REASON AS THE ORGANIZING PRINCIPLE OF STATE GOVERNANCE IN NICCOLÒ MACHIAVELLI’s DOCTRINE

Abstract

The paper discusses Niccolò Machiavelli’s doctrine of state governance as described in his treatise The Prince , which laid the foundations of the modern idea of governmentality (M. Foucault). The paper relies on the method of philosophical hermeneutics. Therefore, the (pre)supposition to base the study on and interpret The Prince is the assumption that Machiavelli defines rationality through the concept of the sovereign’s reason as the source of the state governance system. In this case, reason and/or intellect is understood as a personal quality of the sovereign mastered through knowledge, which makes all actions of the sovereign a meaningful action. Thus, state governance can be interpreted in terms of such universal categories of human thinking as prudence, reasonableness and wisdom. The paper shows that the sovereign acquires prudence through practical knowledge (geography, military art) and theoretical knowledge (history). Machiavelli suggests conducting an inner dialogue with historians to study history. A dialogue with historians develops the sovereign’s ability to ask the right questions (asking) and receive the necessary answers. The study finds that Machiavelli’s principle of rationality applies to the choice of advisers and the model of the relationship between the sovereign and the advisers. The sovereign, according to Machiavelli, is a person who knows how to listen to the advisers, but who makes a decision by himself. The study shows that reason acts as a principle that guides the activities of the sovereign, allowing him to make the right choice between stinginess and thrift, cruelty and mercy, people’s love and hatred, etc. The loss of power by the sovereign is seen as a manifestation of his unreason, i.e. the intellectual inability of the sovereign to think situationally and make a reasonable choice.