re: Learned people of the OT: Favorite philosophers?

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it's pretty commonly considered that The Prince was satire, right?

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Whether or not the word "satire" is the best choice, there is more general agreement that despite seeming to be written for someone wanting to be a monarch, and not the leader of a republic, The Prince can be read as deliberately emphasizing the benefits of free republics as opposed to monarchies.

Differences of opinion amongst commentators revolve around whether this sub-text was intended to be understood, let alone understood as deliberately satirical or comic.

One such commentator, Mary Dietz, writes that Machiavelli's agenda was not to be satirical, as Rousseau had argued, but instead was "offering carefully crafted advice (such as arming the people) designed to undo the ruler if taken seriously and followed."[64] By this account, the aim was to reestablish the republic in Florence. She focuses on three categories in which Machiavelli gives paradoxical advice:

He discourages liberality and favors deceit to guarantee support from the people. Yet Machiavelli is keenly aware of the fact that an earlier pro-republican coup had been thwarted by the people's inaction that itself stemmed from the prince's liberality.
He supports arming the people despite the fact that he knows the Florentines are decidedly pro-democratic and would oppose the prince.
He encourages the prince to live in the city he conquers. This opposes the Medici's habitual policy of living outside the city. It also makes it easier for rebels or a civilian militia to attack and overthrow the prince.
According to Dietz the trap never succeeded because Lorenzo—"a suspicious prince"—apparently never read the work of the "former republican."[65]

The Italian Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci argued that Machiavelli's audience for this work was not the classes who already rule (or have "hegemony") over the common people, but the common people themselves, trying to establish a new hegemony, and making Machiavelli the first "Italian Jacobin".[66]

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