Nietzsche: critique and new formulation of philosophical "grand narratives"

• Grant number: 24/03027-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research
• Start date: July 01, 2024
• End date: June 30, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy - History of Philosophy
• Principal Investigator: Ivo da Silva Júnior
• Grantee: Ivo da Silva Júnior
• Host Investigator: Binoche Bertrand
• Host Institution: Escola de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (EFLCH). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus Guarulhos. Guarulhos , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Université De Paris, France

Abstract

The aim of this research project is to test the hypothesis that Nietzsche aims to combat the "great narratives" head-on, especially the philosophies of history that flourished in the 18th and 19th centuries, in order to propose a new "great narrative", this time a worldview different from those established in modernity. Taking into account the philosopher's fight against "modern ideas", which would have provided a substrate for these "narratives", from the 1970s onwards, especially on French soil, interpretations of his thought emerged, which took the Nietzschean critique as extending to any and all "grand narratives"; with this, they contributed to making the philosopher the herald of postmodernity. Unlike these interpretations, I intend, on the one hand, to show that Nietzsche does not reject "grand narratives" in limine, but only those of a teleological nature, and, on the other, to investigate to what extent he proposes another "grand narrative", which would be anti-modern and, notably, anti-teleological. It is also my intention to evaluate the modern consequences of the interpretations of Nietzsche's thought that have prevailed, attributing to him something that was outside his critical scope. To this end, I intend to (I) analyze Nietzsche's critique of the philosophies of history, based on his fight against "modern ideas" and modernity, (II) investigate the extent to which he proposes an anti-modern and anti-teleological "grand narrative" and (III) explore the reasons why certain interpretations of Nietzsche's thought prevailed, what was the historical framework in which they were constituted and who were their protagonists, in order to assess their consequences today.