2024/09/09 by Emma Syea
Arts and Humanities · #Hermeneutics and Narrative Identity #Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and Hegel #Philosophy, Ethics, and Existentialism
paper · doi:10.1515/agph-2023-0065
openalex publication_date 2024/09/09 · crossref created 2024/09/09 · crossref issued 2024/09/10 · crossref published 2024/09/10 · crossref published-online 2024/09/10 · crossref deposited 2025/03/04 · crossref published-print 2025/03/31 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · crossref indexed 2026/07/30 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
Abstract This paper advances a novel account of how active forgetting underpins Nietzsche’s conception of health. Recent work has focused on what active forgetting is but does not explain how this process facilitates what Nietzsche calls “spiritual health.” I show that active forgetting – unlike Freudian repression or sublimation – preserves spiritual health when it is challenged by experiential content such as trauma, and that it allows for the incorporation of such experiences. I offer a reconstruction of active forgetting which makes reference to the use of therapeutic narratives, which, although neither necessary nor sufficient for active forgetting, can aid and optimize this process in the face of traumatic experiences. My account provides a complex and clear distinction between forgetting and narrativization, in keeping with Nietzsche’s comments on the utility of adversity and the importance of resilience in relation to spiritual health.