How are we to interpret the “will to power”? For a while, I assumed a reasonable interpretation would be the will of man, or animals in general, towards control over others and his environment. But according to Sauwelios, who seems to be one of the resident Nietzsche experts around here, this is too restricted an interpretation:
Now how is this to be interpreted if not as a certain brand of metaphysics? What does Nietzsche mean by ‘will’? I’m pretty sure he borrowed the concept from Schopenhauer, who is without a doubt a metaphysician and means ‘will’ in precisely a metaphysical sense. What does Nietzsche mean by ‘power’? Does he mean the sort of power men enjoy when they have conquered the will of others? The sort that politicians enjoy? The sort that any dominering personality enjoys over those of more timid character?
Or is the will to power more of a mechanical, indifferent, and unconscious force - something like the ‘forces’ of Newtonian physics? Does ‘power’ simply connote a physical thing’s prevailing influence over the forces of other things in its vicinity and its environment in general - like the Earth’s power to keep us grounded by gravity despite our attempts to break free by jumping or trying to fly. In this case, the will to power can be interpreted in plane physical terms. It wouldn’t be a metaphysical concept.
But that’s the only sense I can think of to avoid metaphysics in the Nietzschean scheme. Other than that, I have no idea how he does it. Perhaps if the “inevitable anthropomorphism” is explained, it might clear things up.
N could only mainly describe what was describable or know what was knowable, and that would be, “things” within the world of life and thought.
Some could say that the WTP is a hint to describing natural selection within the mind.
Stronger desires, or large numbers of desires alike one-another adding to one another, win out over others and produce the primary thoughts and intentions which we have during our life. WTP is the reactor in which perspectives evolve.
I’m not saying that is what Nietzsche thought, or what the truth is.
It’s one way of interpretation, though.
Nietzsche’s will to power has little to do with schopenhauers. Schopenhauer’s takes on the classic form transcendentalism Idealism, and it’s hard to not see his maya as just a modified version of the thing-in-itself. It has a fundamental ontological status. Nietzsche on the other hand doesn’t put his wtp behind reality and existence, but roots it in empirical observation. It is motivated by an anti-foundationalism epistemology, and it seems to be a belief about how the things in the world fit together from the human perspective. It seems that Nietzsche wished to strip our worldview of all metaphysics and mysticism and in it’s place put the most simple and straightforward explanation for how humans relate to the world and how the world relates to itself. That’s why it satifiese the inevitable anthropomorphism. It however, isn’t your classic kind of metaphysics, as the WTP does not have independent ontological status outside of immediate reality. It is exhausted in the goings on of nature and humans, it is in the relations.
Insofar as we need and want explanatory coherence of the world around us, and we’re humans so we want it, then WTP.
Well, that certainly makes sense, except that I would contend with N’s choice of words: “will to power”. If he really is trying to articulate a “belief about how the things in the world fit together from the human perspective”, I say Newton did a far better job. Speaking from my own perspective, which I assume is human enough, I don’t see the world as governed by ‘will’ or that it strives for ‘power’ in the usual human sense. But maybe N prefers these terms only because it is a reaction to Schopenhauer, sort of play on his concept of ‘will’. After all, Schopenhauer himself didn’t use the term ‘will’ in the conventional sense that we are familiar with today. I think ‘conatus’ rings truer. Perhaps, then, what N is trying to do is to penetrate even deeper than Newton, for it could be argued that Newton himself was biased in favor of certain metaphysical presuppositions (i.e. the ideality of ‘natural law’, of ‘forces’, of ‘mechanics’, etc.), and when one gets beyond that, one finds something like this so-called ‘conatus’. No?
Yes, I think enlightenment philosophy represents a brute naturalism that Nietzsche would interpret as nihilistic because it assumes a fundamentally dehumanizing metaphysic in the most pejorative sense. Naturalism leads to the last man. Nietzsche’s particularized version of the conatus seems to marry together empiricism and romanticism, thereby overcoming what probably seemed like an inevitable fall into naturalism and uniting Apollo with Dionysus.
I, like you, don’t think the WTP has anything to do with a will or with classical definitions of power, but the fact that forces are only forces in relations to other forces and this relationship is struggle.
Not necessarily. Metaphysics, at least the way I interpret it, requires abstraction and ideas for one to hold onto. It is a substitute for empiricism when one wants to grasp that which is “beyond”. The ‘conatus’ we’re speaking of is more of a visceral impression that (supposedly) one gets from direct engagement with nature after all cultural or religious conceptual baggage has been done away with. I think what N is saying about Newtonian mechanics is that it heavily taints our vision of the world even today. When it seems second nature to me to perceive the world as governed by forces and mechanical laws, I am unconsciously being persuaded by centuries of entrenched assumptions that can be traced back to Newton. Free man of all such influences, Neitzsche says, and he will see conatus - not as an idea, not as a belief system he clings to - but as a raw and immediate impression.
WTP is a purely and completely physical (i.e. matter/energy) process, nothing spiritual, supernatural or metaphysical. WTP is the idea that every life (and every aspect of life) in existence acts in such a manner as to actualize its “power” or ability to influence events and reality… life seeks that scenario or action which allows itself to exert influence and control over its environment. all life must do this, because to live is to need to influence and control your environment in a meaningful and useful way, otherwise you will die.
its sort of a positing of a universal law of nature, in Nietzsche’s absence of understanding of the real laws of nature, such as thermodynamics or electromagnetism or atomic/quantum forces. WTP is an idea, and a very interesting one to think about and talk about, but its actual relevance to real life is limited… although it all depends on how you think about “will” and “power”.
since im not sure how Nietzsche literally interpreted these two things, its hard to say exactly what he thought regarding WTP. i will only add however that “will” does NOT imply or necessitate consciousness or awareness, and “power” does not imply or necessitate aggression or domination/strength… WTP gains credibility or truthfulness only by being vague and ambiguous with the definitions of ‘will’ and ‘power’-- stretch these concepts to apply to as many instances of life-movement or striving or growth as possible, and the concept makes sense and becomes another perspective on the definition of life itself… but limit your understanding of these concepts, and WTP loses its significance and relevance in the face of what we actually now know scientifically about materialistic life processes.
at best, as i said the idea is a very interesting and worthwhile one to think about deeply, but ultimately its a principle of nature, a law intended to describe physical processes in the universe, and a law which is posited in the (in the 1800s) lack of adequate knowledge of the physical world we live in. if Nietzsche had been alive today, with our knowledge of biology/chemistry/physics, he would likely not have wrote about or advocated for WTP in the way that he (apparently) did back in the late 1800s.
I’m on the fence about his posthumous works, specifically WTP. It comes from his unpublished notes, many of which found there way into his published material in a more refined manor, and some of it did not. Some of it was taken out of the trash bin. Much of the impetus regarding the impact the WTP should have on the worlds understanding of his works issues from a few notes in which Nietzsche planned out a book that was supposedly never published. Hollingdale, in his biography convincingly showed that this supposedly never published book was published as twilight and the anti-christ and “revaluation of all vales” was abandoned. On the other hand all the major Nietzsche interpreters that I respect(Heidegger, Delueze, Klossowski, ect.) focus on the WTP.
Either way, the debate of what weight to give to the WTP seems petty and really doesn’t matter. They are his notes and give incite into his published works whether the WTP was an intended book or not.