History as a Transmitter of Health or Illness

Nietzsche’s Criticisms of Nineteenth-Century Historical Studies

Abstract

Nietzsche argues that the philosophical epistemic foundations of historical studies, built upon suprasensible components, project a framework of historiographical practice that encourages a mode of historiography detrimental to life. This occurs because it promotes narratives with moralizing functions that immobilize and stifle artistic potential, and because it fosters an excessive and uncritical production of historical documents. This production would suffocate life in an endless sea of information that humans cannot process or digest. To heal history from its reactive effects on the corporeal and transform it into a means of health, Nietzsche proposes two remedies: first, to establish a new historiographical perspective that emulates and highlights the artistic movement of nature; and second, to implement a dietetics that allows us to consume history nutritiously and revitalizingly.