BODY, NIHILISM AND AFFIRMATION OF LIFE IN FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE’S THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA

Abstract

This paper aims to examine how Nietzsche conceives the body as a driving force capable both of overcoming acute nihilism—resulting from the crisis of Western values and the décadence inherited from metaphysics and the fanaticism of rationality—and of enabling a reinterpretation of life itself, thereby affirming it against the ideals of renunciation and escapism upheld by those thinkers whom Nietzsche regarded as sick and suffering. To this end, it becomes necessary to recover the body from a long-standing misunderstanding that condemned and stigmatized it as a prison and a source of illusion, restoring it to its rightful place as the “great reason,” the foundation of the self, and the guiding thread of fidelity to the earth. Through this perspective, the study seeks to demonstrate how Nietzsche rehabilitates the body and brings it into the light of an affirmative vision of life, rejecting all contempt and negation born from the décadence of Western culture.