El ocaso de los ídolos

friedrich nietzsche

«Este escrito, que no llega siquiera a las ciento cincuenta páginas, de tono alegre y fatal, un demonio que ríe —obra de tan pocos días que vaciló en decir el número— es la excepción en absoluto entre libros: no hay más sustancioso, más independiente, más demoledor, más malvado. Si alguien quiere formarse brevemente una idea de cómo, antes de mí, todo se hallaba cabeza abajo, empiece por este escrito. Lo que en el título se denomina ídolo es sencillamente lo que hasta ahora fue llamado verdad. El ocaso de los ídolos, dicho claramente: la vieja verdad se acerca a su final.»

Así escribió Nietzsche sobre este libro en Ecce Homo. Friedrich Nietzsche escribió El ocaso de los ídolos o Cómo se filosofa con el martillo al comienzo del otoño de 1888, en la época que él considera la más fecunda de su vida. Tres meses después, en diciembre, le sobrevino la parálisis que traería como consecuencia un estado de incapacidad mental del que no habría de reponerse. Después de la lectura de este libro, nadie permanecerá indiferente.

Algunos se irritarán y recordarán la leyenda negra : «Nietzsche», el precursor del nazismo»; otros se indignarán porque «actuar y pensar de acuerdo a lo que “sabemos”, es decir, actuar de acuerdo al instinto a pesar y en contra del proceso de alienación que la sociedad —cualquiera— opera sobre nosotros» es difícil ; otros quedarán perplejos. Es una lectura perturbadora en cuanto sugiere pensamientos y actitudes que rompen radicalmente con las normas establecidas.

Genres philosophynonfictionclassicsgerman literaturepsychology19th centurygermanyreligionessaysliterature

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 24,1889

This edition

Format: 176 pages, Paperback
Published: January 1, 2013 by TusQuets Editores
ISBN: 9789871210220
ASIN: 9871210221
Language: Spanish; Castilian

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Richard Wagner

Wilhelm Richard Wagner (1813 – 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his later works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both t...

About the author

friedrich nietzsche

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a German classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture, who became one of the most influential of all modern thinkers. He began his career as a classical philologist before turning to philosophy. He became the youngest person to hold the Chair of Classical Philology at the University of Basel in 1869 at the age of 24, but resigned in 1879 due to health problems that plagued him most of his life; he completed much of his core writing in the following decade. In 1889, at age 44, he suffered a collapse and afterward a complete loss of his mental faculties, with paralysis and probably vascular dementia. He lived his remaining years in the care of his mother until her death in 1897 and then with his sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche. Nietzsche died in 1900, after experiencing pneumonia and multiple strokes.
Nietzsche's work spans philosophical polemics, poetry, cultural criticism, and fiction while displaying a fondness for aphorism and irony. Prominent elements of his philosophy include his radical critique of truth in favour of perspectivism; a genealogical critique of religion and Christian morality and a related theory of master–slave morality; the aesthetic affirmation of life in response to both the "death of God" and the profound crisis of nihilism; the notion of Apollonian and Dionysian forces; and a characterisation of the human subject as the expression of competing wills, collectively understood as the will to power. He also developed influential concepts such as the Übermensch and his doctrine of eternal return. In his later work, he became increasingly preoccupied with the creative powers of the individual to overcome cultural and moral mores in pursuit of new values and aesthetic health. His body of work touched a wide range of topics, including art, philology, history, music, religion, tragedy, culture, and science, and drew inspiration from Greek tragedy as well as figures such as Zoroaster, Arthur Schopenhauer, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Richard Wagner, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
After his death, Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth became the curator and editor of his manuscripts. She edited his unpublished writings to fit her German ultranationalist ideology, often contradicting or obfuscating Nietzsche's stated opinions, which were explicitly opposed to antisemitism and nationalism. Through her published editions, Nietzsche's work became associated with fascism and Nazism. 20th-century scholars such as Walter Kaufmann, R.J. Hollingdale, and Georges Bataille defended Nietzsche against this interpretation, and corrected editions of his writings were soon made available. Nietzsche's thought enjoyed renewed popularity in the 1960s and his ideas have since had a profound impact on 20th- and early 21st-century thinkers across philosophy—especially in schools of continental philosophy such as existentialism, postmodernism, and post-structuralism—as well as art, literature, music, poetry, politics, and popular culture.