Dear all,
This week at the Critical Antiquities Workshop, we’re delighted to host Alessandro Mulieri (CNRS/Sciences Po) for his paper, ‘Continuity and Rupture: Machiavelli, Aristotle, and the Origins of Popular Republicanism.’ https://uow-au.zoom.us/j/82745826144?pwd=GmgKcSkSTGVeubZitAkyEIUaDjWVQR.1 Passcode: 953004 This event will be held in a hybrid format in the Vere Gordon Childe Centre Boardroom, University of Sydney, and on Zoom on Wednesday, 14 October 4:00-6:00pm (Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne time). Here is the time in other locations: * Los Angeles/Vancouver: Tuesday, October 13, 10pm–midnight * Mexico City: Tuesday, October 13, 11pm–1am * Chicago: Wednesday, October 14, midnight–2am * New York: Wednesday, October 14, 1am–3am * Santiago/Buenos Aires/Rio de Janeiro: Wednesday, October 14, 2am–4am * Dublin/Belfast/London: Wednesday, October 14, 6am–8am * Paris/Berlin/Rome: Wednesday, October 14, 7am–9am * Johannesburg: Wednesday, October 14, 7am–9am * Athens/Cairo: Wednesday, October 14, 8am–10am * Beijing/Singapore/Perth: Wednesday, October 14, 1pm–3pm * Tokyo: Wednesday, October 14, 2pm–4pm * Darwin: Wednesday, October 14, 2:30pm–4:30pm * Brisbane: Wednesday, October 14, 3pm–5pm * Adelaide: Wednesday, October 14, 3:30pm–5:30pm Here is the abstract: The relationship between Machiavelli and Aristotle has seldom been examined comprehensively, either in Machiavelli studies or in the literature on early modern republicanism. In this talk, I aim to address this gap by drawing on my recent book, Machiavelli, Aristotle and Popular Republicanism, and by adopting two different but intertwined approaches. The first treats Aristotle’s thought and Aristotelianism primarily as traditions of political thought and political science within which Machiavelli can be situated. This broader approach, which may be described as generic, is illustrated by the fact that, although there are only three direct references to Aristotle in Machiavelli’s corpus, Aristotelian ideas are present throughout his works and are deployed selectively, primarily in ways that serve to support and develop his own thought. The second approach is more specific and theoretically substantive because it focuses on the relationship between Machiavelli and a particular strand of radical Aristotelianism. This strand can be traced through a relatively limited number of medieval and fifteenth-century authors who engaged with Aristotle’s political thought in ways that anticipated aspects of Machiavelli’s popular republicanism, for example in the political context of the Florentine Republics in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Without denying the rupture and originality that characterise Machiavelli’s thought, I argue that he nevertheless drew upon and transformed radicalised Aristotelian ideas in developing his conception of popular republicanism. Machiavelli can thus be understood not as the point of origin of this tradition, but as a crucial moment in its development and transformation. His treatment of two distinctly Aristotelian themes—the identification of democracy with the rule of the poor and the prudence of the multitude—provides evidence of this intellectual continuity. We hope to see you there, Tristan Bradshaw Ben Brown Tom Geue Andy Poe --------- SydPhil mailing list To unsubscribe, change your membership options, find answers to common problems, or visit our online archives, please go to the list information page: https://mailman.sydney.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/sydphil
