Alejandro Bárcenas

In "Machiavelli’s Art of Politics" Alejandro Bárcenas offers a reexamination of Niccolò Machiavelli’s political thought in order to propose a concise and historically accurate portrayal of his ideas and intellectual context. This study provides a nuanced view of the complexities of Machiavelli’s thought by analyzing his classical background, taking into particular consideration the influence of Xenophon, and his view of the ideal ruler as someone who creates the conditions for a flourishing human life. In addition, Bárcenas explains why Machiavelli defends a republican political order that encourages citizens to live according to their own laws while serving a common good and revises his legacy through the writings of Leo Strauss, Eric Voegelin and Maurizio Viroli.

Jon Stewart, a cynic? Perhaps not, according to some die-hard fans. But it's not difficult to imagine that for many viewers of The Daily Show, even those who enjoy watching the host “speak truth to power,” Stewart is no more than a neatly dressed cynic. The cynics lived in the heart of ancient democracies, confronting accepted habits, unchallenged assumptions, and above all institutional corruption. Their aim wasn't just to avoid what they considered to be harmful pursuits and practices, but to expose and ridicule those traditions that most people unreflectively considered moral and proper. If this chapter looks at Stewart in the context of this “dog philosophy,” it sheds light on the meaning of his role in contemporary culture.

Jon Stewart, a cynic? Perhaps not, according to some die‐hard fans. But it's not difficult to imagine that for many viewers of The Daily Show, even those who enjoy watching the host “speak truth to power,” Stewart is no more than a neatly dressed cynic. The cynics lived in the heart of ancient democracies, confronting accepted habits, unchallenged assumptions, and above all institutional corruption. Their aim wasn't just to avoid what they considered to be harmful pursuits and practices, but to expose and ridicule those traditions that most people unreflectively considered moral and proper. If this chapter looks at Stewart in the context of this “dog philosophy,” it sheds light on the meaning of his role in contemporary culture.

In the beginning of Star Trek Into Darkness, Mr. Spock descends into the heart of a raging volcano on the planet Nibiru. His mission: to detonate a cold fusion device that will solidify the bubbling magma before it erupts and destroys an entire civilization. Meanwhile, Captain James T. Kirk is on the bridge of the Enterprise facing a dilemma. He's duty‐bound never to violate the Prime Directive. One way to address the problem of the Prime Directive is to follow the criteria used by Vulcans: reason and logic. This approach has been highly revered in the history of moral philosophy, and was most convincingly articulated by Immanuel Kant. Confucius and Aristotle would agree that while the Prime Directive is usually correct, there will be cases where it's wrong not to break it. The Prime Directive symbolizes just how difficult making good moral decisions can be.

Despite impressive technological developments, there is something that does not seem to have changed in the future of the Alien saga: capitalist society. The capitalist mode of production was largely triggered by an important event in the history of humanity: the Industrial Revolution. In the Alien films the worst tendencies of capitalism seem to drive the Weyland‐Yutani Corporation's decisions, confirming Karl Marx's fears that people would not be at the center of the process of capitalist production. It is clear the Weyland‐Yutani Corporation has taken its goal of acquisition of profit at all costs very seriously, as demonstrated by Special Order 937. Alienation is one of Marx's key ideas. This chapter mainly focuses on alienation as it is described in a series of notebooks written in 1857‐1858, also known as the Grundrisse. Marx concludes, based on insights from ancient Greek and Hellenistic philosophers, that the good life should be one of active self‐realization and autonomy.

This essay explains the role of history and ethical life (Sittlichkeit) in the first section of the chapter entitled “Spirit” in the Phenomenology of Spirit, in which Hegel interprets the meaning of Sophocles’' Antigone as the best expression of the ancient Greeks’ ethical life in its preliminary and most immediate state. It is argued, first, that Hegel’s understanding of the ethical life was developed as an alternative, based on history, to Kant’s notion of morals (Sitten) and, second, that Hegel considered the ancient Greek mode of living limited by its immediacy and, therefore, never hoped to revive it during his own time.