The Nietzschean transvaluation of cultural decadence in first Untimely Meditations

Abstract

Starting from the category of transvaluation that Nietzsche proposes in his mature work, an interpretive reading is offered on the first Untimely Meditations. It seeks to make clear how the author is distancing himself from the different theoretical positions in which he was formed, transvaluing them in new interpretive senses and in this he leaves traced an aesthetic-political task. This analysis focuses on the problem of cultural decadence raised from his first works that will later be linked to the notion of nihilism. The reflections around Strauss, education, and history as a science allow us to detect the beginning of a process of distancing, separation and/or detachment from the figure of the camel, which in turn implies a process of transvaluation that will lead to Nietzsche to create the figure of free spirits. In this sense, this work evidence how, from the first Nietzschean writings, traces of an intellectual itinerary can be found that proposes to rethink the foundations, forms, and contents that are legitimized and distributed in the culture of his time, promoting the creation of new ways to live-with.