Philosophical aspects of Nietzsche’s Ecce homo: a perspective in self-staging

Abstract

The last book written by Nietzsche, Ecce homo: how one becomes what one is (1888), is one of its more controversial works, having been comprehended as signal of prepotency, as egocentric self-exhibition, and as presage of the collapse that interrupted his intellectual trajectory in January 1889. Controversies were fueled, in part, by the peculiar narrative developed in the book – he tells himself his life and works in an eulogistic and hyperbolical tone –, in part, by the fact that de late publication of Ecce homo, occurred only in 1908, favored contrast with the apocryphal The Will to Power – set of notes published in 1901 as Nietzsche’s ‘main work’. Our purpose in this paper is to reflect on possible contributions of Ecce homo’s ‘autobiographical’ and ‘self-critical’ tenor to the German philosopher’s path of thought. Our hypothesis is that the narrative experimented in the book has an intimate relation with previous themes of Nietzschean works (especially, that of perspective) and with the task of revaluation of all values. Through a self-staging, the placing of a certain ‘Nietzsche’ in the scene, the philosopher advances his critique of metaphysics – and its popular version, Christian morality – while accentuates the worldliness of his perspective, its contingent feature and its conditioning by “little things”, decision that seems to carry a relevant philosophical dimension: Nietzsche assumes the partiality and the interest involved in his taking a position within culture.