Publication at Faculty of Humanities |
2018
Abstract
The study interpretes Nietzsche's bestowing virtue (schenkende Tugend) as a cure for degeneration (Entartung). Nietzsche understands his Present Age - similiarly to Kierkegaard - to be declining, degenerated and decadent.
In reaction to this viewpoint, in reaction to the refusal of the idea of progress, Nietzsche formulates his philosophical project as the diagnostics of decadence and the search for new possibilities of man. Degeneration is understood as a bodily appropriation, incorporation of such moral judgements that rid the man of his freedom and call upon his decline.
Degenerationis thus bodily, yet its origin is moral. The bestowing virtue is Zarathustra's cure for degeneration - the cure to heal the body.