Przewrotny realizm polityczny Machiavellego

• Authors: Romuald Piekarski

Title variants

EN

DECEITFUL POLITICAL REALISM OF MACHIAVELLI

• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

The subject of this article is political realism and misanthropic image of a man created by Machiavelli. Without denying the relevance of many observations of the famous Florentine, I put here resistance to the widespread interpretations of his thoughts, interpretations, which usually serve as a convenient (though, in my opinion, questionable) justification of violence, rape and fraud, especially in politics. In most academic and popular interpretation of Machiavelli's thought, we find variations of Machiavellianism that pretends to be a realistic description and the supposedly scientific or common-sense attitude. Meanwhile, in my opinion, Machiavelli not only describes the success of cynical tricks, but, what is more, provides immoral advice, encourages the circumvention, and even violation of the norms and principles, not only in case of an emergency, but almost without limits. The world in which we live is not a paradise, and other people often have little in common with the angels. But whether this can be concluded, as Machiavelli and his followers do, that most people are hostile and alien to us, and lurk for our property? When we look at our politicians, big business people, it may seem tempting to notion that Machiavelli is right. However, in this paper I try to show that this vision of the human world is too misanthropic, and also that in the world of politics there is a place for fair competition and a genuine desire for the common good.

Keywords

EN

political realism; cunning

• Publisher: Spółdzielczy Instytut Naukowy G. Bierecki sp.j.
• Journal: Pieniądze i Więź
• Year: 2012
• Volume: 15
• Issue: 2(55)
• Pages: 19-35

Contributors

author

Romuald Piekarski

• Uniwersytet Gdanski, Wydzial Nauk Spolecznych, Instytut Filozofii Socjologii i Dziennikarstwa, Zaklad Filozofii Wspolczesnej, ul. Bazynskiego 4, 80-952 Gdansk, Poland