1
Natural
Philosophy
in
Machiavelli.
By Anthony Parel, University of Calgary. Prepared for delivery at the 102
nd
Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia,
August 31-September 3, 2006. (The author retains the copyright of this paper.
This work is still in draft form, for which I apologize. Notes and Bibliography to
follow. Comments most welcome).
The question of the presence of natural philosophy in Machiavelli has not
received the sort of attention that it deserves. This paper makes a very modest
attempt to open up this question for discussion, relying on primary sources, i. e.,
Machiavelli’s own writings. The secondary literature on themes related to this
topic is enormous, a discussion of which, for reasons of space, has been
deliberately left out. The overall aim of the present exercise is to find out whether
knowledge of natural philosophy as it is found in his writings, is a conditio sine
qua non for a full and accurate understanding of his political philosophy.
The literature on Renaissance natural philosophy is vast and is still
growing.
1
Natural philosophy of the period is the study of the then known material
universe within the framework provided, mostly, by Aristotle’s libri naturales—
Physics, De caelo, De generatione et corruptione, Meteorology, De anima, etc.—
and commentaries on them by Jewish, Muslim and Christian commentators.
2
The
two works of Ptolemy, the Alamgest and the Tetrabiblos, are especially
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