Linguagem, civilização e moral no pensamento de Friedrich Nietzsche

Abstract

This study analyzes Friedrich Nietzsche's critique of Western civilization, taking his radical distrust of language as a guiding thread. The investigation posits that Nietzschean philosophy is not merely a theoretical deconstruction, but offers a path toward overcoming moral and existential decadence. Methodologically, the study relies on the analysis of the author's primary works, supported by the theoretical framework of commentators such as Patrick Wotling and Carlos Alberto Ribeiro de Moura. Initially, it examines the genesis of language in the essay On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense, revealing that truth is not a reflection of reality, but a metaphorical and conventional network that, once petrified, becomes the foundation of a deception that defines civilization. Subsequently, the research delves into the relationship between language and the formation of civilization, discussing how the crystallization of words serves as a tool for establishing herd morality and domesticating instincts. It analyzes how this scenario culminates in the creation of bad conscience—a mechanism through which the individual introjects guilt and submits to a regulatory authority. Finally, the will to power is presented as the Nietzschean response to decadence, understood not as a first principle, but as an interpretive hypothesis that reads reality through the body and the affirmation of life. It concludes that, by unmasking language and morality as conventions, Nietzsche opens space for overcoming decadent man in favor of a new mode of existence, capable of creating new values and affirming life in its growing multiplicity.