An Interpretation of Nietzsche's On the Uses and Disadvantage of History for Life by Jensen Anthony K

Author:Jensen, Anthony K. [Anthony K. Jensen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

There are two critiques and one positive recommendation here in Nietzsche’s consideration of explanations-under-law. The first critique is that explanations of the sort typically used employ metaphysical agencies or, here, “dark obscurities.” Nietzsche fails to elaborate what he means here. It is nevertheless suggestive, provided the rhetoric that he uses against Eduard von Hartmann later in the book, that he is referring to the supra-natural metaphysical ‘laws’ that teleologists of various stripes impute as ‘dei ex machinae’ to explain the progress or decline of world history. Whether Hegel’s ‘Geist’ pulls the strings that cause cultures to enter or exit the world stage, whether Augustine’s or Vico’s or Herder’s versions of divine providence bring nations from infancy to maturity, whether Hartmann’s metaphysical unconscious pushes culture to the brink of the abyss—all have in common a ‘dark obscurity’ to explain why particular events occur under the ‘laws’ of historical change. There is accordingly an unspoken preference for naturalistic explanations in Nietzsche’s rejection of the ‘dark obscurities’ here—a general distrust of metaphysical principles used for explanations, the sort of which becomes more prominent in Nietzsche’s later writing.

The second critique targets not the speculative metaphysicians but their rivals: the scientific historians. Nietzsche presumes, plausibly enough, that the exposition of a non-obscure, i.e., naturalistically confirmable law requires generalities, even if not universals. The chemist in explaining the attraction of covalent bonds will refer to the shared electrons that bind H2O generally and not this single, particular molecule of H2O. And scientific historians presume to do the same when talking about the tensions between crown and church generally rather than this exact and particular power-dynamic at this exact and particular moment. To explain why a slave sought freedom or the oppressed sought revolution, one need no advanced degree in psychology, much less reference to some world-historical divine hand. These are all explanations under law, using naturalistic descriptive generalities like ‘church’, ‘slave’, and ‘revolution’ to indicate what came to pass, and what likely would come to pass given sufficiently similar circumstances. But Nietzsche’s criticism here is well taken. For with the exception of parochial textbooks, historiography does not typically occupy itself with such trivialities as these. Consider the history of the War of the Roses, the confession of Nat Turner, or Edmund Burke’s history of the French Revolution. The events described involve particular people and particular historical circumstances—and that is the bread and butter of genuine historiography. The more the historian can show these people and events as unique and worthy of consideration, the better the account. And insofar as one speaks about the particulars, laws and even generalizations fall out of currency. For what ‘law’ can be made out of Henry Tudor’s defeat of Richard III? And how could one employ that law in a predictive deduction about what would happen to, say, Pope Francis’ relationship with contemporary Italy? Can anyone take Nat Turner’s unique case as a law explaining slave revolts in the same way that covalent bond mechanisms explain current and predict future actions

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