The Roman Humanitas of Machiavelli’s Humanity

• In Event: Poster Session: Political Thought and Philosophy & International History and Politics
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Political Thought and Philosophy: Historical Approaches

Abstract

In the first pages of both the Prince and the Discourses on Livy, Machiavelli calls on the humanity of his readers to accept his books and their contents. While it is likely true that his readers would understand that term in its common usage, which is that it denotes the cultivated disposition of someone who has studied the liberal arts, it is less clear that Machiavelli intended the term to be used in that way. Scholars like Orwin (1978), Hunsicker (2013), and Menchaca-Bagnulo (2018) have argued that Machiavelli uses the concept of humanity to undermine the Christian virtue of humility. One can find evidence for this argument in both texts. For instance, in chapter 15 of the Prince, Machiavelli juxtaposes the humane against pride and, in the Discourses, he references humility in the title of I.41 but then goes on to discuss the humane. Although the evaluation of his attack on humility highlights an important dimension of Machiavelli’s thought, it does not adequately address his understanding of the humanity that results from the relationship between the liberal arts and the disposition that the study of them cultivates.
This paper argues that Machiavelli’s use of humanity comes from the Roman tradition of Latin humanitas, which understands the liberal arts as a field of contestation over the meaning of the humane. Just as Cicero’s translations, interpretations, and attempted replacement of Greek political thought was animated by a desire to establish a specifically Roman canon of liberal arts, so too is Machiavelli trying to produce a new canon to replace the old. Thus, this paper argues that Machiavelli’s account of humanity is both an attempt to replace prior liberal art and, more significantly, an attempt to reframe the relationship between the study of the liberal arts and the disposition that the activity engenders.
To make these arguments, the paper develops two lines of inquiry. First, the paper argues that Machiavelli provides an explicit methodology to reading ancient texts that undermines the possibility for transhistorical truth, in opposition to past traditions. In other words, Machiavelli historicizes what it means to be humane by framing the study of the liberal arts as the pursuit of an understanding of the effectual truth. Although it is true that one benefits from studying the affairs of the ancients, as Machiavelli explicitly argues in his 1513 letter to Francesco Vettori for example, the worth of a liberal art is measured by its effectiveness, which is evaluated in the moment. Second, the paper argues that Machiavelli flips the relationship between the liberal arts and humanity such that it is those who are humane who determine what the liberal arts are; the liberal arts do not provide an independent standard of evaluation. As a result, those who are most effective establish a liberal arts canon that affirms an understanding of the humane that is conducive to their political ends.

Author

• Taylor Putnam, University of Toronto