The Renaissance is characterized by an increase in awareness and interest in the classics, a revival. This was a time of transition from the classics thought to modern thought, and many ideas were being formed, and discarded. Both Praise of Folly by Erasmus, and The Prince by Machiavelli were pivotal books that greatly shaped the course of the Renaissance and intellectual thought during this period. Erasmus primarily concerned himself with the sacred, and Machiavelli was more concerned with the secular. However, both authors agree that pure philosophy is a futile and aimless pursuit that deals mostly with insignificant and esoteric truths, and use practical examples to illustrate the failure of classical philosophy. Erasmus directly attacks …show more content…
His intention to “write something useful to him who perceives it, has appeared to me more convenient to go after the effective truth of the thing rather than the imagination of it,” (The Prince, Ch. 15; Codevilla, p. 57). Machiavelli is trying to write something that can be used and applied in real life, not a theoretical thought experiment. While Machiavelli is a philosopher himself, he distinguishes himself from those who “have imagined for themselves republics and principalities that no one has ever seen or known to be in reality,” (The Prince, Ch. 15; Codevilla, p. 57). Machiavelli's focus on the practical means of governing a province are evident throughout the treatise, and shows that classical philosophy's guidelines on “how one ought to live is so far removed from how one lives,” (The Prince, Ch. 15; Codevilla, p. 57), are a waste of time. Machiavelli challenges Socrates' statement that philosophers should become kings, or kings becomes philosophers. Much of the advice Machiavelli offers princes is not morally upright, such as recommending that “the bloodline of the old prince be extinguished” (The Prince, Ch. 5; Codevilla, p. 18), or that “that men must either caressed or extinguished;” (The Prince, Ch. 5; Codevilla, p. 9). These chilling and cold claims run completely contrary to Socrates' idealized utopia in Plato's Republic. While both philosophers use similar principles …show more content…
Socrates starts by constructs a purely hypothetical example from which he draws conclusions, which leads to hypothetical truths. Machiavelli, on the other hand starts by listing the harsh realities of governing. This, combined with Machiavelli bleak view of human nature, leads to conclusions almost completely contradictory to Socrates' optimistic and far-fetched conclusions. For example, Machiavelli cites Agathocles of the Sicilian and where he “had all the senators and the riches of people killed by his soldiers,” (The Prince, Ch. 8; Codevilla, p. 33) in order to become a prince. After that, he “held the principality of that city without any civil controversy,” (The Prince, Ch. 8; Codevilla, p. 33). Then, through traditional logic and reasoning, Machiavelli reaches the conclusion that cruelty well used is cruelty that happens “in one stroke,” (The Prince, Ch. 8; Codevilla, p. 35) and are “converted into as great usefulness as possible for the subjects,” (The Prince, Ch. 8; Codevilla, p. 35). These conclusions are bleak and slightly tyrannical, but are logically sound and rooted in reality. Many of Machiavelli's argument revolves around extrapolating from historical examples using logic to reach his conclusions, which differentiates him from