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Classical republicanism in the age of MachiavelliIn Chris Jones & Takashi Shogimen (eds.), Rethinking medieval and Renaissance political thought: historiographical problems, fresh interpretations, new debates, Routledge. 2023.
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Recovering Reason: Essays in Honor of Thomas L. Pangle (edited book)Lexington Books. 2010.Recovering Reason: Essays in Honor of Thomas L. Pangle is a collection of essays composed by students and friends of Thomas L. Pangle to honor his seminal work and outstanding guidance in the study of political philosophy. These essays examine both Socrates' and modern political philosophers' attempts to answer the question of the right life for human beings, as those attempts are introduced and elaborated in the work of thinkers from Homer and Thucydides to Nietzsche and Charles Taylor
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Montesquieu : life and lettersIn Keegan Callanan & Sharon R. Krause (eds.), The Cambridge companion to Montesquieu, Cambridge University Press. 2021.
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48. Machiavelli and the Modern TyrantIn David Johnston, Nadia Urbinati & Camila Vergara (eds.), Machiavelli on Liberty and Conflict, University of Chicago Press. pp. 207-232. 2017.
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2The Military Situation in Western Asia on the Eve of CunaxaAmerican Journal of Philology 101 (1): 79. 1980.
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8Tocqueville on Christianity and the Natural Equality of ManCatholic Social Science Review 17 7-20. 2012.Democracy in America never mentions the Declaration of Independence. Is this perhaps a sign of hostility to the Declaration’s natural-rights teaching or to abstract principles? Or is it no more significant than The Federalist’s silence on this matter? Both are books of political science, not political philosophy; yet, when appropriate, Tocqueville addresses first principles, and endorses a natural-rights doctrine similar to Locke’s. He wrote primarily for the French, addressing issues he thought…Read more
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16The Book that Never was: Montesquieu's Considerations on the Romans in Historical ContextHistory of Political Thought 26 (1): 43-89. 2005.On the face of it, Montesquieu's Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline would appear to be a work of erudition and a philosophical history, and as such it has generally been read. It was never, however, intended to stand alone. It was composed as part of a larger, polemical work, akin in purpose to the Philosophical Letters of Voltaire, and it should be read in light of the other components of that work - Montesquieu's Reflections on Universal Monarchy in E…Read more
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78Machiavelli's liberal republican legacy (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 2006.The significance of Machiavelli's political thinking for the development of modern republicanism is a matter of great controversy. This reassessment examines the character of Machiavelli's own republicanism by charting his influence on Marchamont Nedham, James Harrington, John Locke, Algernon Sidney, John Trenchard, Thomas Gordon, David Hume, the baron de Montesquieu, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton. Concluding that althou…Read more
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Thomas Jefferson's machiavellian political scienceIn Paul Anthony Rahe (ed.), Machiavelli's liberal republican legacy, Cambridge University Press. 2006.
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60Montesquieu's anti-Machiavellian MachiavellianismHistory of European Ideas 37 (2): 128-136. 2011.Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu, mentions Niccolò Machiavelli by name in his extant works just a handful of times. That, however, he read him carefully and thoroughly time and again there can be no doubt, and it is also clear that he couches his argument both in his Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline and in his Spirit of Laws as an appropriation and critique of the work of the predecessor whom he termed ‘this great man’. I…Read more
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62Montesquieu's natural rights constitutionalismSocial Philosophy and Policy 29 (2): 51-81. 2012.Research Articles Paul A. Rahe, Social Philosophy and Policy, FirstView Article
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68The political needs of a toolmaking animal: Madison, Hamilton, Locke, and the question of propertySocial Philosophy and Policy 22 (1): 1-26. 2005.When Benjamin Franklin suggested that man is by nature a tool-making animal, he summed up what was for his fellow Americans the common sense of the matter. It is not, then, surprising that, when Britain's colonists in North America broke with the mother country over the issue of an unrepresentative parliament's right to tax and govern the colonies, they defended their right to the property they owned on the ground that it was in a most thorough-going sense an extension of themselves: the fruits …Read more
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14This fresh examination of the works of Montesquieu seeks to understand the shortcomings of the modern democratic state in light of this great political thinker’s insightful critique of commercial republicanism. The western democracies’ muted response to victory in the Cold War signaled the presence of a pervasive discontent, a sense that despite this victory liberal democracy itself was deeply flawed. Paul A. Rahe argues that to understand this phenomenon we must re-examine—starting with Montesq…Read more
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11Soft Despotism, Democracy's Drift: Montesquieu, Rousseau, Tocqueville, and the Modern ProspectYale University Press. 2009.In 1989, the Cold War abruptly ended and it seemed as if the world was at last safe for democracy. But a spirit of uneasiness, discontent, and world-weariness soon arose and has persisted in Europe, in America, and elsewhere for two decades. To discern the meaning of this malaise we must investigate the nature of liberal democracy, says the author of this provocative book, and he undertakes to do so through a detailed investigation of the thinking of Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Tocqueville. Paul …Read more
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Introduction: Machiavelli's liberal republican legacyIn Paul Anthony Rahe (ed.), Machiavelli's liberal republican legacy, Cambridge University Press. 2006.
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30The Return of Lucretius to Renaissance Florence (review)Review of Metaphysics 64 (3): 629-630. 2011.
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Machiavelli in the English revolutionIn Paul Anthony Rahe (ed.), Machiavelli's liberal republican legacy, Cambridge University Press. 2006.
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34Against throne and altar: Machiavelli and political theory under the English RepublicCambridge University Press. 2008.Modern republicanism - distinguished from its classical counterpart by its commercial character and jealous distrust of those in power, by its use of representative institutions, and by its employment of a separation of powers and a system of checks and balances - owes an immense debt to the republican experiment conducted in England between 1649, when Charles I was executed, and 1660, when Charles II was crowned. Though abortive, this experiment left a legacy in the political science articulate…Read more
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18The Classical Republicanism of John MiltonHistory of Political Thought 25 (2): 243-275. 2004.We know that John Milton read Machiavelli’s Discourses on Livy with very great care, and there is evidence suggesting that initially he found its argument attractive. In the end, however, he repudiated Machiavelli’s peculiar populism in no uncertain terms, and he did so by embracing Aristotle and Cicero in a manner that highlights the radical break which the Florentine initiated with the republicanism of the ancient Romans and Greeks
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43In the shadow of Lucretius: The epicurean foundations of Machiavelli's political thoughtHistory of Political Thought 28 (1): 30-55. 2007.Although repeated attempts have been made over the last half-century to make sense of Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy as an exposition of classical republicanism, such endeavours are bound to fail. After all, Machiavelli rejected the teleology underpinning the discursive republicanism of the ancients, and his understanding of the ends pursued by republics was profoundly at odds with the understanding predominant in ancient Greece and Rome. If he had a classical mentor, it cannot, then, have bee…Read more
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Hillsdale CollegeRegular Faculty
Hillsdale, Michigan, United States of America
Areas of Interest
Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |