Picking at the mind of Niccolò Machiavelli, and the 'Scientific Spirit'

[Cooky]

I was wondering if anyone here had ever read the poetry or the philosophical works of Niccolò Machiavelli, and can articulate, in contrast or in similarity, his style with that of the 'Scientific Spirit' of modern Western civilization?

Niccolò Machiavelli - Wikipedia

Machiavelli is sometimes seen as the prototype of a modern empirical scientist, building generalizations from experience and historical facts, and emphasizing the uselessness of theorizing with the imagination.[49]

He emancipated politics from theology and moral philosophy. He undertook to describe simply what rulers actually did and thus anticipated what was later called the scientific spirit in which questions of good and bad are ignored, and the observer attempts to discover only what really happens.

— Joshua Kaplan, 2005

 

[Revoltingest]

I've only read The Prince.
So there's more to him than I imagined, eh.

 

[Cooky]

I've only read The Prince.
So there's more to him than I imagined, eh.

I can't help but to take an immediate distaste for his lacking appreciation for intellectual imagination. But perhaps I'm being hasty in my judgment.

 

[Revoltingest]

I can't help but to take an immediate distaste for his lacking appreciation for intellectual imagination. But perhaps I'm being hasty in my judgment.

His keen insight does betray a great imagination.

 

[SomeRandom]

Oh I need to read the Prince. I’ll get to it hopefully after my latest batch of TBR books.
He was fun in the Assassins Creed franchise, which portrayed him as a keen strategist, if a bit cold at times. But always had cunning plots going. Machiavellian one might say.