The Art of Power: Machiavelli, Nietzsche, and the Making of Aesthetic Political TheoryThe Art of Power is a challenge to traditional political theory. Diego A. von Vacano examines the work of Machiavelli, arguing that he establishes a new, aesthetic perspective on political life. He then proceeds to carry out the most extensive analysis to date of an important relationship in political theory: that between the thought of Machiavelli and Friedrich Nietzsche. Arguing that these two theorists have similar aims and perspectives, this work uncovers the implications of their common way of looking at the human condition and political practice to elucidate the phenomenon of the persistence of aesthetic, sensory cognition as fundamental to the human experience, particularly to the political life. By exploring this relationship, The Art of Power makes a significant contribution to the growing interest in the intersection of aesthetic theory and political philosophy as well as in interdisciplinary and comparative perspectives on political theory. |
Contents
Machiavellis Ass and the Poetics of Political Life | 11 |
Tragic Machiavelli The Agon of the Heroic Prince | 43 |
Nietzsches Machiavellism | 73 |
A Machiavellian Zarathustra The Aesthetic Politics of Value Creation | 111 |
The Form of Aesthetic Political Theory | 139 |
Aesthetic Political Theory and Modernity | 159 |
Spectacular Politics | 185 |
197 | |
207 | |
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Common terms and phrases
achievements action admiration aesthetic political theory aesthetic theory aestheticization Agathocles agonism animal antinomies appear Apuleius Apuleius's Arendt artistic beauty Birth of Tragedy Book Four Borgia central Cesare Borgia Chapter chiavelli Christian claim conception critique cultural deception effect emotions essence ethics existence existential express fact Fascism finds Florentine Fortune fundamental Golden Ass Heidegger Hence hero Hulliung human condition humors Ibid idea imitation immoral important individual Kaufmann leader Leo Strauss Machia Machiavelli and Nietzsche Machiavelli believes Machiavelli's Ass man's manner meaning metaphor modern moral Moreover nature Niccolò Machiavelli Nietzsche's Nietzschean normative notion one's oneself pain Parel person perspective perspectivism philosophical Plato poem poetry Prince protagonist rational reason Renaissance representation republic republican rhetorical seeks seems sense social sort Strauss taste tells term things thinkers thought tion tragedy tragic truth underscore understand understood University Press values velli Viroli virtù Vitellozzo Vitelli writing Zarathustra