MIDTERM PAPER: AUGUSTINE AND MACHIAVELLI
Background and Instructions: Given Machiavelli’s love for ancient Rome, scholars have labeled him a neo-pagan counterpart to St. Augustine, and pointed to the possibility of studying how Machiavelli’s Prince responds to, or is in dialogue with, Augustine’s City of God. Yet few have ventured to compare the two, which is what you are to do for your midterm paper. Your assignment is to compare/contrast the thought of Augustine and Machiavelli on one of the five topic-questions below. In comparison, as the seventeenth-century political philosopher Thomas Hobbes wrote, “a man delighteth himself either with finding unexpected similitude of things, otherwise unlike . . . or else in discerning sudden dissimilitude in things that otherwise appear the same.” Accordingly, you are not expected to bring anything original to the encounter between Augustine and Machiavelli, or to offer a critical interpretation of their works. Rather, when writing in compare/contrast mode, you are expected to recapitulate and reconstruct and, of course, analyze and articulate, Augustine’s and Machiavelli’s arguments and views so as to show how, exactly, they relate to each other, or how the thought of one sharpens our understanding of that of the other, or how the words of one might appear through the eyes of the other.
To write a good compare/contrast paper, you must take the similarities and differences you’ve found and make them cohere into a meaningful argument that will end up either emphasizing differences against a background of similarities, or similarities against a background of differences. A good paper will also make its points of comparison crystal clear, citing chapters, passages, and page numbers, giving specific examples to illustrate them, and including only the information relevant to the comparison being made. You can organize your paper in one of two ways, depending on the question you choose to address and the kind of argument you wish to make. You can cover one text and then the other, discussing all of Augustine, then all of Machiavelli, before summing up your argument at the end. Or you can compare Augustine and Machiavelli point-by-point, alternating points about Augustine with comparable points about Machiavelli.
Title: Your essay must have a title, centered at the top of the page, in ALL CAPS. The title should not be italicized or put in quotation marks (though if you are giving the title of a book or using a quotation in your title, then format those words accordingly). The title should be more than a bare-bones identifier (not “Midterm Essay” or “Essay on Augustine and Machiavelli”). It should signal to the reader what your essay is about. Titles often consist of two elements joined with a colon—typically, one of these elements, usually before the colon, is general or creative, and the other, usually after the colon, is more specific. A separate title page is not required.
Format: Margins must be one inch, no more and no less. Use an easy-to-read font like Times New Roman, in 12-point size, double-space, except block quotations. Put one space after periods and other end-of-sentence punctuation marks. Indent the first line of paragraphs one-half inch. Page numbers should be placed in a header on the right margin. It is customary to include your last name before the page number. Print your paper on standard white 8.5 x 11-inch paper.
Quotations: For short quotations of four or fewer lines of text, integrate the quotation into your body text and enclose it in quotation marks. A parenthetical citation (e.g. page number) should come at the end of the quotation, and the closing punctuation mark follows the citation (with the exception that question and exclamation marks, if they are part of the quoted passage, should appear within the quotation marks). Quotes of more than four lines should be set off from the body text in a freestanding block. Quotation marks are not placed around a block quotation, which starts on a new line, indented one inch from the left margin (and from the right margin, if you like). For block quotations, the parenthetical citation comes after the closing punctuation mark.
If you add words to a quotation, or alter a word to make the quoted passage fit grammatically in another sentence, put brackets around your words to indicate addition. If you omit something from a quotation, indicate the deletion with ellipsis marks, three periods preceded and followed by a space ( . . . ). But avoid ellipses at the beginning or end of a quoted passage. Adding or deleting words is permissible as long as you don’t alter the sense of the quoted passage.
Citations: Since I know you are referring to the Penguin edition of Augustine’s City of God and the Modern Library edition of Machiavelli’s Prince, there is no need for a bibliography or list of references. You should make frequent use of these two texts and only these two texts, by quoting directly from them or by citing chapters or page numbers in support of your argument. Page numbers should be enclosed in parentheses and placed before the closing punctuation mark, except after block quotations (see note above). Nota bene: I will not accept quotations or citations from other editions of these works.
Length: 4-6 pages. Less than four full pages is unacceptable and will not be graded.
Due: October 30, in class.
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Paper Topics (write on one)
1. POLITICAL LIFE IN SIN CITY
Machiavelli and Augustine share a view of he human condition as sinful—i.e., humans are not good. How do Augustine and Machiavelli characterize the human condition or human nature? How do they portray the nature of politics in such a sinful world? How do their views of human nature (or the human condition) limit what can (and cannot) be accomplished in the political life of mortals? and with what kind of means? What kinds of problems do their respective views of the human condition pose for princes, statesmen, judges or soldiers? Do they propose any solutions? (Nota bene: this question assumes that Machiavelli’s assumptions about politics in the earthly city are rather Augustinian, and that Augustine’s conception of politics is somewhat Machiavellian. When writing on this subject, you will therefore want to mark off their differences against a background of similarities.)
2. THE PROBLEM OF FREE WILL
Both Machiavelli (see, e.g., Prince, chs. 24-26) and Augustine (see, e.g., City of God V.1-2, 8-10) emphasize that fate is in the hands of human beings. Humans have free will; God does not determine everything. And yet what exactly free will is and can do is far from clear. Both thinkers, despite protests to the contrary, seem to surrender to a form of fatalism (God’s foreknowledge in the case of Augustine, Fortune’s power for Machiavelli). How are we to make sense of their insistence on human action and responsibility? What is free will? What is it free from? to do what? How do Machiavelli and Augustine understand moral and political actions and responsibility in relation to historical conditions and forces (e.g. “Fortune” and “the nature of the times,” as Machiavelli puts it in chapter 25)? To what extent do these conditions and forces limit present possibilities? What, ultimately, is the extent of the will’s (i.e., man’s) control over the historical-political environment? Am I—are we—really autonomous? And is that a good thing?
3. EARTHLY GLORY
Both Augustine and Machiavelli distinguish the pursuit of earthly glory from the pursuit of power and domination, and praise princes and Romans who achieved great things in pursuit of earthly glory. And yet they ultimately have different evaluations of the value of earthly glory and what sorts of individuals and achievements deserve to be glorified. What is earthly glory for Machiavelli and for Augustine? How is glory related to men and to God? How does one gain glory? What do we learn about politics from their respective discussions of glory? (For Machiavelli’s remarks on glory, see, e.g., Prince chs. 8, 24, 26. For Augustine’s see, e.g., City of God II.20, III.14, V.13, 16, 18-19.)
4. MACHIAVELLI AGAINST CHRISTIANITY AND AUGUSTINE
Machiavelli, in his Discourses on Livy, lamented that Christianity placed the highest good in humility, abjectness, and contempt of things human, and prized strength in order to endure suffering, thereby delivering the world over to criminal men, “who can manage it securely, seeing that the collectivity of men, so as to go to paradise, think more of enduring their beatings than of avenging them.”[1] Christians, in other words, deceive themselves if they think that humility will conquer pride. In what ways does The Prince mount an attack against Christian values, virtues, ideas, and ideology? Does Machiavelli’s critique of Christianity apply to Augustine’s account of Christianity? (Whether your answer is ‘yes’ or ‘no’ be sure to explain your reasons why). How might Augustine go about defending Christianity against Machiavelli’s charge that it has rendered good men weak and unable to do what is necessary to preserve the state and attain for themselves honor and glory?
5. CHARITY: CHRISTIAN AND UNCHRISTIAN
Augustine and Machiavelli seem to have different views of how to act with compassion and charity toward others—but just how different (or similar) is not clear. Machiavelli’s counsel of ‘tough love’ in the form of well-used cruelty and violence (see, e.g., Prince chs. 8, 15-18) seems at odds with Augustine’s view of charity as an individual’s resolve to love God and to love his neighbor as himself (see, e.g., City of God V.24, XIV.7, 28, XIX.14, 17). Pick one of the following two questions to answer: What is Augustine’s view of Christian charity, and what would Machiavelli say about it? What is Machiavelli’s (unchristian?) view of charity, and what would Augustine say about it? Whether you choose to write primarily on Augustine or on Machiavelli, it is essential to use specific examples from the texts to illustrate their views of charity/compassion and their critical response to the views of the other one.