Nietzsche on Memory and History

Nietzsche on Memory and History
Author: Anthony K. Jensen
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2020-12-07
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 3110671166

History and memory rank as central themes in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. As one of the last philosophers of the 19th century, Nietzsche naturally belongs to the so-called ‘historical century’. The contentious exchange with the past and with antiquity – as much as the mechanisms, the dangers, and the lessons of memory and tradition – are continually examined and stand in close relationship with Nietzsche’s vision of life and his project of human development. As Jacob Burckhardt once wrote of the cultural critique to his Basel colleague: "Fundamentally, you are always teaching history" (9/13/1882). Following Burckhardt’s judgment, the contributors focus on the analysis of core questions in the philosophies of history and memory, and their respective convergence in the thought of Nietzsche. The epistemological relevance of these central concepts will be thematized alongside those concerning tradition, and education. The discussion of these rich themes unifies a broad spectrum of questions, ranging from cultural memory to contemporary philosophy of mind. The contributions are revised versions of selected papers presented at the 2018 conference of the annual meeting of the Nietzsche Society in Naumburg.

The Moral Demands of Memory

The Moral Demands of Memory
Author: Jeffrey Blustein
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 13
Release: 2008-03-03
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1139470795

Despite an explosion of studies on memory in historical and cultural studies, there is relatively little in moral philosophy on this subject. In this book, Jeffrey Blustein provides a systematic and philosophically rigorous account of a morality of memory. Drawing on a broad range of philosophical and humanistic literatures, he offers a novel examination of memory and our relations to people and events from our past, the ways in which memory is preserved and transmitted, and the moral responsibilities associated with it. Blustein treats topics of responsibility for one's own past; historical injustice and the role of memory in doing justice to the past; the relationship of collective memory to history and identity; collective and individual obligations to remember those who have died, including those who are dear to us; and the moral significance of bearing witness.

In Praise of Forgetting

In Praise of Forgetting
Author: David Rieff
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 158
Release: 2016-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0300182791

A leading contrarian thinker explores the ethical paradox at the heart of history's wounds The conventional wisdom about historical memory is summed up in George Santayana's celebrated phrase, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Today, the consensus that it is moral to remember, immoral to forget, is nearly absolute. And yet is this right? David Rieff, an independent writer who has reported on bloody conflicts in Africa, the Balkans, and Central Asia, insists that things are not so simple. He poses hard questions about whether remembrance ever truly has, or indeed ever could, "inoculate" the present against repeating the crimes of the past. He argues that rubbing raw historical wounds--whether self-inflicted or imposed by outside forces--neither remedies injustice nor confers reconciliation. If he is right, then historical memory is not a moral imperative but rather a moral option--sometimes called for, sometimes not. Collective remembrance can be toxic. Sometimes, Rieff concludes, it may be more moral to forget. Ranging widely across some of the defining conflicts of modern times--the Irish Troubles and the Easter Uprising of 1916, the white settlement of Australia, the American Civil War, the Balkan wars, the Holocaust, and 9/11--Rieff presents a pellucid examination of the uses and abuses of historical memory. His contentious, brilliant, and elegant essay is an indispensable work of moral philosophy.

Nietzsche

Nietzsche
Author: Gianni Vattimo
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2002-05-28
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0485121182

This renowned introduction - already a standard text in Europe - is translated here for the first time. Vattimo uses Heideggerean and cultural-critical perspectives to reassess the work and thought of Nietzsche.

