The Stakes: Thoughts on Machiavelli
The American Mind
The Claremont Institute
4.6 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 8 February 2022
⏱️ 109 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this edition of The Stakes, Michael Anton, lecturer in politics and research fellow at Hillsdale College’s Kirby Center, and a Claremont senior fellow, is joined by Michael Millerman, founder of the Millerman School. The two discuss Strauss' complicated yet rewarding book, Thoughts on Machiavelli. Other topics include: whether and to what extent Machiavelli is a philosopher, how to read Machiavelli's writings effectively, and what wisdom Machiavelli had to offer that is still helpful in our current political climate.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back. It's been a while since I have done this. As a reminder, my name is Mike |
| 0:27.0 | Kalantan. I am a lecturer at Hillsdale College's Washington DC campus and I've also been affiliated |
| 0:34.2 | with the Claremont Institute for... I'm having trouble counting out. I had to guess 28 years |
| 0:39.1 | since 1994 and I worked in the Trump administration and prior to that in the Bush administration |
| 0:44.7 | and did a bunch of other things. That's not why we're here. I'll get to why we're here in a second. |
| 0:48.3 | I am joined. It is my honor. I'm very pleased to be joined by Professor Michael Millerman of the |
| 0:54.7 | Millerman School. He founded his own school, something that hasn't happened in a while. |
| 0:59.0 | Only Rockefeller's and Vanderbilt's used to do that, but he's doing it. I can say this |
| 1:05.4 | that I am a student at the Millerman School. That is to say, I have enrolled and taken about half |
| 1:11.0 | of the course on Plato's Republic. I haven't finished it the press of time and such. I can highly |
| 1:15.6 | recommend it. It's a book I'm familiar with and yet it brings back many things that I had forgotten. |
| 1:22.1 | It's a great refresher and he's also bringing to light many new things that I had never |
| 1:25.4 | noticed before. I'm finding it particularly useful as I am writing on Plato right now or I'm |
| 1:29.8 | spoofing Plato. That course has been invaluable as I reread the book and I reread all the commentaries |
| 1:36.2 | and getting my mind around what Plato is trying to do and finding ways to use all kinds of insights. |
| 1:42.6 | There are many other courses. I probably don't want to talk about it. I should let the man who runs |
| 1:47.2 | it talk about it that also interests me that I hope to get to some day, but we're here to talk |
| 1:54.2 | about a book. I noticed Michael Millerman on his Twitter feed talking about Thoughts of Machiavelli |
| 2:00.6 | not that long ago. My favorite book of Leo Strauss' and I thought this could be a great conversation |
| 2:05.4 | between the two because I know that book pretty well. He knows it and he said he'd like to do it but |
| 2:09.4 | let him give him time to reread it. He reread it. I think that we rescheduled this thing three or |
| 2:15.1 | four times. You'd think it'd be easy for two academics to find time, but in this case it wasn't. |
... |
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