The course aims at providing the necessary skills in order to grasp a modern philosophical text. To this purpose, the course provides students with the necessary tools in order to:

- elaborate an appropriate historical-social contextualization of a modern philosophical text;

- identify the prior philosophical streams setting up the framework of a given philosophical work and be confident with the text’s features that make them identifiable (by focusing in particular on the traits of lexical permanence, on the recursion of argumentative methods, on shared philosophical objectives).

- pick out the original features that characterize a single work of modern philosophy within its philosophical tradition;

- be able to grasp the stratified character of a philosophical text and to subsequently, possibly identify its weaknesses;

- identify the weak points of a philosophical text also concerning logical fallacies (e.g. incoherence between assumptions and consequences; begging the question; semantic vagueness);

- identify the possible weaknesses of a philosophical work that are due to the simultaneous presence of divergent and incoherent philosophical traditions within the text (that may also stand beyond the explicit author’s purposes).

Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) was Secretary of the Second Florentine Chancellery from 1498 to 1512 when he was dismissed following the return of the de' Medici family to the city. From then on, he devoted himself mainly to writing what would be considered his masterpieces after his death, in particular The Prince and Discourses on Livy. His life falls entirely within the period of the so-called "Italian Wars", which began in 1494, when the French King Charles VIII invaded the peninsula, starting a long series of conflicts that involved the main European (Empire, Switzerland, France, Spain) and Italian (Rome, Venice) powers for more than thirty years. The result was the end of "Italian freedom" and the stable submission of all of Italy, except for Rome and Venice, to the new European states.

Machiavelli's great works are not forms of abstract theoretical reflection but an attempt to think about the practical, political conditions in which the Italian crisis could be overcome and Italy could find a form of "freedom" appropriate to the new era. We will look at The Prince, at a selection from the Discorsi, and at the play Mandragola to see how the creation of new concepts is functional to this political quest.

1. Introduction to the course

2. Machiavelli's "images": Machiavellism, republicanism, democracy

3. The Florentine Secretary and the primacy of war

4. The Prince

4.1. New prince, new principality

4.2. Virtue, fortune, occasion

4.3. The ambiguity of "armi proprie"

4.4. "Effectual truth of the thing" and government: being, appearing, pretending, observing

4.5. Sacrifice and sovereignty: the consecration of the pact

4.6. The phenomenology of Fortune: river and banks, woman and audacious young man

4.7. Taking up the flag: prince and the people

5. The Discourses on Livy

5.1. The circle of constitutions and the foundation of Rome

5.2. Tumults, laws, freedom

5.3. Freedom, power, corruption

6. The Mandragola

6.1. The geometry of power

6.2. The mockery between love and deception

6.3. Reality and appearance.

Knowledge and understanding

- Acknowledgment of the importance of the political-social context for the elaboration of philosophical theories of the contemporary age;

- Ability to detect the peculiar features among alternative forms of philosophical argumentation within a shared philosophical, political and cultural tradition.    

 Applying knowledge and understanding

- The student will be able to master the essential theoretical and lexical tools in order to gain the ability to autonomously read and interpret a philosophical work of the contemporary age;

- The student will be able to appreciate the important role of a correct socio-historical contextualisation for an adequate understanding of the texts of the contemporary age.      

 Making judgements

- The student will develop an appropriate critical ability in order to identify the eventual discrepancies between single philosophical texts and their philosophical tradition;

- The student will develop an autonomous capacity in order to properly evaluate the contradictions and the weak reasoning of a philosophical argumentation.   

 Communication skills

- The student will be provided with the necessary skills in order to present to an audience, even not a specialized one, the core issues of a contemporary philosophical text, by focusing in particular on the historical context, on the lexical and argumentative peculiarities within a given philosophical tradition, on the contradictions, weakness and shortcomings from a logical-argumentative point of view.

 Learning skills

- At the end of the course the student will be provided with the necessary tools for an autonomous study of a philosophical text of the contemporary age;

- The student will understand the meaning and importance of the philosophical lexicon, and of extra-philosophical materials, that are essential in order to gain a deep insight of the political-cultural context of a text. This knowledge will allow the student to autonomously approach to the appropriate bibliographical researches.

The teaching material prepared by the lecturer in addition to recommended textbooks (such as for instance slides, lecture notes, exercises, bibliography) and communications from the lecturer specific to the course can be found inside the Moodle platform › blended.uniurb.it

Teaching

Lectures and innovative teaching methods.

Innovative teaching methods

The course will combine lectures with innovative teaching and learning methods. The lecturer will deliver a series of lectures in the first part of the course. In the second part, students will take turns lecturing and presenting a study topic, while the others will act as discussants. At the end of the course, students will agree with the lecturer on a written paper, which they will hand in before taking the exam.