An Interpretation of Nietzsche's On the Uses and Disadvantage of History for Life

An Interpretation of Nietzsche's On the Uses and Disadvantage of History for Life
Author: Anthony K. Jensen
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 238
Release: 2016-05-12
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1317597230

With his An Interpretation of Nietzsche’s "On the Uses and Disadvantage of History for Life", Anthony K. Jensen shows how 'timely' Nietzsche’s second "Untimely Meditation" really is. This comprehensive and insightful study contextualizes and analyzes a wide range of Nietzsche’s earlier thoughts about history: teleology, typology, psychology, memory, classical philology, Hegelianism, and the role historiography plays in modern culture. On the Uses and Disadvantage of History for Life is shown to be a ‘timely’ work, too, insofar as it weaves together a number of Nietzsche's most important influences and thematic directions at that time: ancient culture, science, epistemology, and the thought of Schopenhauer and Burckhardt. Rather than dismiss it as a mere ‘early’ work, Jensen shows how the text resonates in Nietzsche’s later perspectivism, his theory of subjectivity, and Eternal Recurrence. And by using careful philological analysis of the text’s composition history, Jensen is in position to fully elucidate and evaluate Nietzsche’s arguments in their proper contexts. As such Jensen’s Interpretation should restore Nietzsche’s second "Untimely Meditation" to a prominent place among 19th Century philosophies of history.

Interpretation of Nietzsche's Second Untimely Meditation

Interpretation of Nietzsche's Second Untimely Meditation
Author: Martin Heidegger
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2016-09-12
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0253023157

A “readable and fluent” translation of a work that demonstrates a crucial shift in Heidegger’s approach to Nietzsche in the late 1930s (Phenomenological Reviews). In Nietzsche’s Second Untimely Meditation, Martin Heidegger offers a radically different reading of a text that he had read decades earlier. This evolution in his relationship with Nietzsche has a significant impact on his understandings of the differences between animals and humans, temporality and history, and the Western philosophical tradition developed. With his new reading, Heidegger delineates three Nietzschean modes of history, which should be understood as grounded in the structure of temporality or historicity. He also offers a metaphysical determination of life and the essence of humankind. Despite the fragmentary and disjointed quality of the original lecture notes that comprise this text, Ullrich Hasse and Mark Sinclair deliver a clear and accessible translation.

Nietzsche's Philosophy of History

Nietzsche's Philosophy of History
Author: Anthony K. Jensen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 251
Release: 2013-07-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107027322

An exposition of the development of Nietzsche's philosophy of history in its historical context and of its relevance to contemporary theories.

Of Memory, Reminiscence, and Writing

Of Memory, Reminiscence, and Writing
Author: David Farrell Krell
Publisher:
Total Pages: 360
Release: 1990
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN:

"Krell creates a remarkable interplay of meanings, allusions, and connotations--an interplay of multiple resonance which is finely tuned to Derrida's thought and which makes his essay as artful as it is conceptually disciplined. He is surely one of the most astute translators and readers in contemporary Continental thought." --Charles E. Scott

Nietzsche's Animal Philosophy

Nietzsche's Animal Philosophy
Author: Vanessa Lemm
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2009
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0823230279

This book explores the significance of human animality in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche and provides the first systematic treatment of the animal theme in Nietzsche's corpus as a whole Lemm argues that the animal is neither a random theme nor a metaphorical device in Nietzsche's thought. Instead, it stands at the center of his renewal of the practice and meaning of philosophy itself. Lemm provides an original contribution to on-going debates on the essence of humanism and its future. At the center of this new interpretation stands Nietzsche's thesis that animal life and its potential for truth, history, and morality depends on a continuous antagonism between forgetfulness (animality) and memory (humanity). This relationship accounts for the emergence of humanity out of animality as a function of the antagonism between civilization and culture. By taking the antagonism of culture and civilization to be fundamental for Nietzsche's conception of humanity and its becoming, Lemm gives a new entry point into the political significance of Nietzsche's thought. The opposition between civilization and culture allows for the possibility that politics is more than a set of civilizational techniques that seek to manipulate, dominate, and exclude the animality of the human animal. By seeing the deep-seated connections of politics with culture, Nietzsche orients politics beyond the domination over life and, instead, offers the animality of the human being a positive, creative role in the organization of life. Lemm's book presents Nietzsche as the thinker of an emancipatory and affirmative biopolitics. This book will appeal not only to readers interested in Nietzsche, but also to anyone interested in the theme of the animal in philosophy, literature, cultural studies and the arts, as well as those interested in the relation between biological life and politics.