ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an overview of the book by Álvaro Valls, O crucificado encontra Dionísio: estudos sobre Kierkegaard e Nietzsche (The Crucified Meets Dionysus: Studies on Kierkegaard and Nietzsche). The book is the result of many years of work by the author and collects thirteen essays on Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. The theme of melancholy and modernity can also be found in a sociological perspective in an intriguing work by Harvie Ferguson, called Melancholy and the Critique of Modernity. If Nietzsche seems to comprehend Socrates as the creator of dialectics and a denier of life, and if Kierkegaard sees in Socrates the origin of irony and seeks to take up this position, it could then be said that Valls' text seems to address exactly this confrontation. "Sobre a saúde e a doença" (About Health and Disease) is a discussion that seeks to rescue a function often neglected by philosophy: healing, care, and concern with issues of life and death.