Course books

General section:

M. Mori, Storia della filosofia moderna, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2007, chap. 1-4.

Monographic course:

N. Machiavelli, Il principe, a cura di G. Inglese, Einaudi (solo questa edizione)

N. Machiavelli, Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio, a cura di G. Inglese, Rizzoli (solo questa edizione)

N. Machiavelli, Mandragola, a cura di G. Davico Bonino, Einaudi (solo questa edizione)

Critical literature:

one book among the following::

G. M. Barbuto, Machiavelli, Roma, Salerno editrice, 2013

M. Ciliberto, Niccolò Machiavelli. Ragione e pazzia, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2019

U. Dotti, Machiavelli rivoluzionario, Roma, Carocci, 2003

J.-L. Fournel - J.-C. Zancarini, Machiavel: une vie en guerres, Paris, Passé Composé, 2020

G. Inglese, Per Machiavelli, Roma, Carocci, 2006

Machiavelli, a cura di E. Cutinelli-Rendina e R. Ruggiero, Roma, Carocci, 2018

Machiavelli: tempo e conflitto, a cura di R. Caporali, V. Morfino e S. Visentin, Milano, Mimesis, 2013.

Further study materials will be made available on the Moodle platform ' blended.uniurb.it

Assessment

For attending students: lesson (40% of the grade), written paper (30% of the grade) and oral exam (30% of the grade).

The examination consists of an oral exam. Students are required to read and comment on single passages of the texts. Students are expected to be able to grasp the main theoretical features of the examined passages and to be able to contextualize them within the text, eventually with reference to the secondary literature.

Particular attention is given to oral exposure’s capacity through the proper terminology.

Students are expected to be able to develop a critical approach to the theories they studied. In the evaluation, particular attention will be given to the student’s ability to autonomously reformulate the materials they dealt with and to their ability to make comparisons between the authors they studied.

Disability and Specific Learning Disorders (SLD)

Students who have registered their disability certification or SLD certification with the Inclusion and Right to Study Office can request to use conceptual maps (for keywords) during exams.

To this end, it is necessary to send the maps, two weeks before the exam date, to the course instructor, who will verify their compliance with the university guidelines and may request modifications.

Teaching

Not attending students will have to study the texts listed under "Course books". To replace the lesson hours (36), not attending students will study another book of critical literature, in addition to what is established for the attending students. In addition, they will have to write a short text (between 10,000 and 20,000 characters) based on the study of Mori's book, Storia della filosofia moderna, on one of the following topics:

    1) The new Platonism of the fifteenth century: Cusano, Ficino, Pico della Mirandola.

    2) The new metaphysics of Telesio, Bruno and Campanella

    3) Political thought: Machiavelli, Campanella, Bodin

    4) Astronomy, Metaphysics, Theology: Kepler, Copernicus, Cusano, Bruno

    5) Nature and mathematics: Galileo Gailei

    6) Francis Bacon and the project of a scientific encyclopedia.

The text should be sent to the teacher well in advance of the exam date.

Attendance

Not attending students are required to contact the teacher well in advance of the exam date.

Course books

General section:

M. Mori, Storia della filosofia moderna, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2007, chap. 1-4.

Monographic course:

N. Machiavelli, Il principe, a cura di G. Inglese, Einaudi

N. Machiavelli, Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio, a cura di G. Inglese, Rizzoli, Book I

N. Machiavelli, Mandragola, a cura di G. Davico Bonino, Einaudi.

Critical literature:

two books, chosen among the following::

G. M. Barbuto, Machiavelli, Roma, Salerno editrice, 2013

M. Ciliberto, Niccolò Machiavelli. Ragione e pazzia, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2019

U. Dotti, Machiavelli rivoluzionario, Roma, Carocci, 2003

J.-L. Fournel - J.-C. Zancarini, Machiavel: une vie en guerres, Paris, Passé Composé, 2020

G. Inglese, Per Machiavelli, Roma, Carocci, 2006

Machiavelli, a cura di E. Cutinelli-Rendina e R. Ruggiero, Roma, Carocci, 2018

Machiavelli: tempo e conflitto, a cura di R. Caporali, V. Morfino e S. Visentin, Milano, Mimesis, 2013.

Assessment

Oral examination (70% of the grade), and a written paper (30% of the grade).

The examination consists of an oral exam. Students are required to read and comment on single passages of the texts. Students are expected to be able to grasp the main theoretical features of the examined passages and to be able to contextualize them within the text, eventually with reference to the secondary literature.

Particular attention is given to oral exposure’s capacity through the proper terminology.

Students are expected to be able to develop a critical approach to the theories they studied. In the evaluation, particular attention will be given to the student’s ability to autonomously reformulate the materials they dealt with and to their ability to make comparisons between the authors they studied.

Disability and Specific Learning Disorders (SLD)

Students who have registered their disability certification or SLD certification with the Inclusion and Right to Study Office can request to use conceptual maps (for keywords) during exams.

To this end, it is necessary to send the maps, two weeks before the exam date, to the course instructor, who will verify their compliance with the university guidelines and may request modifications.

At the student's request, the course bibliography can also be provided - and the exam taken - in English, Spanish, French and German.