Abstract

The purpose of this article is twofold: to examine the origins and ruinous consequences of the teleological conception of history that characterises modernity, and to explore an alternative, non-instrumental conception of history and historical judgement that does not fall prey to the snares inherent in the modern project. To this end, the article draws on insights generated by Nietzsche and Arendt in their respective analyses of the link between history, action and the worldly domain of cultural and/or political engagement. The argument is divided into three sections: the first section explores the significance of history as portrayed by Nietzsche and Arendt, followed, in section two, by an analysis of their respective criticisms of a teleological conception of history that underlies the philosophical and political practices of modernity. The third part of the paper then explores action, narrative and judgement as constituent elements in an alternative conception of the relationship between historicity and worldliness. This alternative, it is argued, constitutes a challenge to the privatised individuals of late-modernity to re-think our relations with one another in the context of a shared, public domain; that is to say, to re-think history and praxis beyond the confines of subjectivity or teleology for the love of the world that lies between us