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Machiavelli's idea of virtu' is not of moral character then, but of what is best or the utilitarian needs of the country. For Machiavelli virtu' out weighs virtue in times of need while Plato believes a just ruler must behave the same all the time. Salmon says: Machiavelli critically analyzes the crucial characteristics of successful rulers, distinguishing, for example, between standards of discipline appropriate for military campaigns and for rulers when they are not commanding armies. Similarly, when Machiavelli discusses the concepts of cruelty and mercy, he presents examples to show that actions which might seem at first glance to be cruel are merciful in the circumstances, and vice versa.
The concept of a tripartite agency of existence: body, soul, and god, does not completely parallel to Plato either. Plato believed in the physical world, the world of forms, and the greatest form of all: good. A superficial inspection would correlate these to body, soul, and god respectively, but this cannot work. First off, the world of forms, in Platonic terms, equates to god himself according to Augustine. The greatest form of all, however, can be no other than god as well. Plato's third realm, the realm of the perceivable, then must correlate to both Augustine's "body" and his "soul." This, however, cannot be since it is Plato's realm of forms which is also the realm of intellect, a concept paralleling Augustine's "soul." So apparently, Augustine has also created a third segment of Plato's divided line.
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