Nietzsche's Philosophy of History

Nietzsche, the so-called herald of the 'philosophy of the future', nevertheless dealt with the past on nearly every page of his writing. Not only was he concerned with how past values, cultural practices and institutions influence the present - he was plainly aware that any attempt to understand that influence encounters many meta-historical problems. This comprehensive and lucid exposition of the development of Nietzsche's philosophy of history explores how Nietzsche thought about history and historiography throughout his life and how it affected his most fundamental ideas. Discussion of the whole span of Nietzsche's writings, from his earliest publications as a classical philologist to his later genealogical and autobiographical projects, is interwoven with careful analysis of his own forms of writing history, the nineteenth-century paradigms which he critiqued, and the twentieth-century views which he anticipated. The book will be of much interest to scholars of Nietzsche and of nineteenth-century philosophy.

Introduction; 1. Philological centaurs; 2. Early meta-history and context; 3. Aesthetic intuition and the history of tragedy; 4. History and historians; 5. Positivism and perspectivism; 6. Genealogy as history; 7. Autobiography as history; Epilogue: Nietzsche's influence on philosophy of history.

Anthony K. Jensen is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Providence College. He is Associate Editor of The Journal of Nietzsche Studies and his articles, translations and reviews appear in journals including Nietzsche-Studien, The Journal of the History of Philosophy, the British Journal for the History of Philosophy, Epoche and New Nietzsche Studies.