Machiavelli and Nietzsche: The art and agon of the political (Niccolo Machiavelli, Friedrich Nietzsche)

The dissertation, “Machiavelli and Nietzsche: The Art and Agon of the Political,” argues that there is an important relationship between the two thinkers. The work has two aims: first, to examine Niccolo Machiavelli's ‘philosophy of life,’ which is a topic that has not been fully analyzed in Machiavelli studies; and, second, to see how this relates to the moral and political thought of Friedrich Nietzsche. I argue that the relationship is based on two themes that can be discovered in Machiavelli's view of the human condition: the tragic or existential nature of human life; and the aesthetic character of human action. These two strands form the connection between the two preeminent critics of conventional morality. From them, I weave the argument that a common ‘antimoral political modernism’ can be developed. This perspective, because it is more cautious and less hubristic about human nature, explains better the problems facing the contemporary world than other forms of political modernism.; In the first chapter I look beyond Machiavelli's reputation as a cynical—or purely immoral—thinker. I undertake a reading of his chief poem, The Ass, to discover his view of the self. In the second chapter I develop the notion of the tragic in the context of the author's most infamous text, The Prince. In chapter three I take the notion of agonism to examine social conflict, acquisition, and liberty in Machiavelli's main historical works, The Discourses on Livy and The Florentine Histories. I make a transition to the link with Nietzsche in chapter four, where I posit that the two philosophers share an important affinity in terms of their tragic conception of the human being in the world. I explore this affinity further in chapter five, where I argue that they share an aesthetic view of human action. In the final chapter I continue the analysis of the aesthetic component by examining Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra as a work inspired by a Machiavellian antimoralism. In the Conclusion I argue that, in spite of important differences, on the whole the thinkers provide a viable form of republican politics.