Socrates Meets Machiavelli

There is no better way to understand our present world than by exploring the Great Books written by the great minds that have made it.

There is no better way to study the beginning of modern political philosophy than by studying its foundations in Machiavelli's The Prince.

There is no better way to study the Great Books than with the aid of Socrates, the philosopher par excellence.

What if we could overhear a conversation in the afterlife between Socrates and Machiavelli, in which Machiavelli has to submit to an Oxford tutorial style examination of his book conducted by Socrates using his famous "Socratic method" of cross-examination? How might the conversation go?

This imaginative thought-experiment makes for both drama and a good lesson in logic, in moral and political philosophy, in "how to read a book", and in the history of early modern thought.

Thus this book is for readers looking for a thought-stretching "good read" and for use in college classes in logic, philosophy, ethics, political science, literature, communication, rhetoric, anthropology, and history.

Table of Contents:

Introduction
1. The Characters
2. The Contrast With Plato
3. The First Principle of the Prince
4. The test of Truth
5. Machiavelli's Philosophy of Man
6. The Existence of Te (Moral Authority)
7. The Knowledge of Good and Evil
8. The Power of Trust
9. Arms and Laws
10. Love and Fear
11. Machiavelli's Ethics
12. Machiavelli's Metaphysics
13. Machiavelli's Epistemology
14. Machiavelli's Logic
15. Machiavelli's Life
16. The Formula for Success
    Acknowledgments