On abuses in the uses of history: Blumenberg on Nietzsche; Nietzsche on genealogy

Author: Widder N.

Source: History of Political Thought, Volume 21, Number 2, 2000 , pp. 308-326(19)

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Abstract:

This paper is concerned with ways in which history is used in an anti-foundationalist context. Taking the example of Hans Blumenberg's attempt to provide a defence for modern reason without appeal to transcendental or teleological supports, it argues that such an approach is insufficient, and that its attempt to rest upon an ontological minimum only allows residual metaphysical components to remain within it. This becomes clear when Blumenberg is compelled to engage Nietzsche, a thinker who puts the chronological understanding of time into question, and with it any attempt to use chronological history as a replacement for metaphysics. The remainder of the paper explores Nietzsche's genealogical method as an attempt to engage with an excessive becoming that goes unnoticed by conceptions of history such as Blumenberg's. This is, in a sense, an abuse of history, but it is directed against an abuse found within historical analysis when such analysis remains blind to an ontology of time.

Keywords: ontology; Hans Blumenberg; Friedrich Nietzsche; post-metaphysics; genealogy

Language: English

Document Type: Research article

Affiliations: 1: London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London, WC2A 2AE. Email:n.e.widder@lse.ac.uk

Publication date: 2000-01-01