Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This introduction to the English translation of the 1997 work by Domenico Losurdo, Nietzsche: per una biografia politica, provides framing background to the text. It contextualises Losurdo’s book in light of the 2020 English-language appearance of his more extensive work, Nietzsche, the Aristocratic Rebel, as well as the different strands of left-liberal and poststructuralist interpretation of Nietzsche which emerged during the Cold War. We examine in some detail Losurdo’s key idea of a hermeneutics of innocence surrounding Nietzsche. We then introduce the bases of Losurdo’s orienting claim that Nietzsche was a philosopher totus politicus, the greatest reactionary amongst philosophers, and greatest philosopher amongst modern reactionaries.
Source: Historical Materialism
Author: Matthew J. Sharpe
Institution: Australian Catholic University
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4410184714