Anthony K. Jensen - An Interpretation of Nietzsche’s ’On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life’

With his An Interpretation of Nietzsches On the Uses and Disadvantage of History for Life, Anthony K. Jensen shows how timely Nietzsches second Untimely Meditation really is. This comprehensive and insightful study contextualizes and analyzes a wide range of Nietzsches 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 Nietzsches 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 Nietzsches later perspectivism, his theory of subjectivity, and Eternal Recurrence. And by using careful philological analysis of the texts composition history, Jensen is in position to fully elucidate and evaluate Nietzsches arguments in their proper contexts. As such, Jensens Interpretation should restore Nietzsches second Untimely Meditation to a prominent place among 19th Century philosophies of history.

Anthony K. Jensen is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Providence College and Associate Editor of the Journal of Nietzsche Studies. He is the author of Nietzsches Philosophy of History (Cambridge University Press, 2013) and co-editor, with Helmut Heit, of Nietzsche as a Scholar of Antiquity (Bloomsbury, 2014).

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9An Interpretation of Nietzsches On the Uses and Disadvantage of History for Life

Anthony K. Jensen

Anthony K. Jensen

First published 2016

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Jensen, Anthony K., 1978 author.

Title: An interpretation of Nietzsches On the uses and disadvantages of history for life / by Anthony K. Jensen.

Description: 1 [edition]. | New York : Routledge, 2016. | Series: Routledge studies in nineteenth-century philosophy ; 9 | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015043415 | ISBN 9781138816466 (hardback : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 18441900. Vom Nutzen und Nachteil der Historie fur das Leben. | Strauss, David Friedrich, 18081874. | HistoryStudy and teaching. | Schopenhauer, Arthur, 17881860. | Wagner, Richard, 18131883.

Classification: LCC B3313.V663 J46 2016 | DDC 193dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015043415

ISBN: 978-1-138-81646-6 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-74607-4 (ebk)

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Die Vergangenheit ist mir lieber als die Gegenwart;
Aber ich glaube an eine bessere Zukunft
BAW 2, 68

For quotation of widely available individual works, I cite an abbreviation of the English title and its section number within in-line parentheses. For the sake of this books usefulness among non-German readers, I have utilized with some minor changes the most readily available series of translated editions, namely, the Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy, under the general editorship of Karl Ameriks and Desmond M. Clarke. For unpublished works of Nietzsche and his Nachgelassene Fragmente (hereafter NF), I use, wherever possible, the KSA fragment date and notebook entry reference, followed by the volume and page number. For texts the KSA omits, for example, Nietzsches lectures or published philology, I cite the KGW with the relevant division number (Roman), followed by the volume number (Arabic), and the page. For Jugendschriften that neither the KSA nor KGW preserves, I cite the BAW according to volume and page number. For unpublished manuscripts, draft notebooks, and page proofs, I cite according to the Mette numbering found in the Goethe-Schiller Archiv and Anna Amalia Bibliothek. All correspondence is cited by the author, recipient, and date. Thereafter, I cite the KSB for letters from Nietzsche, with the volume number and page. For letters to Nietzsche, I cite the KGB, with division number (Roman), followed by the volume number (Arabic), and the page. For classical texts in Greek and Latin, I have referenced authors according to their own standard citation conventions.

Foreign words and phrases are sometimes left untranslated to accentuate the authors original phrasing. Nietzsche employed several different modes of emphasis: embolding, underlining, etc. I render them summarily as italics, in German or in translation. As a result, unemphasized foreign words are not italicized.

All quotations from Schopenhauers works are to Arthur Schopenhauer: Zrcher Ausgabe. Werke in zehn Bnden, edited by Arthur Hbscher (Zrich: Diogenes Verlag, 1977), with reference to the volume and section number of Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung (as WWV) or else the Parerga und Paralipomena (as PP).

• BAW = Historisch-kritische Gesamtausgabe: Werke, 5 vols., edited by Joachim Mette et al. (Berlin, 193343).
• KGB = Kritische Gesamtausgabe: Briefwechsel, edited by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari (Berlin, 1975ff).
• KGW = Kritische Gesamtausgabe: Werke, edited by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari (Berlin, 1967ff).
• KSA = Smtliche Werke: Kritische Studienausgabe