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3 0 0 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3Machiavelli suggests that the apologetical rhetoric of ancient philosophy41 leads to a suppression of nature through the encouraging of somethinglike lawful shame or a fear of the bad reputation consequent upon departurefrom conventional moral opinion. One need only consider a few examplesdrawn from the dialogues of Plato in order to lend a degree of plausibilityto this suggestion. Plato’s Socrates insists that it is better to suffer injusticethan to commit it; that it is never right for “someone to whom evil is doneto defend himself by doing evil in return”; and that the proper understandingof just action is not doing “good to friends and harm to enemies” butrefraining from harming anyone at all. 42 Ancient philosophy, in its rhetoricalself-presentation, not only appeals to conventional or lawful morality and theshame that supports it, but “improves” upon or “purifies” that lawful moralityby rendering its claims “consistent” and, therefore, stricter. Philosophy,in this way, appears as a teacher of a new morality, superior to and moredemanding than that of the political community. 43 Machiavelli, therefore,indicates that by these means ancient philosophy both paved the way for thereception of the Christian teaching—which, in its moral aspect, appears tobe similarly strict, demanding, and pure—and also erected an obstacle forthe uninitiated to the understanding of the true intention of philosophy, anintention that requires for its fulfillment a shameless courage in pursuit of thetruth of nature.We might add that the most famous and perhaps most effective defense ofphilosophy penned by an ancient author, Plato’s Apology of Socrates, deflectsthe charge of not believing in the gods of the city leveled by the Atheniansagainst Socrates and philosophy in general by making it appear that Socratesin the conduct of his philosophizing follows the command of a god whosedivinity transcends the city and who has made Socrates his sole instrumentfor the instruction and improvement of the Athenians (20c–23e, 28e–29a,30d–31b). That instruction seems to lead to the conclusion that the truth ofthe good, the just, and the beautiful is to be found not in the laws and practicesof the city, let alone in the political actions of men, but solely in the conduct ofSocrates in the pursuit of his philosophy, and that therefore the “unexaminedlife is not worth living for a human being” (38a). Since, however, the political41By “apologetical rhetoric of ancient philosophy” I simply mean that exoteric self-presentation ofphilosophy that is designed to effect an accommodation with conventional opinion and thereby providea defensive covering for philosophy.42Plato, Gorgias 469c; Crito 49d; Republic 335d.43Plato reveals this issue in all of its complexity in the Symposium through the reactions of Apollodorusand Alcibiades to the speeches and deeds of Socrates.