Rhetoric and embodiment in Machiavelli's "Discorsi" II/II.

Abstract

This thesis offers an alternative way to read Machiavelli's Discorsi. As such, it is not a dialectical work; it does not concern itself with undermining or refuting a given position. Rather it introduces a new model with which to understand Machiavelli's writing and thought. A popular view of Machiavelli is that which claims this author to be the founder of modernity. Scholars such as Robert Hariman, in his excellent "Composing Modernity in Machiavelli's Prince." (1989), claim that he inaugurates the period of modern thinking by inventing ontological-thetic rationality and in particular, instrumental reason. It is the central claim of this thesis that it is more productive to consider Machiavelli to be a Renaissance Humanist, making use of this period's rhetorical employ of reason. This thesis embraces a methodology, presented in the introduction as well as in the case-study of Hariman's article, that is decidedly rhetorical. It examines the space of discourse. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)