Nuno Filipe Gonçalves Nunes Ribeiro

Instituto de Estudos em Torno do Modernismo, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal
Estudiante de doctorado

Licenciado en filosofía, Universidade Nova de Lisboa. Prepara su tesis doctoral sobre la reconstrucción del paganismo en el pensamiento de Nietzsche y Pessoa.

Abstract

Dionysus’ Ground and Apollo’s Territory —the Genealogy of the «Meaning of the Earth» in Nietzsche’s Thought

This paper will try to clarify the notion of the meaning of the earth found in Nietzsche’s thought. In order to do so, it will provide a genealogy of the meaning of the earth, drawing particular attention to the notion of a dionysian worldview. In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche argues that the concept of the meaning of the earth represents the dionysian worldview (cf. Ecce Homo). Keeping this point in mind and following the clues given in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, this presentation argues that the genesis of the Nietzschean notion of the meaning of the earth begins with his early considerations concerning the concept of Dionysus. The paper will confront the notions of dionysian ground, found in The Birth of Tragedy, and the concept of the earth found in several passages of Thus Spoke Zarathustra. For a better understanding of the notion of dionysian ground, this paper will show how the aesthetical worldview of Dionysus as the «ground» contrasts with the view of Apollo as the god of limits and frontiers. It will also clarify how these limits and frontiers are established upon the soil of Dionysus, establishing a contrast between what may be called an aesthetics of frontiers and an aesthetics of the absence of frontiers. Furthermore, this paper shows how the concepts of ground and frontier are further developed in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, respectively in the concepts of earth and landmark. The proposed genealogy of the concept of earth will take into consideration the changes in Nietzsche’s thought, namely, his abandoning of the Schopenhauerian presuppositions that were present in The Birth of Tragedy and the assumption of a new worldview based on the concept of will to power. The difference between the concepts of frontier and landmark is also discussed, showing that if, on the one hand, the concept of frontier, as presented in The Birth of Tragedy, concerns mostly the field of aesthetics, on the other hand, the concept of «landmark», present in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, covers a larger range of fields, including all the «false territories» and territorializations created by morals, knowledge, metaphysics and science. All these considerations will lead to an understanding of the common element between the notions of dionysian ground and of the meaning of the earth, which is the disclosing of eternal becoming of life behind all things.