this is exactly why i posted this question-- it seems very relevant to a discussion of Nietzsche. i remember reading several places as well throughout his writing (I just passed a line again in ecce homo today) where he writes that ‘free will’ is ‘ideal’, an illusion, similar to ‘God’. however, he doesnt speak as if we are causally determined, nor does one get the sense by reading him that Nietzsche had a determinist view of life; his writings are consistently open, focusing on overcoming, on possibilities, on change. it is hard to reconcile this change however with the fact that he did not believe in any freedom of the will.
i can see how Nietzsche thought that the will WAS us, and in that sense it controls “us” rather than the other way around. this is like the eternal recurrence, or a constant state of becoming, overcoming and then becoming again. but im more worried here that the sense that Nietzsche was NOT a ‘determinist’, and the fact that he nonetheless seemed to consider human nature “free” in at least some way, seems contradictory… ill admit that these two counter ideas, determinism and freedom, seem to be meshed together in Nietzsche and that he seems to have a perfect understanding of it all, but for myself, this perfect understanding would need more clarity of mind and idea in order for me to grasp just how this fusion of opposites is possible.
i do not consider determinism a religious term, merely because religions make use of the concept. on the surface, and even under closer and deeper examination freedom and free action seems impossible in a causal physical world. yet we FEEL like we are free, and this generates problems. we are inclined to believe we are free, and there can be evidence and examples all the time that humans act freely (because we act despite what is “best” from our point of view, or our actions seem unpredictable)-- of course much of this seeming-freedom just results from our lack of understanding about the numerous underlying biological/neurological and environmental causes for our actions, but nonetheless it does STILL seem that room is opened up for some sort of freedom; the question seems to be how do we define it, how is this freedom possible?
i personally believe that our ability to understand wide amount of information, to have a powerful and open awareness not just of our environment but also of ourselves and our thinking process, is what allows us to act ‘freely’ in the sense of seeing causal forces and therefore (as a corollary to seeing and understanding them prior to their action upon our decisions) being able to CHOOSE to overcome them… the more aware you are, particularly of yourself, your motives and thoughts and biases and predispositions, the more free you would therefore be, considering that you have a wider and more consistent and complete picture of your causal universe… but i am open to the possibility that this concept of freedom is illusory nonetheless, and that we could still be COMPLETELY determined by physical laws (determined in the sense that our actions and therefore thoughts are predestined before they occur; that is, prior to our doing an action, that action itself is INEVITABLE)…
perhaps this is where the room opens up for a concept of ‘freedom’: in the spaces between physical determinism and the lack of inevitability in human action and thought since, at any time, we may become aware of any causal force over us, and therefore choose to override it by virtue of that awareness… im not sure, its a tricky question. but regardless, Nietzsche seemed not to bother with this question othen, and it doesnt seem that he really considered it worth thinking about deeply. Nietzsche seems to believe that we both are what we are (human nature) and that we can “change” and overcome/become (will)-- if this will is “us” in the sense of the force behind the forces, the will of the will, and we are nothing more than a biological machine constructed to express and manifest this will to power, then “freedom” as we commonly understand it seems very hard to define properly…
perhaps this is what you mean Faust when you say that “The free will/determinism nexus is a fiction”; but if so, how can we even come to understand freedom at all? should we just do what Nietzsche appeared to do, accept both that we are not free, but that we can change, even though this change is out of our hands and determined by forces outside ourselves? should we just go on ACTING LIKE or BELIEVING that we are free, merely because we feel that we are, even though we cannot rationally or philosophycally or physically account for this freedom?