There are various ways to understand and explain reality depending on the ontological and epistemological positions of each author. The opus magnum of Niccolo Machiavelli could be a perfect example to illustrate these positions.
In this sense, and as David Marsh and Paul Furlong (2002) argue, “ontological questions are prior because they deal with the very nature of being; literally an ontology is a theory of being”. In an attempt to identify an ontological position in The Prince and in any other literary work, the question that leads us must be “whether there is a real world out there that is independent of our knowledge of it (Marsh and Furlong, 2002).
Does Machiavelli identify a real and objective world in The Prince? I will definitely …show more content…
I will definitely say yes. In my opinion, Niccolo Machiavelli in his immortal opus magnum assumed a foundationalist ontological position and not an anti-foundationalist, because he describes a political reality that rises above the limit of the present tense. In other words, the past conditions are similar to the present conditions, which means that that they persist over time and are not socially constructed at a particular time frame. Furthermore, the world that Machiavelli explains in his book, exemplifies an essentialist ontological position because as Martin Coyle (1995) argued, in Machiavelli “men perceive things at one time and judge them to be similar to those at another time, and these conditions, once judged similar, cause them to have what they take to be experiences of like …show more content…
In this position, the key question should be “what we can know about the world and how we can know it” (ibid. p.18). Regarding the epistemological perspective in the opus magnum of Niccolo Machiavelli, I definitely do not think it follows an interpretist tradition because the book focuses on explaining rather than understanding the principles and the conduct that a Prince must have in order to achieve power and govern. Parallel to this, throughout most of the chapters of The Prince, Machiavelli explains causal relationships rather than socially constructed, and does not center his argument in the meaning that the actions of the Prince will generate in the people, for instance, but rather in an objective analysis of a reality that the author learns through his personal experience. An analysis based in general patterns and empirical regularities (as the critical realist position does), which helped Machiavelli to predict the possibilities that can be presented to the government of a Prince (Kurki,
In this sense, and as David Marsh and Paul Furlong (2002) argue, “ontological questions are prior because they deal with the very nature of being; literally an ontology is a theory of being”. In an attempt to identify an ontological position in The Prince and in any other literary work, the question that leads us must be “whether there is a real world out there that is independent of our knowledge of it (Marsh and Furlong, 2002).
Does Machiavelli identify a real and objective world in The Prince? I will definitely …show more content…
I will definitely say yes. In my opinion, Niccolo Machiavelli in his immortal opus magnum assumed a foundationalist ontological position and not an anti-foundationalist, because he describes a political reality that rises above the limit of the present tense. In other words, the past conditions are similar to the present conditions, which means that that they persist over time and are not socially constructed at a particular time frame. Furthermore, the world that Machiavelli explains in his book, exemplifies an essentialist ontological position because as Martin Coyle (1995) argued, in Machiavelli “men perceive things at one time and judge them to be similar to those at another time, and these conditions, once judged similar, cause them to have what they take to be experiences of like …show more content…
In this position, the key question should be “what we can know about the world and how we can know it” (ibid. p.18). Regarding the epistemological perspective in the opus magnum of Niccolo Machiavelli, I definitely do not think it follows an interpretist tradition because the book focuses on explaining rather than understanding the principles and the conduct that a Prince must have in order to achieve power and govern. Parallel to this, throughout most of the chapters of The Prince, Machiavelli explains causal relationships rather than socially constructed, and does not center his argument in the meaning that the actions of the Prince will generate in the people, for instance, but rather in an objective analysis of a reality that the author learns through his personal experience. An analysis based in general patterns and empirical regularities (as the critical realist position does), which helped Machiavelli to predict the possibilities that can be presented to the government of a Prince (Kurki,