Leo Strauss’s Interpretation of Niccolo Machiavelli’s Political Philosophy

The study has a historical and philosophical character and is dedicated to the interpretation of Leo Strauss «great books» by Niccolo Machiavelli. The text sets forth and systematizes Strauss's analysis of The Prince and The Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius, and also describes Strauss's understanding of the categories «good» and «religion» in Machiavelli. Work was done to study the influence of Machiavelli on the teachings of other great philosophers of «modernity», and also was described the key role of Machiavelli in breaking with the classical political tradition. It is revealed that the work «The Prince» has an outwardly traditional form of a treatise, and internally contains a hidden «revolutionary teaching». For Machiavelli, the new sovereign is the creator of completely new modes and orders, the founder of a new type of society. The main goal of the book, according to Strauss, is the introduction of a long-term doctrine that will free intellectual elites from bad biblical and classical traditions. After analyzing the «Reasoning», Leo Strauss comes to the following conclusions: the new orders and modes of Machiavelli are actually forgotten old ones. Machiavelli proves the authority of Ancient Rome to prove its superiority over all other political forms. Based on «The Discourses», Strauss concludes Machiavelli’s commitment to the republican system of government. Another important conclusion that Strauss comes to is the denial of Machiavelli's accusations of paganism: for Strauss he is primarily a philosopher. In his teaching, Machiavelli replaces God with Fortune, however, the power of Fortune can be broken. The task of religion in society is to pacify ordinary people with hopes of salvation after death. Religion defends the republican system, as it reveres respect for the ruling class. Based on this, Strauss accuses Machiavelli of anti-religiosity. Of course, Strauss does not disregard the concepts of «good» and «virtue». Machiavelli believes that to achieve good goals, you must use both virtue and vices. Since people do not have a penchant for good and are vicious in nature, they must be forced to virtue by strong institutions through fear of hunger and poverty. Morality can only exist when protected by immorality. However, Strauss believes that Machiavelli does not reveal new political phenomena that would not have been known to the classics. According to Strauss, it was Machiavelli’s teaching that became a break with the ideals of the classical political tradition, after which the modern political tradition began, where man becomes not just a part of nature, but its master. In this (and not only in this), the teachings of Machiavelli, from the point of view of Strauss, had a tremendous influence on the teachings of the great «modern» philosophers Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau and all subsequent philosophical thought.