> di Rossella Attolini*

Abstract: In this essay we want to analyze Nietzsche’s second Untimely Meditation, entitled On the Use and Abuse of History for Life (1874), in order to show the meanings of the adjective “untimely” (unzeitgemäß, literally ‘‘not according to time”). This adjective is present in the titles of the other Meditations too (Nietzsche published four of them, but he wanted to published thirteen Meditations, and that shows how great was the project to communicate his “untimely messages”). The intention of the philosopher, in each of these essays, is to show the different and opposite points of view (Gesichtspunkte) to those currents and shared in his time. That is what emerges from the Preface to On the Use and Abuse of History for Life, in which he defines as “untimely” the attempt, carried out in the book, to denounce the historical illness as damage of his time and to make men aware of it. But the denunciation is possible, as he admits, just because he is «a student of past eras, especially the greek one». As philologist in fact Nietzsche believes that the greek time can teach a “overhistorical” point of view on life, which can only be the condition of the rebirth of man and culture. Continua a leggere →