16000-05

There are three critical aspects to the conception about death. The first and most apparent revolves around those values or beliefs that involve a denigration or even rejection of life – either this life (as opposed to the ‘afterlife’) or aspects associated with the living body (sex, passion, pleasure, etc.). A key passage in this regard would be Zarathustra on the ‘preachers of death’. The rejection of life on the ascetic priest is only clear; such asceticism is a means to carry on living despite suffering and degeneration. A related idea is a danger that the philosopher will meet in his or her attempt to overcome values. The death of the tight-rope walker, who made danger his ‘vocation’, is an example. Finally, metaphysics will often involve a conceptual rejection of becoming or positing facts and values as eternal. This is often described with metaphors of death: for example, the ‘mummified concepts.

16000-04

Francois de la Rochefoucauld is seventeenth-century French author, much admired by Nietzsche both for the aphoristic form of his Maxims as for the sceptical and even cynical psychological observations about human behaviour and moral values that they have.

16000-03

Daybreak is a subtle move away from the ‘positivism’ of Human, All Too Human. The book begins by returning to the origin of morality, though with a modified model that emphasises evaluation and the drives as origins, and custom as mechanisms. There is an extended discussion of early Christianity in this light. It then turns to contemporary moral practices and social institutions (marriage, education, etc.). By the end of the book, it offers exhortations to a new, future, living and thinking way.