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Lecture, Barnard's Inn Hall, Thursday, 29 May 2025 - 18:00
From Machiavelli to Nietzsche: How Modern Thinkers Saw Ancient Lawgivers
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For many modern thinkers, the lawgiver has been important as a founding figure of civic identity and cultural values. Rousseau analysed the legacies of Solon and Lycurgus, believing in the need for a lawgiver to make a true social contract possible. By contrast, Nietzsche felt it necessary to seek a lawgiver in history who was also a poet and prophet.
This lecture uses their perspectives and others to explore how the figure of the lawgiver has encapsulated key debates in modern political philosophy.
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