The return of Nietzschean (in) actuality

On December 9, the Open Chair of Philosophy at the University of Azuay held its eighteenth virtual session, together with the participation of Paolo Vignola.

Paolo Vignola is Doctor PhD in Philosophy from the University of Genoa, Italy; He is a teacher of Aesthetics and literary subjects at the University of the Arts of Guayaquil (UArtes); He works as a professor of contemporary Philosophy in the Master of Philosophy at the University of Azuay, and is assistant lecturer at the Dublin University of Technology, Ireland. On this occasion he participated as a special guest and keynote speaker.

The moderator of the event was Diego Jadán, professor at the University of Azuay.

About the chair

The Chair of Philosophy emerged almost two years ago and is developed in a virtual way so that it can be open to undergraduate and graduate students, teachers, international guests and in general to anyone who may be interested in learning from a philosophical approach.

The chair arises from the need to promote and apply critical thinking within the utilitarian system in which society is currently developing, where things that are done must have tangible and immediate results or are discarded for not being useful.

The reflection of critical thinking that philosophy promotes is necessary to be able to understand and carry out any type of action. One of the objectives of the chair is to promote this reflection and critical thinking from different academic areas while strengthening the humanities.

Being an open and virtual chair, it has the facility to record each session and make them available to the general public, through the official YouTube channel of the University of Azuay.

Nietzschean (in) actuality

The title of the talk comes from the part of the game that has left the legacy of Friedrich Nietzsche's thought within contemporary Philosophy and, on the other hand, from the difficulty of placing Nietzsche within the end of modern philosophy or of the principles of contemporary philosophy.

From that difficulty you can see a type of non-logical nonconformity, this because it could be without problem within both. Nietzsche was born in 1844 and died in 1900 (a year that is normally considered the beginning of contemporary philosophy); However, just as it could be in both, it could also not belong to either, therein lies its inactual dimension.

"Nietzsche invents the concept of inactuality to combat historicism and, more generally, the weight of the past on the present, because the past according to Nietzsche prevents the present from appearing, it prevents the thought of the present from developing", Vignola commented.

Despite developing and explaining the concept of the inactual as proposed by Nietzsche, Vignola raised for the talk to explain the other side of inactuality.

He explained how Nietzsche and his own philosophy can be classified as out of date because, in a certain way, he was always a step back (with respect to the history of philosophy) and also a step forward, dazzling nihilism in its present.

In a present in which everyone saw the progress of science, industry, culture and the economy, Nietzsche was able to dazzle the symptoms (not yet mature) of nihilism; the nihilism that Nietzsche proposed was very different because for him nihilism begins with the birth of philosophy.

“When we talk about the inactual, it is a term from Nietzsche himself, it refers to when something does not depend specifically on a context, but can be timeless; the inactual can be considered as a synonym of timeless, that is, it can serve at any time. Nietzsche himself is timeless ”, clarified Diego Jadán.

This last session can be accessed through the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryeRI4UKYB4

UDA Correspondent