Althusser, Machiavelli and the “Theoretical Utopia”

ABSTRACT

This article examines Althusser’s rich analysis of the work of Machiavelli, looking particularly at his deployment of the term “utopia” and “utopianism” in his reading of the Florentine’s work. More particularly the focus is on Althusser’s use of the concept of the “theoretical utopia” which in his text Machiavelli and Us he asserts is the definitive form of utopianism in Machiavelli’s theoretical project. The issue is complicated by the fact that Althusser also says in Machiavelli and Us that there is nothing utopian in Machiavelli’s work, and also because Machiavelli and Us is an unstable text published posthumously out of various drafts. A contrast is drawn between Althusser’s negative use of the term utopian (drawn from a significant strand in the Marxist tradition) and his genuine admiration for the forward glance in the work of Machiavelli. A case is also made that the concept of the “theoretical utopia” has genuine utility regardless of Althusser’s actual intentions, and that Machiavelli’s thoughts about the good society speak to important features of the modern world.

KEYWORDS:

• Louis Althusser
• Niccolò Machiavelli
• theoretical utopia
• utopianism
• Marxism

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on Contributor

Vincent Geoghegan is Emeritus Professor of Political Theory at Queen’s University Belfast. His main areas of research are utopianism, Marxism, socialism, and post secularism and religion. He is the author of Reason and Eros: The Social Theory of Herbert Marcuse (1981), Utopianism and Marxism (1987), Ernst Bloch (1996), and Socialism and Religion: Roads to Common Wealth (2011).

Notes

1. The text of this talk is published as an appendix at the end of Althusser (1999, 115–30).

2. On Villari, De Sanctis and other post-Risorgimento writers on Machiavelli’s work see Viroli (2014, chapter 4).