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Garver, Eugene. Machiavelli and the history of prudence. Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987, xiv, 238pp., worn but good dust-jacket, frayed around edges and corners, very good orange brown cloth. Dust-acket design: Ted Morris. Series: Rhetoric of the human sciences. - In a radical departure from conventional readings of The Prince and Discourses on Livy, Eugene Garver examines the Machiavellian texts in order to illuminate more general problems of practical reason. He bases his detailed readings not only on an explication of the ethical and political problems of Machiavelli's readers, but on an analysis of the philosophical problems of practical reason and prudence drawn from Aristotle's Ethics and Politics, and on an exhibition of the resources for thinking about those problems taken from the history of rhetoric. Garver claims that prudence, practical wisdom, and practical reason in general have a history, and that Machiavelli represents an important turning point in that history. While no one would quarrel with the idea that the decisions and actions thought to be practically wise or prudent have changed through time, it is Garver's contention that the abilities required for the good operation of practical reason have themselves changed, that the story of those developments is worth tracing, and that the history of rhetoric is a valuable resource in reconstructing the history of prudence. Garver begins by examining the argumentative and stylistic surface of The Prince, its presentation of examples and maxims embedded in a series of elaborately formal frames. He goes on to make the achievement of the text problematic by rejecting any simple elision between the discursive virtuosity Machiavelli exhibits and the practical virtu he presumably teaches. Garver then turns to the politics of rhetorical invention, exploring ways in which the different parts of rhetoric generate different kinds of politics Machiavelli's politics of rhetorical invention versus a politics of another part of rhetoric, style. What were earlier seen as argumentative tactics here become the substance of politics as Machiavelli's enterprise is seen as a politics of invention opposed to traditional rulers who rule by style, by acting like princes. Here, the devices and techniques of rhetoric begin to thicken into something that, says Garver, could be called an art or discipline. Garver next returns to the relationships between rhetoric and action, as he treats the last three chapters of The Prince, paying particular attention to Machiavelli's allegory of treating fortune like a woman. Garver continues his rich examination by raising questions of universality, of whether a Machiavellian community is possible. These questions give further depth to the conceptions of rhetoric and prudence involved, as they situate character and method within a community. Finally, he examines the Discourses to locate the resources for civic virtue and the new rhetorical virtues Machiavelli develops for exploiting those resources. Eugene Garver occupies the McNeely Chair in Thinking at St. John's University, Collegeville, Minnesota. His work has appeared in a number of scholarly journals and other books. Jacket illustration: One of the first likenesses of Machiavelli, from a 1541 Venetian edition of his works. 9780299110802 ISBN 029911080X.
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