Ambiguidade e Ambivalência na Ars Politica de Maquiavel: Fundações e Refundações das ordens civis para combater a corrupção e para preservar a liberdade

Abstract

After exegetical investigations along Machiavelli's corpus on specific themes, e.g, forms of regime; the Virtù-Fortuna dyad; notions of philosophical anthropology; religion; history; uses of imitation; corruption and liberty different characteristics and the multiple uses of ambiguity and ambivalence, as means to overcome political disorders by critically analyzing human affairs, emerge. Machiavelli assures an indispensable hard intellectual work for recognizing current actions as well as acknowledging past practices in order to provide correct adaptations to circumstances and occasions through imitations of Virtù. Overcoming the calamities observed in Florence is possible through refounding civil orders to preserve liberty and to contain the inexorable actions of corruption. A careful investigation of human affairs and history does not result in definitive answers (perfecta), but can preserve a flavor of events as well as inspire loving for the country. In this context, intellectual investigations and civil practices are full of ambiguities and ambivalences, since: legislatures and magistrates are constantly changing; humans are incessantly dissatisfied, but they have the possibility of obtaining glory; political regimes must adapt to the people and to historical circumstances; religious rites and speeches must be interpreted according to civil needs; civil tumults improve public ordinances and liberty, while factional division hastens their degradation. Consequently, in political dynamics, analysis and actions are always imperfect, never completed. Reinsertions of Virtù do not eliminate inconsistencies, but are based on instabilities, uncertainties and indeterminations (ambiguity), while, at the same time, considering the coexistence of apparently antagonistic, paradoxical and antithetical actions (ambivalence).