The task of transvaluation: elucidations from the Nietzsche’s Epistolary in 1888

Abstract

Leaving for Sils-Maria in 6 June 1888, Nietzsche finds forces to completely resume his intellectual activity only at the end of the summer in which his health “had gone downhill” [ins Wasser gefallen’]” (Letter to Meta von Salis, 22 August 1888, KSB 8.397). After concluding the writing of Twilight of the Idols between the end of August and the beginning of September, he then dares to endeavor the “tremendous task of transvaluation [Aufgabe der Umwerthung]”, he outlines the project of this task in four books and he writes, on 3 September, the preface to The Antichrist. Vertiginous movements implying a change of path in his philosophy, although they may be perceived in a logical and chronological sequence both in his annotations of September and later in Ecce Homo, they only gain clarity in the Nietzschian epistolary. Based on it, we will show that, even though there are doubts about the motive that led the philosopher, from 20 November on, to consider The Antichrist as the work of transvaluation (abandoning the writing of the other books of the initial project), the task of transvaluation — initiated in the surroundings of the Silvaplana lake ‒ is inseparable from the thought of the eternal return of the same.

Key Words
Nietzsche; Transvaluation; Task; Project; Correspondence.