Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen II: Vom Nutzen und Nachtheil (Unconventional Observation II: The Use and Disadvantage of History for Life) by NIETZSCHE, Friedrich - 1874

Leipzig: E. W. Fritzsch, 1874. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. Nietzsche Attacks German Historians


NIETZSCHE, Friedrich. Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen II: Vom Nutzen und Nachtheil (Unconventional Observation II: The Use and Disadvantage of History for Life). E. W. Fritzsch, Leipzig, 1874. TP + [III]-VI + [7]-111 Octavo. First Edition, First Issue. Schaberg 25a.

There were approximately 650 copies of the first edition in the first issue state.

The second Unconventional Observation attacked the then current faith in historical research that was one of Nietzsche's major complaints with contemporary German culture and a topic to which he returned with some regularity in his later works.

Contrary to prevailing opinion, Nietzsche argued that historical knowledge is valuable only when it has a positive effect on human beings’ sense of life, contending that history can play only three positive roles, which he termed the "monumental," the "antiquarian" and "critical," explaining each of these in some detail, before going on to enumerate the dangers of the current scholarly fascination with "history for its own sake."

Finally, Nietzsche suggests an antidote to the psychologically and ethically devastating effects of the conventional approaches to history, proposing an amalgam of what he terms the historical, the unhistorical and the suprahistorical attitudes, as the healthiest approach to the integration of a historical sense into the life of the individual – and, of course, for Nietzsche, this always means the exceptional individual. As he remarks in the present essay, tellingly for the understanding of the Nietzschean philosophy as a whole: “The goal of humanity cannot lie in the end (Ende) but only in its highest specimens.” In the words of Walter Kaufmann: “Perhaps there is no more basic statement of Nietzsche’s philosophy in all of his writings than this sentence.”

CONDITION: Very good or better in recently rebound in plain paper over boards with leather new spine, lettered in gilt. Internally, bright and clean. A very good copy of one of Nietzsche’s early works.