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37 pages 1 hour read

On The Advantage And Disadvantage Of History For Life

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1874

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Key Figures

Arthur Schopenhauer

Nietzsche references Schopenhauer’s Samtliche Werke on page 21, but the German philosopher is more famous for his treatise The World as Will and Representation. In this essay, Schopenhauer envisions the world as the product of blind metaphysical agency.

Barthold Georg Niebuhr

A German statesman, Niebuhr became Germany’s foremost historian of ancient Rome. He inspired patriotism in his students at the University of Berlin through recourse to Roman governance. Nietzsche critiques Niebuhr’s concept of the superhistorical (an omniscient understanding of history) in Chapter 1 in order to establish his own (the eternal) in Chapter 10.

David Hume

The British empiricist David Hume was an influential proponent of Enlightenment thought. He was also a historian, essayist, and economist. He is best known for his 1739 work A Treatise of Human Nature.

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