The "music of oblivion" and the "ideal of a human-superhuman well-being and goodwill". About nihilism, transfiguration and art of living in the works of Nietzsche

© 2016 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston. This paper is on the question what 'nihilism' means according to Nietzsche, how one could live with it, and in what way art could be of help for that task. The answer to these questions is given on the basis of the fifth book of the Gay Science and, because of the role given to the concept of 'transfiguration', of parts from the new preface to that book as well as the Birth of Tragedy. First I present a structure of the fifth book of the Gay Science to demonstrate that nihilism is a dead end for the philosopher: the abolishment of one's 'reverences', i. e. the criticism of one's ideals (GS 346), will inevitably prove to be driven by ideals itself. The task therefore is not to overcome nihilism but to be able to live with it. Nietzsche refers to the 'art of transfig uration' (GS, Preface 3); in the Birth of Tragedy he has explained art as transfiguration through an interpretation of Rafael's painting Trasfigurazione. Painting, though, is an art of viewers and as such an 'art before witnesses' (GS 367). Music instead which comes to the fore in the second half of the fifth book of the Gay Science is experienced and felt as life, as 'music of life' (GS 372). Lost in music the subject forgets about itself and drops every idealism..

Jaar van publicatie:2016