The Political Thinker as a Civil Physician: Some Thoughts on Marsilius of Padua and Machiavelli beyond Leo Strauss’ al-Fârâbî (2020)
Mulieri, Alessandro (Author)
Early Science and Medicine: A Journal for the Study of Science, Technology and Medicine in the Pre-modern Period
Volume: 25
Issue: 1
Pages: 22-45
While scholars have widely acknowledged a reliance on medical language in the political theories of Marsilius of Padua and Niccolò Machiavelli, they have rarely investigated the epistemological status of this appropriation. Questioning Leo Strauss’ claim that Jewish-Arabic Platonic ideas on the philosopher-king could have been a possible model for Marsilius and Machiavelli, this paper aims to show that the use of medical language by Marsilius of Padua and Machiavelli entails a form of political knowledge that is decidedly at odds with any kind of Platonic philosophical politics. This article makes the claim that, in their political theories, Marsilius and Machiavelli break with two key assumptions of Platonism: first, that philosophy as “absolute self-knowledge” is needed to rule; and, second, that philosophers must be lawgivers or legislators.
...MoreArticle Vasileios Syros (2020) The Body Politic from Medieval Lombardy to the Dutch Republic: An Introduction. Early Science and Medicine: A Journal for the Study of Science, Technology and Medicine in the Pre-modern Period (pp. 1-7).
Similar Citations
Article
Miguel Vatter;
(2019)
Of Asses and Nymphs: Machiavelli, Platonic Theology and Epicureanism in Florence
(/isis/citation/CBB860387510/)
Chapter
Floriano Jonas Cesar;
(2015)
Crossing Borders: Medical Ideas in Late Medieval Non-Medical Areas
(/isis/citation/CBB765947097/)
Chapter
Lizzini, Olga;
(2008)
Le cosmologie di Alfarabi e di Avicenna
(/isis/citation/CBB001020554/)
Article
Robinson, James T.;
(2009)
Samuel Ibn Tibbon's Peruš ha-Millot ha-Zarot and al-Farabi's Eisagoge and Categories
(/isis/citation/CBB000930648/)
Book
Lloyd P. Gerson;
(2013)
From Plato to Platonism
(/isis/citation/CBB685278391/)
Book
Vojtech Hladký;
(2014)
The Philosophy of Gemistos Plethon: Platonism in Late Byzantium, between Hellenism and Orthodoxy
(/isis/citation/CBB238380578/)
Book
Furdell, Elizabeth Lane;
(2001)
Royal Doctors, 1485-1714: Medical Personnel at the Tudor and Stuart Courts
(/isis/citation/CBB000102179/)
Chapter
Nance, Brian K.;
(2011)
The Arena and the Study: Medical Practice in Turquet de Mayerne's Treatment of Robert Cecil's Final Illness
(/isis/citation/CBB001251761/)
Article
Soll, Jacob;
(2002)
Healing the Body Politic: French Royal Doctors, History, and the Birth of a Nation, 1560--1634
(/isis/citation/CBB000660477/)
Article
Syros, Vasileios;
(2013)
Galenic Medicine and Social Stability in Early Modern Florence and the Islamic Empires
(/isis/citation/CBB001200593/)
Chapter
Alessandro Mulieri;
(2021)
Marsilio da Padova e Pietro d’Abano
(/isis/citation/CBB724042308/)
Article
Evans, Gillian R.;
(1982)
The use of mathematical method in medieval political science: Dante's Monarchia and the Defensor pacis of Marsilius of Padua
(/isis/citation/CBB000002471/)
Book
Simone Mammola;
(2012)
La ragione e l'incertezza. Filosofia e medicina nella prima età moderna
(/isis/citation/CBB987960705/)
Thesis
Mower, Gordon Bruce;
(2007)
The Modern Conduit: Montaigne as a Skeptical Linkage from the Modern PoliticalPhilosophy of Machiavelli to the Modern Philosophy of Descartes
(/isis/citation/CBB001561362/)
Book
Parel, Anthony J.;
(1992)
The Machiavellian cosmos
(/isis/citation/CBB000051757/)
Book
Francesco Bianchi;
Giovanni Silvano;
(2020)
Saggi di storia della salute. Medicina, ospedali e cura fra medioevo ed età contemporanea
(/isis/citation/CBB840139278/)
Book
Costanza Geddes da Filicaia;
Marco Geddes da Filicaia;
(2015)
Peste: Il ‘flagello di Dio’ fra letteratura e scienza
(/isis/citation/CBB178325117/)
Article
Renato Jungano;
Antonella Maria Acierno;
(2021)
Titoli di studio e abilitazione all’esercizio della professione medico-chirurgica a Napoli (secoli XIII-XIX)
(/isis/citation/CBB971075797/)
Book
Ben-Zaken, Avner;
(2010)
Reading Hayy Ibn-Yaqzan: A Cross-Cultural History of Autodidacticism
(/isis/citation/CBB001031324/)
Book
Graziella Federici Vescovini;
Ahmad Hasnawi;
(2012)
Circolazione dei saperi nel Mediterraneo: filosofia e scienze (secoli IX-XVII)/Circulation des savoirs autour de la Méditerranée: philosophie et sciences (IXe-XVIIe siècle)
(/isis/citation/CBB182032380/)
Be the first to comment!