The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom

by James Burnham

Third, the many arguments that Dante uses in favor of his position are, from a purely formal point of view, both good and bad, mostly bad; but, from the point of view of actual political conditions in the actual world of space and time and history, they are almost without exception completely irrelevant. They consist of pointless metaphysical and logical distinctions, distorted analogies, garbled historical references, appeals to miracles and arbitrarily selected authorities. In the task of giving us information about how men behave, about the nature and laws of political life, about what steps may be taken in practice to achieve concrete political and social goals, they advance us not a single step. Taking the treatise at face value and judging it as a study of politics, it is worthless, totally worthless. With this, it might seem that no more could, or ought to be, said about De Monarchia. Such a conclusion, however, would show a thorough failure to understand the nature of a work of this kind. So far we have been considering only the formal meaning of the treatise. But this formal meaning, the meaning which is explicitly stated, is the least important aspect of De Monarchia. The formal meaning, besides what it explicitly states when taken at face value, serves to express, in an indirect and disguised manner, what may be called the real meaning of the essay. By “real meaning” I refer to the meaning not in terms of the mythical world of religion, metaphysics, miracles, an...

Well, I wasn't wrong about the arguments... It seems it is a case of: what he said versus what he truly wanted to say... Context and limitations are important... a bit tricky not to give more credit than it Is due with this approach, though