The philosophical assumptions of Machiavellianism and the emergence of the modern way in politics

In the intellectual scene of the Italian Renaissance, the political thought of Niccolò Machiavelli preceded and influenced great innovations that founded modernity. A general movement of ideas defined in the 16th and 17th centuries by the concept of Machiavellianism engendered profound changes in the conceptual architecture of public affairs thinkers and writers, affecting the work of great philosophers, from Bodin and Lipsius to Hobbes. Based on research carried out in the doctoral program in philosophy at Unicamp, I intend to demonstrate in this work what were the central philosophical assumptions of this rupture and how Machiavelli reconstructed in his main works, The Prince and The Discourses on the First Decade of Tito Lívio, a series of old concepts to give them a completely new and radical meaning.

Keywords: Machiavellianism. Rebirth. Machiavelli. State reason. Virtue.