Machiavelli
7. Tocqueville's Machiavellianism.

Subject Areas: Political science & theory [JPA]