No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Fiat vita, pereat veritas Nietzsche's Untimely Reflections on Hegel's Dialectic of History
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 June 2015
Abstract
You will indulge me if I begin with a commonplace. The term “history” is an ambiguous expression which can be taken either in the sense of res gestae or in the sense of rerum gestarum memoria. According to the former meaning, it refers to the phenomenon itself, the past course of human events, whereas, according to the latter meaning, it denotes the representation of this phenomenon.
German allows Hegel to mark the difference in terms of the relation between Geschichte and Historie. He also speaks of “objective” and “subjective” history in this connection. Yet by suppressing the brute opacity of language in favour of its teleological function, he is able to turn a blind eye to history's semiotic double game, the free play between literal and figural meaning within the linguistic sign. Hegel thus propounds the view that identity and difference at the level of the signifier are ultimately recuperated as expressive moments or alienations of the signified, the pure idea of History on its circular journey to itself. Linguistic signs are capable of meaning, according to Hegel, precisely because of their dialectical structure. The proliferation of meaning in language through the play of words is not random and anarchic but guided systematically by the invisible hand of spirit.
- Type
- Hegel and the End of History
- Information
- Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain , Volume 12 , Issue 1-2: number 23/24 , 1991 , pp. 61 - 78
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Hegel Society of Great Britain 1991
References
1 Hecataeus of Miletus, Genealogies, in Fragmente griechischer Historiker, ed Jacoby, Felix, Leiden, 1957, 1:1a, p 1 Google Scholar.
2 Hegel, G W F, Lectures on the Philosophy of World History. Introduction, trans Nisbet, H B, Cambridge, CUP, 1975, pp 11–24 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 von Ranke, Leopold, Fürsten und Völker, ed Andreas, W, Wiesbaden, 1957, p 4 Google Scholar.
4 Nietzsche, Friedrich, “On the Use and Disadvantage of History for Life”, Untimely Meditations, trans Hollingdale, R J, Cambridge, CUP, 1983, p 78 Google Scholar.
5 Hegel, G W F, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans Miller, A V, Oxford, OUP, 1977, pp 104–111 Google Scholar.
6 Aristotle, , Rhetoric, Bk I 1355bGoogle Scholar, The Complete Works of Aristotle, ed Barnes, Jonathan, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1984 Google Scholar.
7 Friedrich Nietzsche Description of Ancient Rhetoric, § III, “Relation of the Rhetorical to Language”, in Friedrich Nietzsche on Rhetoric and Language, eds Gilman, Sander L, Blair, Carole, and Parent, David J, Oxford, OUP, 1989 Google Scholar.
8 Hegel, G W F, Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences. Science of Logic, §§ 3 and 5, trans Wallace, William, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1975 Google Scholar.
9 Hegel, G W F, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion, ed Lasson, Georg, Hamburg, reprint 1966, Vol I, pp 110–116 Google Scholar.
10 Hegel, G W F, Aesthetics. Lectures on Fine Art, trans Knox, T M, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1975, Vol I, pp 402–408 Google Scholar.
11 Hegel, G W F, Encyclopaedia, §§ 446–468 Google Scholar.
12 Nietzsche, Friedrich, “On the Use and Disadvantage of History for Life”, pp 67–72 Google Scholar.