O si-mesmo na filosofia de Friedrich Nietzsche: uma investigação sobre seus múltiplos sentidos e seu significado

Abstract

The aim of this doctoral thesis is to investigate the meaning and significance of the self in Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy. The main hypothesis is that the self includes a variety of senses and one meaning. By sense, we mean the various ways in which the self is presented, and by meaning what is actually represented by this notion. We therefore think that the self has many forms, which can be a concept (“instinct”, “ego”, “great reason”, “soul”), a term (“Something”, “It”), a notion (“personal providence”) or even an expression (“to become what it is”, “granite of spiritual fatum”). The meaning, in its turn, always indicates what is proper, insuppressible to a particular individual, typology or culture (such as Greek or German culture). Throughout the investigation, it is possible to identify that the self is connected to a Whole, which varies according to the ontological plan adopted by the philosopher at different moments in his philosophical production. Initially (1872 to 1876), the Whole corresponds to the One-primordial, which acts as a support for the Dionysian and Apollonian impulses, as well as the Will. In a second moment (1878 to 1882), Nietzsche claims ‘psychological observation’ on passions and impulses, as well as questioning the dichotomy between altruism and egoism. The conception of man as a natural being is therefore at stake. In the works after the fourth book of The Gay Science (1883 to 1888), the Whole corresponds to the will to power and the hierarchical organisation of the present forces, both in what it is proper and in the constitution of the world. In other words, the characteristics and aspects of the self will depend on Nietzsche's philosophical journey, as well as the debates he faces. The organisation we adopted with regard to the structure of the chapters stems from this understanding. The first chapter deals with the works from The Birth of Tragedy, 1872, to the Fourth Extemporaneous Consideration: Richard Wagner at Bayreuth, 1876. The second chapter covers the first volume of Human, all too human, from 1878, to the first four books of The Gay Science, from 1882. The third and fourth chapters focus on the approach to the self in the works that begin in 1883, with Thus Spoke Zarathustra, until the final works in 1888.