It is a wry pleasure to entertain friendly strictures like those of Professor Connell. I know they are friendly since he says that three chapters of Machiavelli’s Effectual Truth are jewels, yet focuses his attention, like a true friend, on the rest, the cheap imitations against which other readers and I need to be warned. I will consider his strictures in the order in which he delivers them.
Connell begins with a summary of the book, as presenting a “supremely important”Footnote 1 change in thought from high-minded truth based on imaginary republics and principalities to truth based on results or effects. He is right that conspiracy is in the air of today’s politics, but he could have stated directly that my book is about an immense conspiracy conceived by Machiavelli that created the modern world. This movement, he says, required “enlightened readers”Footnote 2 to receive and pass it on. I would say it required philosophers of Machiavelli’s rank and the theme of my book was the “succession problem” Machiavelli faced. He could take only the first step in his impresa, which was his open and bold critique of Christianity. Connell does not connect, as I do, the succession problem with the effectual truth as applied to its author, Machiavelli. Machiavelli’s truth would be effectual through the restatements of his successors, such as Hobbes and Locke, rather than available merely in its rhetorical caricature of “Machiavellianism.” Machiavelli is the hidden author of modernity.
As to the notion of effectual truth, Connell quotes Francesco De Sanctis to show that it has not been ignored, as I say. I gladly accept his quotation and will add it to the few exceptions to my generalization that I quote. This will be in a second edition of my book which, given my age, will no doubt have to come out after my decease. Perhaps I can learn the art of posthumous publication from Machiavelli himself. It would still be true, as Connell admits, that the question of effectual truth has been recently neglected. To remedy this neglect Connell offers two criticisms from his standpoint of the historical context. The first is the very sentence in which Machiavelli announces the effectual truth; this is the sole instance of his use of the word effectual and the term effectual truth. In my translation of The Prince I say that in this sentence Machiavelli says one should “go directly” to the effectual truth, whereas in Connell’s translation Machiavelli says “go after” that truth.Footnote 3 The Italian says dreto or drieto, which I take to be diretto and he takes to be dietro. Weighing this difference once again, I think I will stay with my choice: going directly to the effectual truth and bypassing the intent or wish, as opposed to Connell’s going after or behind to reach it.Footnote 4 I do not give this difference the value that Connell does, which in his view is proof that Machiavelli proceeded empirically and moderately rather than authoritatively in his writing. I would rather say that Machiavelli alleges facts and effects aggressively and with wonderful, shocking exaggeration. For example, “men ought either to be coddled or eliminated.”Footnote 5
The second criticism of “effectual” is that it is not new at all but identical with Aristotle’s efficient cause as it appears in the Christian scholastics. A more historicist outlook, Connell thinks, would have prevented this elementary mistake. But I don’t think my historical claim is a mistake. Effettuale is an Italian word used first by Machiavelli, and only just this once in all his writings. This doesn’t mean it can be ignored or treated as identical to effettivo, as most scholars and Connell have done. “Effective” refers to a potentiality to have an effect; “effectual” means actually having the effect. The phrase “effectual truth” is Machiavelli’s invention; one sees it nowhere else. Any sighting of “effectual”—for example, in the King James version of the Bible—is a sign of Machiavelli’s hidden influence. Aristotle’s efficient cause identifies a cause that may be deflected by chance and not occur. Machiavelli’s effectual cause identifies a necessity that combines the potentiality with the chance so that both natural potentiality and chance are overcome or conquered. One looks backward from the effect to the necessity, as from the “effects” of discords in the Roman republic to the necessity that made Rome strong and free.Footnote 6
It is perhaps inevitable that the name of Leo Strauss should come up. Connell says that I am “obeisant” to the “anti-historicist” bias of Strauss.Footnote 7 Passing over the intonations of “obeisant,” let me just say that I obey Strauss so that I don’t have to obey lesser figures. My contention, learned from Strauss, has been that contextualism overlooks the context as seen by the author being studied. Why not listen first to the author? A great author supplies his own context.
Machiavelli’s effectual truth is an example. His context is rebellion against the context of Christianity and of the Renaissance insofar as it remains obeisant to Christianity. Strauss showed that great authors used tact with a view to the historical conventions of their time. You could call this “coy” as Connell does to me,Footnote 8 if you meant to convey that tact was unnecessary and deserved to be called out as pretentious. That, however, has not been my scholarly or lived experience.
Connell’s last contention is that the number 13 means nothing because, before The Prince was published, it circulated in versions with chapters, hence without 13s. But there are plenty of 13s in Machiavelli’s text. That there are 13s in the Florentine Histories makes 13 more likely to be significant as a tactful hint. You can learn a good deal by looking for 13s in Machiavelli and his successors: 13 is not found in these texts merely by chance but by intent. For Strauss’s view of The Prince, have a look at ch. 3 of Machiavelli’s Effectual Truth.
In closing, I would like to thank my friend Professor Connell for using the title Florentine Histories for Machiavelli’s Istorie Fiorentine. My translation (with Laura Banfield) is the first in English to use the plural of the Italian. I have noticed that other historicists are loath to accept this correction from a translator with an anti-historicist bias.
