After Machiavelli: "Re-writing" and the "Hermeneutic Attitude"

Chapter Two. Theoretical Approach

Chapter 1\vo Theoretical Approach Nachbilden ist eben ein Nacherleben. -Dilthey Besteht doch ewig in den Beziehungen zwischen' solcher Gegenwart, Vergangenheit und Zukunft der Charakter unseres Lebensverlaufs. -Dilthey The term re-writing, as it is here represented graphologically, is itself suggestive of temporal and creative processes. In its hyphenated form, it doubles for neither writing nor rewriting, yet curiously embraces the two: separating, while at the same time binding. Emphasized are both the creative newness proper to "writing" and the "historical" profundity that is implicit in the use of the prefix re-. Openness and closure; plurality within the boundaries of the finite. Re-writing, so written, implies all of this: a new identity born of other identities, yet comprehensive of them. It is itself a palimpsest. "Re-writing," however, is not merely a "phenomenon," something to be objectified, frozen, isolated. Precisely because, as Dilthey might put it, this unique mode of reproduction (Nachbilden) represents are-living (Nacherleben)-a transformation of the "already lived" (that which is outside of ourselves ) into "lived experience" (that which filters through us)-it must be clear that use of this term refers to a dynamic process, a process illustrative of the relationship(s) between past, present, and future: the workings of temporality. The empirical progression of psychic life consists of processes ; for each of our conditions had a beginning in time, changes in it and will also disappear again in time.1 9 Chapter Two Conceptualizing re-writing in Diltheyan terms is the beginning of yet another process in which I will seek to provide a philosophical basis for my speculations on Machiavelli. The insights of philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey seem to me quite appropriate for this task for reasons which I will begin to make present now, and will continue to expand upon as we proceed along the "path" of this study. Before entering into the discussion of those specific aspects and concepts of Diltheyan hermeneutics cardinal to our treatment of re-writing in Machiavelli, it would be opportune to briefly elaborate upon the central role assumed by Wilhelm Dilthey regarding Renaissance studies in general. Among the prodigious amount of writing Wilhelm Dilthey did throughout his life (l833-1911)-from the biography of Schleiermacher to his "critique of historical reason"-'-was a major work on the Renaissance: Auffassung und Analyse des Menschen im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert (1893) (The Worldview and the Analysis ofMan during the Renaissance and Reformation ). Numerous pages are dedicated to Niccolo Machiavelli, wherein Dilthey lauds the Florentine Secretary's "ingenious" marriage of diachrony and synchrony in his writings and is quick to recognize the weight of Machiavelli's influence on dramatists and theoreticians alike,2 two important points to be addressed in this work. Machiavelli was for Dilthey an extremely acute observer (Dilthey, GS 2:26), a thinker who was not systematic but whose thought found unity in his genius (GS 2: 29), and whose creative imagination made his writing on politics "artistic expression " (GS 2: 34). He credits Machiavelli with having a new concept of man (man as a "force of nature," "living energy" [GS 2: 24, my translation]) and a new point ofview (GS 2: 29): a new vision of the world which derives from experience and which is not unmethodical in the sense oflacking organization, but rather rebellious against method and schematization.3 All of these aspects of Dilthey's reflections on Machiavelli complement and aid us in introducing the larger theoretical and practical discussion that will unfold in the following chapters. Dilthey's relationship with other outstanding scholars of the Renaissance is both fertile and multifaceted, yet little is said about it. Wilhelm Dilthey was a contemporary of Jacob Burckhardt, one of the most celebrated Renaissance scholars 10 Theoretical Approach to this day, whose Civilization ofthe Renaissance in Italy "lifted the history of civilization to a high level.,,4 Both Burckhardt and Dilthey, born in Switzerland, studied in Berlin under the historian Leopold Ranke. Each was influenced in his own way by the teachings of the Historical School in Germany, though at times they share such a closeness in attitude and approach to the text as to prompt us to attribute one thinker's comments to the other. The following quotation from Burckhardt, for example, could quite conceivably have been pronounced by Dilthey as well: In the wide ocean upon which we venture, the possible ways and directions are many; and the same studies which...