One of the most surprising, yet unremarked dimensions of this modern engagement with Machiavelli is surely his recurring presence as figure and motif within left-wing philosophical discourse.  While students of the history of radical political thought may be familiar with Antonio Gramsci’s The Modern Prince and Gramsci’s use of Machiavelli as an analogue to his own project, less familiar will be Machiavelli’s role in the emergence of post-Marxist theories of radical democracy. This talk will explore this role, with particular attention to a constellation of French thinkers including Louis Althusser, Claude Lefort and Miguel Abensour. How is it that a thinker indelibly associated with the cynical and amoral
manipulation of politics could have become an inspiration for theorists of a robust democratic life?

Warren Breckman er professor i moderne europæisk intellektuel og kulturel history på University of Pennsylvania. Han har skrevet Karl Marx, the Young Hegelians, and the Origins of Radical Social Theory: Dethroning the Self (1999), European Romanticism: A Brief History with Documents (2007) og senest Adventures of the Symbolic: Postmarxism and Radical Democracy (2013). Han er medredaktør af Journal of the History of Ideas og medgrundlægger af Zeitschrift für Ideengeschichte. Han skriver pt på en bog om Machiavellis rolle i politisk tænkning.