MACHIAVELLI ON CONSPIRACIES POLITICAL METHODOLOGY AND SOVEREIGNTY
MACHIAVELLI ON CONSPIRACIES POLITICAL METHODOLOGY AND SOVEREIGNTY

Summary/Abstract: This study aims to present and interpret chapter III, 6 of Niccolò Machiavelli's Discourses, which refers to conspiracies. This chapter is the longest section of the Discourses, which raises questions about the author's true intention. What is it that Machiavelli ultimately wants to achieve with this chapter? It is very difficult to discern whether his analysis advises the state's opponents on how to conspire against it, or whether it provides the state with a manual for preventing a potential conspiratorial movement. The conclusion of this research is that Machiavelli's advice on conspiracies is part of the Machiavellian methodology of sovereignty, which is fundamentally different from political philosophy in its classical form. Machiavelli's political methodology aims at subjective or historicist sovereignty in every way, while political philosophy aims at the improvement of its research object, that is, man and the city. However, Machiavellian political proposals such as the mixed constitution or the harmonious order of the state's institutions must also have the proper interpretative depth.

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