Nevertheless

Machiavelli, Pascal

By: Carlo Ginzburg

Narrated by: Graham Rowat

Nevertheless comprises essays on Machiavelli and on Pascal. The ambivalent connection between the two parts is embodied by the comma in the subtitle: Machiavelli, Pascal. Is this comma a conjunction or a disjunction?

In fact, both. Ginzburg approaches Machiavelli's work from the perspective of casuistry, or case-based ethical reasoning. For as Machiavelli indicated through his repeated use of the adverb nondimanco ("nevertheless"), there is an exception to every rule. Such a perspective may seem to echo the traditional image of Machiavelli as a cynical, "Machiavellian" thinker. But a close analysis of Machiavelli the reader, as well as of the ways in which some of Machiavelli's most perceptive readers read his work, throws a different light on Machiavelli the writer. The same hermeneutic strategy inspires the essays on the Provinciales, Pascal's ferocious attack against Jesuitical casuistry.

Casuistry vs anti-casuistry; Machiavelli's secular attitude toward religion vs Pascal's deep religiosity. We are confronted, apparently, with two completely different worlds. But Pascal read Machiavelli and reflected deeply upon his work. A belated, contemporary echo of this reading can unveil the complex relationship between Machiavelli and Pascal - their divergences as well as their unexpected convergences.

©2018, 2022 Carlo Ginzburg (P)2022 Tantor

Engaging but Unfocused

This is a deeply learned and very compelling historical analysis of, primarily, Machiavelli, and it’s read with great energy and precision. It lacks, however, a strong and persistent guiding thesis that would really tie together the disparate chapters, which as a result often read like separate essays.