History and the meaning of life

on Heidegger's interpretations of Nietzsche's 2nd untimely meditation

Ullrich Haase

Mark Sinclair

pp. 65-81

in: Tziovanis Georgakis, Paul J. Ennis (eds), Heidegger in the twenty-first century, Berlin, Springer, 2015

Abstract

Heidegger's recently published 1938 seminars on Nietzsche's 2nd Untimely Mediation constitute an essential element of his Auseinandersetzung or "confrontation' with Nietzsche's thinking. These seminars are all the more crucial in that within them Heidegger returns to a text—the 2nd Untimely Meditation entitled On the Advantages and Disadvantages of History for Life—that he had positively appropriated in the 1920s, particularly within Being and Time. The essay examines the revision in Heidegger's reading of Nietzsche's text, and shows how it turns on the notion of life—a notion that remains unaccounted for within the 2nd Untimely Meditation.

Cited authors

Heidegger Martin

Nietzsche Friedrich