Lebensphilosophie and the Task of Interpreting Philosophy Historically
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to examine Nietzsche and Dilthey’s descriptions of the crisis of historical consciousness and visions for the possibility of a living interpretation of the past. While traditional historians interpret the past as something completed and dead—thereby making historical knowledge into a dead knowledge—Nietzsche and Dilthey argue that the past exists only in and through the present, and therefore that the past can be interpreted as something living and open in its meaning. After first clarifying the philosophical motivations that lead Nietzsche and Dilthey to this conception, I consider what Nietzsche and Dilthey’s conceptions of the living past imply for an important case study: our understanding of the history of philosophy itself. I discuss the positive and negative possibilities tied to interpreting philosophy historically, with a specific emphasis on the possibility of interpreting the history of philosophy as something living.