Harvey C. Mansfield

Mansfield offers an interpretation of Machiavelli's political science in a book aimed at the scholar or student rather than the general reader. Some knowledge of Machiavelli's works is required and familiarity with [The Prince] and [Discourses on Livy] is a distinct advantage.

Much has been written about Machiavelli's use of the word virtue and Mansfield launches his book with a chapter on that very subject. Machiavelli seems to be saying that virtue is the ability to get things done, but it is used in so many contexts that is takes on other shades of meaning. Mansfield point out that Machiavelli believed that morality should be interpreted "according to the times" and so if the times are corrupt then one is compelled to live and behave corruptly and therefore morally excused from doing so. Therefore to be successful in a corrupt world calls for action that today we would not associate with being virtuous, but Machiavelli uses the word in the context of someone being successful in that corrupt world. There is much to be gained from a careful reading of this chapter as Mansfield then embarks on his interpretations of Machiavelli's political writing in the chapters that follow.

A key theme of this study is an examination of Machiavelli's place in the world of Political Science. This starts with a comparison with the principles of politics as set out by Edmund Burke in his "The Enlightenment and the Modern World" A chapter that Mansfield had written for another publication and this trend continues with other chapters and so there is a feeling of a series of essays rather than a cogent study. Much of this stuff has appeared in the [American Political Science Review], however Mansfield's interpretations and thoughts are rarely at odds with each other and so although there is some repetition, it all reads fairly fluently.

The book amounts to a collection of articles and essays on Machiavelli's Political thoughts and writings and while much here is of value it is left to the reader to pick through the portions of the book that will be of interest. I read it from cover to cover and enjoyed much of it, especially issues surrounding the influences that Machiavelli has on current political thought, but at times felt I was in a rarefied atmosphere of Political Science and felt my attention wandering. For me a 3.5 star read.… (mehr)

I recently acquired a number of these little Guides to the Major Disciplines. They are published by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, which is a sort of conservative, traditionalist academic organization. Thus, the idea behind the guides seems to be to provide beginning students with a traditionalist-leaning introduction to the various areas of study they might choose to explore in college. The authors tend to be fairly substantial figure in their given fields, at least in conservative academic circles. I take it that part of the motivation behind the guides is to present like-minded students with the kind of academic guidance they may not be able to find on radicalized, tradition despising campuses.

I've now read several of the guides on my morning train ride, as I am usually too sleepy and distracted to focus on anything more substantial.

Having read the volumes devoted to history, economics, and the core curriculum, I've come away with a generally positive view of the project. Each book has provided a fairly balanced look at it's subject matter, a solid list of recommendations, and a bit of more substantive thought on the part of the author (that is, there are positions taken and defended, albeit rather sketchily given the constraints of the page count). I can see how these guides could serve as useful resources for beginning students.

However, I'm specifically reviewing this volume by Mansfield because I think it's weak and not nearly as useful as the others I've read.

Mansfield attempts to center his rendering of political philosophy around the following question: What is partisanship and what should we do about it? The idea is then to look at the major political philosophers (from Plato to Heidegger) as they interact with this question.

Mansfield major problem is that he attempts to cover too much territory (Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Machiavelli, Locke, Rousseau, and more in only 50 pages) and ends up giving an account of these thinkers that is so cursory, and leaves so much unclarified, that I can't see how it would be helpful for the student. He often neglects to define his terms, tries to cram complex ideas into one or two sentences, and is forced to presuppose the kind of background that readers of these guides aren't expected to have. The end result is a disjointed, opaque, difficult to follow piece of work.

I also doesn't help that Mansfield is part of the Leo Strauss cult. What this means is that when he does put things clearly, his points are still out of touch with current scholarship (political ideologies aside) and often misleading. In fact, the notion that a Straussian should introduce anyone to political philosophy strikes me as fantastical. I say this not because I'm an out and out hater of Strauss and his disciples. I actually studied Plato with a Straussian as an undergraduate and learned quite a lot. But what I learned, while interesting, was not representative and, in some sense, probably not correct. The ISI could have done much better.

A caveat, however: Mansfield does do a nice job differentiating normative political philosophy/theory from latter day political science, which is best understood as a descriptive practice often given to faddish attempts to provide statistical rigor as means of self-justification. However, even here it seems like his critique is off, because certainly the normative project can learn from the descriptive project. Ought implies can, and insofar as the descriptive project helps us to outline what can be done, it helps better see what ought to be done.… (mehr)