"Living on the Ice". Resistance and Scepticism in "The Antichrist"

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to reconstruct the ethics of resistance that Nietzsche proposes in The Antichrist, on the basis of the image offered in the prologue as a declaration of intent: “Better to live on the ice […].” This ethics requires of the individual that he should overcome the psychology of conviction or faith and resort, as a method, to philology understood as “ephexis in interpretation”. The Nietzschean approach to this term deriving from Pyrrhonism makes it necessary to measure the utility of sceptical teachings for the individual who aspires to self-realization, to become what one is. To this end, he has to delimit commonplaces and secure his own hermeneutic position that pursues avoiding selfabnegation (Entselbstung) and thus declines to become involved in the democratic routine of modern societies. Consistent with Pyrrhonian scepticism that encourages nurturing distance and indifference, the intention here is to show, firstly, that Nietzsche exclusively addresses a community of like-minded readers, and that, secondly, the political vocation of his proposal is cancelled.