The Prince and the Modern Executive
Few question The Prince’s place in the canon of western literature. That it marks a turning point in our collective history, the origin of the study of politics as a science (Pollock 43), is alone enough to warrant its classification as a "Great Book. Its author, Niccolo Machiavelli, a contemporary of Copernicus, is generally accepted as an early contributor to the scientific revolution, because he looked at power and the nature of sovereignty through the eyes of a scientist, focused completely on the goal without regard for religion and morals and ethics. Machiavelli taught that the way princes actually do govern often differs substantially from than the way they ought to govern, according to medieval Christian virtues. Sir Frederick Pollock wrote that in Machiavelli we find "for the first time since Aristotle, the pure passionless curiosity of the man of science. We find the separation of Ethics and Politics…Machiavelli takes no account of morality" (43). Machiavelli considers a successful ruler to be above morality, since the safety and expansion of the state are the supreme objectives. There had not been such a frank rejection of morality since the Greek Sophists. His ideas are in stark contrast with traditional church teachings. It is no wonder that The Prince was added to the Index of banned books and even today remains one of the most criticized and controversial books ever written. It is a scientific investigation into the tactics of retaining power. It is about application of power in the pursuit a greater goal. The Prince is, above all, about leadership. Though it is doubtful that Machiavelli realized the far reaching impact of his work. Its application is timeless and parti...
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...l to read The Prince and, if they have already read it, read it again. As with all truly "Great Books," each successive reading reveals fresh new ideas and insights. The Prince, though disturbingly cold and frank at times, is no different.
Works Cited
Butterfield, Herbert. The Statecraft of Machiavelli. New York: MacMillan, 1956.
Jones, W. T. Masters of Political Thought. Ed. Edward, McChesner, and Sait. Vol. 2. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1947.
Lewis, Wyndham. The Lion and the Fox: The Role of the Hero in the Plays of Shakespeare. London: Methuen, 1951.
Machiavelli, Niccolo. The Prince. Trans. Hill Thompson. Norwalk: The Easton Press, 1980.
Pollock, Frederick. An Introduction to the History of the Science of Politics. London: MacMillan, 1935.
Ruffo-Fiore, Silvia. Niccolo Machiavelli. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1982.
Machiavelli’s, “The Prince” is the ideal book for individuals intending to both govern and maintain a strong nation. Filled with practical advice, he includes numerous religious references to support his claims. He devotes a chapter within the book to speak about the ancient founders of states. In the chapter called, “On new principalities that are acquired by one’s own arms and by virtue”, Machiavelli discussed the importance of a prince to have their own talent in governing a nation, rather than having relied on fortune to rule. The latter is a risk no leader should take and he cited past leaders as a guide for both the current and future princes.
The first time I read August Wilson's Fences for english class, I was angry. I was angry at Troy Maxson, angry at him for having an affair, angry at him for denying his son, Cory, the opportunity for a football scholarship.I kept waiting for Troy to redeem himself in the end of the play, to change his mind about Cory, or to make up with Ruth somehow. I wanted to know why, and I didn't, couldn't understand. I had no intention of writing my research paper on this play, but as the semester continued, and I immersed myself in more literature, Fences was always in the back of my mind, and, more specifically, the character of Troy Maxson. What was Wilson trying to say with this piece? The more that this play stuck in my head, the more I was impressed with Wilson as a playwright. What talent, to create such a character, to produce a work that wouldn't leave me alone, but, as time wore on, produced more and more questions.
Richard Hofstadter, The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It (New York: Random House Publishing, 1973).
