James Burnham

1,130 words

In The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom,[1] James Burnham sets forth a Machiavellian method for interpreting political texts. (Methods of interpretation are also known as “hermeneutic” methods.) Burnham distinguishes between the “formal” and the “real” meanings of texts. The formal meaning of a text is “what it explicitly states when taken at face value” (p. 8). The formal meaning also expresses, albeit in an indirect and disguised manner, “what may be called the real meaning” (p. 8).