Nietzsche and the western decadence: the transversality of death
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31977/grirfi.v25i2.5328Keywords:
Nietzsche; Death; West; Decadence.Abstract
Nietzsche's analyses of decadence that Christianity, Platonism and Darwinism implied for life have been approached from many and diverse perspectives. In this paper, they will be addressed from a concept that, at first, does not seem to have much development or centrality in Nietzsche's writings: the notion of death. This connection will be based on the fact that, for Darwinism, Christianity and Platonism, the question of death is central: the survival of the fittest, the afterlife, life as preparation for the moment of death. If in these perspectives life is considered from its relationship with death, and Nietzsche points out that the West has been sick for two millennia of Platonism (with Christianity and Darwinism as its main substitutes), why is there no greater development in Nietzsche's writings on the concept of death? What will be sought to be substantiated is that, although not in a patent manner, the question of death is transversal to the Nietzschean developments that want to be thought of as novelty and criticism of the other three perspectives mentioned.
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