Power is usually divided into two relating forces, consensual and coercive. These two defining dividends of power define the different types of leadership of which to truly define a leader as well as to manage and to maintain the subjugated as a factor of a primal exemplar of being the locus power. This study of power over another exemplifies the existence of The Prince. Machiavelli showcased the means of having power through the comparison of various leaders, which he called the "Prince", individually, of course. These princes are the exemplars of power where one holds and other to take. More so, The Prince shows the cycle of power being lost and gained through the actions of every prince. With that, princes are the main actors to attain power or to lose power. In this paper, Machiavelli's The Prince will be examined to study the actors, or princes,
Jones, W. T. Masters of Political Thought. Ed. Edward, McChesner, and Sait. Vol. 2. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1947.
Cahn, Steven M.. Political philosophy: the essential texts. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. Print.
Walking down the halls of hospice, tear stained linoleum is glistening by the fluorescent lights. A man on the first floor has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and losing the battle by the second. He’s helpless; he has lost all movement throughout his body as his muscles are deteriorating. The blush color in his skin has transformed into a dull grey, and the light in his eyes have burnt out. He has become a hollow shell, he mumbles under his fragile breath, “kill me,” but there’s no way to help. In today’s contemporary society, the controversial topic of physician assisted suicide (PAS) for the terminally ill is emotional for both supporters and opposers. Physician assisted suicide is the painless killing of a patient suffering from an incurable
2Somerville, John and Ronald E. Santoni, ed., Social and Political Philosophy, New York, NY, Anchor Books, 1963, pg. 143-144
Praying should be allowed in school. It should because people are taught to go to the lord when you are in need of help. The supreme court says it is unconstitutional to pray in school because the school doesn’t teach it. They want to take praying and reading the bible out because they think you are not learning anything in school
Schumaker Paul, Dwight C. Kiel, Thomas Heilke, Great Ideas/Grand Schemes: Political Ideologies in the 19th and 20th Centuries, New York, The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc., 1996.
Wilson (1975) notes that an individual organism is part of an elaborate device that ensures the survival and replication of genes with the least possible biochemical alteration. Being that reproduction is thought to be one of the primary reasons for existence for many species, it is important to investigate its role in the evolution of sex. Webster defines reproduction as the act or process by which plants and animals give rise to offsp...
because they had no children. Popo said ' Women and them like work. Man not
Moseley, Alexander. Political Philosophy. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 7 Apr. 2002. Web. 1 Oct. 2011.
Mating is the most fundamental and vital process for animals to select for their best partners. In the view of biology, mating refers to the pairing of opposite-sex for copulation (the union of the sex organs of two sexually reproducing animals for insemination and subsequent internal fertilization) in social animal to breed for their offspring. In general, different animals may mate in different manners, but in most cases the main purpose is to transfer sperm from the male to the female.
Reptiles are vertebrate, or backboned animals constituting the class Reptilia and are characterized by a combination of features, none of which alone could separate all reptiles from all other animals.The characteristics of reptiles are numerous, therefore can not be explained in great detail in this report. In no special order, the characteristics of reptiles are: cold-bloodedness; the presence of lungs; direct development, without larval forms as in amphibians; a dry skin with scales but not feathers or hair; an amniote egg; internal fertilization; a three or four-chambered heart; two aortic arches (blood vessels) carrying blood from the heart to the body, unlike mammals and birds that only have one; a metanephric kidney; twelve pairs of cranial nerves; and skeletal features such as limbs with usually five clawed fingers or toes, at least two spinal bones associated with the pelvis, a single ball-and-socket connection at the head-neck joint instead of two, as in advanced amphibians and mammals, and an incomplete or complete partition along the roof of the mouth, separating the food and air passageways so that breathing can continue while food is being chewed. These and other traditional defining characteristics of reptiles have been subjected to considerable modification in recent times. The extinct flying reptiles, called pterosaurs or pterodactyls, are now thought to have been warm-blooded and covered with hair. Also, the dinosaurs are also now considered by many authorities to have been warm-blooded. The earliest known bird, archaeopteryx, is now regarded by many to have been a small dinosaur, despite its covering of feathers The extinct ancestors of the mammals, the therapsids, or mammallike reptiles, are also believed to have been warm-blooded and haired.