Nietzsche: from the casuistry of egoism to amor fati

Author(s)

Stelio de Carvalho Neto

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD)
• Defense date: 2018-03-15

Examining board members

Carlos Alberto Ribeiro de Moura; Daniel Pereira Andrade; Maria Lucia Mello e Oliveira Cacciola; Thelma Silveira da Mota Lessa da Fonseca

• Advisor: Carlos Alberto Ribeiro de Moura

Abstract

Our aim with this work is to establish a clearer understanding of Nietzsche\'s approach to the themes of selfishness and generosity. The problem appeared in our reading of the chant The Bestowing Virtue, from Thus Spoke Zarathustra. There, Nietzsche praises a healthy and holy selfishness that has to be distinguished from another kind of selfishness, an all-too-poor, a hungry selfishness that always want to steal, that selfishness of the sick, the sick selfishness. To the holy selfishness is related the search for a virtue that predicates itself of the attributes of a rare and precious metal, the attributes of gold: The highest virtue is uncommon and useless, it is shining and mellow in lustre: the highest virtue is a bestowing virtue. The idea of a generous selfishness, paradoxical at first, gave rise to our work. How to reconcile selfishness and bestowal? The answer seems to be in Zarathustra: becoming a gift. There we found a fist clue to the resolution of our problem: the relation between selfishness and becoming. We suspect that the healthy selfishness is the same as care of the self (suspicion allowed by the etymology of the German noun Selbstsucht, which meaning can be either a lust for oneself, or a search for oneself). This selfishness seems to be a condition for one to become a gift. We will verify our hypotheses in the three chapters planned for our dissertation: 1) Egoism of the moneymaker and refined egoism in Schopenhauer as educator; 2) Healthy selfishness, sick selfishness and the bestowing virtue in Thus spoke Zarathustra; 3) Ecce Homo: from the casuistry of egoism to amor fati. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 15/19356-5 - Nietzsche: from the casuistry of egoism to amor fati
• Grantee: Stelio de Carvalho Neto
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master