O ser para o sofrimento em Nietzsche e Michel Henry contraste entre a vontade de potência e a vida autoafetiva

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the notions of suffering and its implications in the philosophies of Nietzsche and Michel Henry, considering some concepts that underlie them and demonstrating Nietzsche's influences on Henry's thought, and simultaneously pointing out some elements in which both philosophies resemble and differ. Both Nietzsche and Michel Henry develop philosophies that affirm life and its immanence, highlighting affectivity. However, the differences are decisive. Nietzsche develops the notion of "will to power", dealing with life as affections and instincts that seek to expand, which includes domination. Moreover, Nietzsche's philosophy understands that existence has no intrinsic meaning, and it is up to the subject to determine it. The philosopher criticizes the philosophies of representation, affirming the variability of interpretation according to each human perspective. Henry, on the other hand, drinks from several sources. Although the influence of Nietzschean philosophy is extensive, deep and diverse, his phenomenological influences follow another path, especially with regard to transcendental subjectivity. The philosopher understands life as immanent, giving primacy to his conception of subjectivity to achieve its purest knowledge, although he never rejects its transcendent and empirical dimension, although he also develops his own criticism of the philosophies of representation. Thus, the author develops the notion of self-affection, in which the being of life turns to itself to feel and experience. Both philosophers prescribe the affirmation of life in its immanent and affective aspects for growth, including suffering and joy/higher pleasure as fundamental affections/affective tonalities. However, in Nietzsche this growth is only individual, with the will to domination requiring the incapacitation of the few so that the many may be empowered. Henry will condemn these notions to barbarism, to the devaluation of life, because they disunite, expose and represent the original unity of life in its fundamental affective tonalities.