Abstract

Machiavelli’s affirmation of a correlation between norms and ways of living appears clearly in Discourses on Livy: Machiavelli enunciates the bond of reciprocity between good laws and good ways of life. How to understand this relationship of reciprocity between laws and ways of life? One would be mistaken if one wanted to unify the different circumstances in which Machiavelli affirms this correlation in its reciprocity: good laws are the cause of good ways of life, which continue and complete the work of good laws. The article, on the other hand, intends to highlight what is problematic in Machiavelli’s notion of reciprocity and wants to suggest a dynamic reading of it, confronting us with the always-indeterminate nature of a «return to the origin».