The ancient and classical world is the beginning of the human empire (in 1490 the renaissance between the classical world and the modern world). Machiavelli introduces the modern world in political by rejecting the core ideas of the ancient world of political philosophy and the general time frame is renaissance 1490. The ancient-modern debate is governed by one single important question that is: what role if any does morality and virtue play in conduct of your personal and political activity (what kind of person are you?) we are rational creations and make us self-governing, in fact, we could go fay that all classical philosophy and religions are concern with more action. God, human nature, politics are three things that Socrates and Boethius were wrong about them, they all ended dead because he misunderstood them. My purpose in this essay is to discuss the major tenets of the ancient-modern debate and also to compare and contrast Boethius and Machiavelli’s positions.

The first tenets of ancient-modern debates is the relationship between morality and politics. Machiavelli is suspicious about the existence of god, he said we need to think and act as if god does exist; of the christen concept of god doesn’t exist and the misunderstood, if there is no god, it means that cosmos and the world are without physical and moral order and the world and cosmos are anarchy. He said there is no moral order and you don’t have to be a good person to be a good ruler but being the right person will make you a bad ruler. For Socrates and Boethius to be a good ruler, you must be a good person. Another tenet is the redefinition of the purpose of politics. The preservation of the state is the purpose of politics. Purpose of politics is the creation of social and political space (justice).  If there is anarchy, there is no private life like Aleppo country. The other one is the emergence of politics as a “technical” activity.What kind of knowledge do you need to create security? Machiavelli knowledge of god will help you rule, for him political become a technical activity which is STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) because you need to make a weapon. He was the first to weaponized technology to rule (build better ships and weapon).

The last tenets of this debate is the redefinition of human nature. Boethius defined human beings as generally rational and moral, but when they allow themselves to be wicked, they get to a level of animosity. Boethius believes that people’s judgment is based on the outcome’s fortune and not merits of the case. On the other hand, Machiavelli redefinition human nature as both not inherently good and self-interested and acquisitive. Machiavelli change human history, the Greek and ancient are wrong on that human beings are not good, they are very bad, selfish, and aggressive. People are inherently evil because god is dead and there is no objective truth about justice so people can’t be inherently good and they do selfish thing. Why they do selfish things? The desire to acquire (security, and power) to give them the pleasure to be happy.

For Boethius happiness is state of being by contentment condition of soul and peace of mind and it is the high degree of self-sufficiency because I know who I am and I am not dependent of those things for my happiness. The desire to be happy is the power of human nature. The goal of life is to behappy, but people look for it in the wrong places.Boethius called these a false happiness which include wealth, fame, physical beauty/ health and power. False happiness makes you unhappy for three reasons:first,all of them belongs to Lady Fortuna, and you cannot control it, they come and go on the wheel of Lady Fortuna. Secondly, the presence of them depends on the presence of other people (if you are wealthy because people buy you stuff, wealth requires others) and lastly,increase your dependency on things. The highest self-sufficiency the less you are dependent on others the happier you are (I’m rational, I know who I am). We say if we just had a little more wealth then we would be more self-sufficient and less dependent on our nature. We think we reach self-sufficient with wrong happiness like wealth, but we become more dependent.Socrates was always happy even though he has never had a good time.Pleasure can’t or not be the source of happiness for Socrates.Happiness is a pleasure in capitalism. On the other hand, Machiavelli believes that happiness is natural and ordinary to acquire that is bringing us joy. He also rejects the ancient believe that Lady Fortuna can never be manipulated and even false happiness and termed it as true happiness.

Machiavelli rejects the past thought that people are good and have morals. He gives the new way of thinking and acting through Chiron the centaur which means half man and half beast. He says that the warriors are trained to use both peopleand animal’s ways of fighting that is every prince should have both the fox and lion’s qualities. This means that a fox is capable of identifying traps but cannot chase away wolves while a lion is able to chase the wolves but cannot detect the traps. Just like a fox, which does its calculation that is it collects and process its data properly while hunting, it is cunningness and duplicity the prince should have those qualities. The prince should also be like a lion which is fearless, ferocious and guiltless. The lion has no guilt since it hunt, kill and consume its enemies. He says: “Therefore, a prince will not actually need to have all these qualities previously mentioned, but he must surely seem to have them. I would go so far as to say that having them all and always conforming to them would be harmful while appearing to have them would be useful.” Pg 63

Boethius believe that by a goddess called Lady Fortuna controls fortune. She does not favor anyone when providing good and bad favor. Fortuna says, “You have no cause to be angry with me I have done you no violence. Wealth, honors and the like are all under my jurisdiction…”Although Machiavelli agrees that Lady Fortuna is a goddess and believes that she has favorite, he says a prince can get into power by either his abilities and through fortune. He says: “Now because becoming a prince from a private station requires either ability or good luck.” (Ch 6 pg 8) In chapter 25 pg 40, he compares the nature of fortune to a flooding river that is very destructive, unpredictable and cannot be easily controlled. This meant that just like the river, wealth could either be destructive or constructive regardless of the person involved. When fortune negatively strikes on anyone he/she is defenseless. From this, we can see the fortune have an active role to play in determining who to be in power and when.

In conclusion, comparing Boethius and Machiavelli’ text, the main themes of this debate are molarity and politics in which Machiavelli disagree with Christians on the definition of human nature and objective truth. The purpose of politics was another theme where there was a conflict of ideas between the two. Machiavelli rejects the idea that there should be no justice in politics. The issue on politics is a technical activity, Boethius believe that to rule you need philosophy while Machiavelli says you need science. On human nature the contradicted since Boethius thought that people are good while modern philosophy believes that they are wrong. The ancient and contemporary philosophy also disagreed on other circumstances such as happiness, where Boethius believe in false happiness while Machiavelli believes it is true happiness, fortune and ways of thinking as indicated in the essay.

 
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