Key ideas from Harvey Mansfield

• Machiavelli invented the concept of 'effectual truth' - what comes out of statements rather than their intent, forming the foundation of modern science
• The word 'fact' was developed by Machiavelli and later thinkers, representing things without wish or intent attached - 'I love you' effectually means 'I want something from you'
• Technology, especially military technology like gunpowder, drives irreversible modernity because nations must match each other's defensive capabilities
• The longest chapter in Machiavelli's works is on conspiracy (Discourses book 3, chapter 6), providing detailed instructions for before, during, and after stages
• All politics requires secrecy and equivocation - even a babysitter cannot tell the baby everything they know
• Great books guarantee their own future through superiority - we still read Plato's Republic after 2,500 years because of logographic necessity
• Strauss treats arguments as if they were in a play with plot and context, while analytic philosophy abstracts arguments from their original setting
• Only a small percentage of Machiavelli's empirically testable propositions would be true because he deliberately exaggerates to make his points