Hobbes Contra Machiavelli on the Effectual Truth

• In Event: The Politics of Truth and Persuasion

Abstract

Scholars emphasize that Hobbes’s Leviathan employs Machiavelli’s “effectual truth” to repudiate biblical and classical “imaginary” political schemes. Hobbes departs from Machiavelli’s promotion of princes by promoting the equal power of the many to secure individual rights. Scholars have not sufficiently noticed that Leviathan entails a systematic education of the people to the “effectual truth” to validate equality against the pretensions and ploys of the would be princes. This essay lays out Hobbes’s education of the people over and against Machiavelli’s promotion of princes.

Author

• Michael J. Rosano, University of Michigan, Dearborn