What is machiavelli's perception of epistemology? Plato says not to trust the senses, what is mach.'s stance?

Question

What is machiavelli's perception of epistemology? Plato says that people cannot trust the senses, Aristotle says that we should trust the senses; what does Machiavelli say about the best way to learn?

Please, if possible, include the locations of any sources within either The Prince or Discourses.

Answer 1

Actually Machiavelli's "philosophy" is not concerned at all with epistemology". he does not engage in axplaing why or how we can know anything. Machiavelli does not care about the question "what or how can we know"
Machiavelli's contribution is one of strategy on how to gain advantage in gaining and keeping power. that's it...machiavelli is politically oriented, not epistemologically or cosmologically oriented. All his advices have to do with how to gain power, keep power and transfer power by any means neccesary.

Answer 2

Having tapped in to the Machiavellian side of things once or twice before, I'm sure that Niccolo would say something along these lines :

Man's senses are inherently flawed, but even so are the principal ways of gathering information about the situation at hand. Therefore, seek to shape your people's perceptions with a powerful dialogue, and thus better control their motives, and thus, influence their actions to your advantage.