We are not “I’s” but rather concentrated centre’s of conflicting forces, namely narratives, that still pursue life under the fiction of The (one and only one) “I” but live as though we our these conflicting narratives?
Is that what the “Death of God” (and nihilism) is? That we can no longer trust in a stable, single Entity (God, Self, or otherwise) but are yet entrusted with the project of carrying out a one-single-entity project?
I have no idea if you’re understanding it correctly or not (it’s much more complex than just what you’ve posted) but nothing you’ve said strikes me as particularly untrue, either. Seems like you’re on-target, sure.
Any further thoughts?
Far from being an expert on Nietzsche, but that does sound like the bottom line.
“Let’s start over from chaos and ignorance of all things.”
It was a sucker play for the Unchosen.
“Let’s all commit suicide and let life begin anew.
You go first.”
I do not mean to claim to be authoritative on this, just give you my take on it.
Although the finding «we are not I-s» is substantially correct in my view, there are some words in it that I don’t agree with.
The self is not a “subject” as classically meant by philosopher. Indeed it’s a conflict of will to power. I am not clear about what you mean with “narrative”, maybe you should define that, but prima facie it’s not the word that sticks here. The prevailing will to power may indeed shape a subject, but it’s… complicated. I have to say that I have no direct knowledge of N.'s texts that can provide an exhaustive account of N.'s theory on subject (and agency). (Brian Leiter presents one that I find substantially correct - regardless the ludicrous language he employs. Not that I recommend it, but it could be a good introduction to the topic).
Actually, within a philosophy where the world is made of will-to-power and eternal recurrence, the subject is a non-entity and a philosophical waste of time…
This view of a composite, chaotic, “flowing” self is a metaphysical position and has not a direct relationship with the death of God and nihilism. That is a historical event, it is the final approach of the Will-to-truth (of a moral attitude to truth) that was started by Plato. The death of God means that is no longer possible to believe in God, see GS, book V, 343 and ff. It is the statement revealing the final aporia of the Western thought molded by Plato.
The death of God then ushers the advent of (European) nihilism.
It is well possible to argue that positing the death of God leads to uproot the subject, as N. does in the the 1st book of BGE. So there is some link, but not in the way your question supposes. You should reverse the order in a way, first is the acknowledgement of the death of God, then comes the theoretical dissolution of the subject.
Finally, we are given no project, we have no goal, no aim… (N. seemingly admits only one’s duty, the becoming of what one is).
We are not “we”, as you just said…
HAHA. This dude is a fuckin’ idiot.
Not acceptable, save it for PM or the Rant House, please.
That’s an interesting explanation Attano -
so you are saying that form, unity, self-hood, is not given, but can be attained?
It appears that this is what it would mean to ‘become who we are’.
The ‘chaos’ of drives, of wills, is forever in flux but holds somehow a potential, that can either be realized, into a ‘character’, or not.
Is this correct in your eyes?
In a word, no. But supporting this involves a very close view to texts, and a painstaking focus on details.
To make things clear, I am exposing my interpretation of N.'s philosophy on this topic, I don’t mean to express my personal beliefs.
Here the question is (as I understand it): even if the subject is not given ex-ante, is it possible to attain it ex-post?
I think that a possible answer is to be drawn out of the aphorisms 16-19 of BGE.
My idea is that here N. critically reviews Transcendental Idealism (i.e. mainly Kant, with some references to German idealists and Schopenhauer) in order to sketch his theory of knowledge (which clearly reaches out to a new metaphysics, refined in subsequent books of BGE, as well as TI and EH). Hence, among the first objects of knowledge, in these aphorisms he dwells on the bundle self-ego-will.
In 19, N. refers to a «synthetic concept of “I”», so, in this sense, what you say is what takes place.
But this synthetic concept is rather a form of perception, the existence of a subject does not become any more real because of this concept. Ultimately the question - if a subject (what classical philosophers meant for subject) can be considered existing under any circumstance - remains unanswered. Why? Because N. maintains that it cannot be known (see aphorism 16), though he clearly doubts of that (thoughts that come when they want, will as a complex passion of command - all this would not fit in the orthodox view of the agent).
However it is possible to argue that a prevailing will-to-power makes a man something most close to what is commonly meant by subject.
I would say that there are two species of this “unifying” will-to-power. One has a physiological-heritage character. This kind of subject is a function of a race, of a specific type, of a recurrent physiological outfit, of inclinations and habits that belong to a lineage and are inherited as it happens for morphological characters, such as the eye-colour. So, coming to your question, a character is a prevailing force in this conflict, I would not say it’s the outcome.
Then there is the far more rare and outstanding case of (great) men that embody the war of conflicting will-to-power - N. refers to Julius Caesar as an instance. These are somehow exceptions and seem to vent the force and the violence of their inner conflict to the outer world, but driven but some uncanny equilibrium that it is “their” will.
(Note that “inner” and “outer” are only figures of speech here, and one should be equally most cautious to consider causation involved in this. In a strictly Nietzschean perspective those terms are meaningless).
One might think that the “inherited” will-to-power is more permanent than the “battling” one. Ultimately it’s just speculation.
Nietzsche says that a man is only a fragment of fatum, the compound of several factor shaped by necessity.
As everything a man does, thinks, senses, absolutely everything about a man is driven by the eternal recurrence, one should wonder if the question is really meaningful, after all.
Created.
The first point he makes is correct; the second point he makes, I think, is a joke.
What are you talking about?
As is clear in the aphorism, what is determining the identity and the action at a moment of a thought, is the value-content that is ‘revealed’ to the ‘subject’, but which I would say substantiates what we may call a subject.
This is not a random or even chaotic process. Some thoughts come to some people - types of thoughts come to types of people. I contend that there is a standard, a generality, tendency, proclivity, in the type of will-compound that makes for a potential subject, that determines the type of values it recognizes as value, that can me met, absorbed, thought, and enacted.
I think it can be both. Character can (perhaps only) be built on character.
Indeed. Not all people or beings are effectively standards, or representative of a “type” - in order to be such, there must be a great ‘inner cosmos’ - an order that is ‘fed’ by the external world, rather than that it is ‘fuel’ to a given standard, passive substance to value system. Such a standard, such a proper subject, values the world in terms of the value-standard that it continually sets, as its main activity of living.
However all entities that prevail as more or less structural constants logically value only that which and only in such a way as it contributes to their structural integrity. With most entities, or will-compounds, these values, this standard, is given by the context in which they arise and grow. They are wholly dependent on their environment for their values, and thus for their (id)entity. In rare cases, we have (id)entities that rather shape their environments - that are themselves agents. More on that here.
[ “Many people have no ‘free’ or primordial will whatsoever as they are only conscious in a social sense, plus the instinctive sense of pain and pleasure. But as soon as a human finds a logos that allows him to direct his course based on his own conscious devices, which means, as soon as he is able to discern values that apply only to him privately, he has established a causal-chord connecting his actions (reactions) directly to the logical (not temporal) cause of his being as a structural coherence; self-valuing.” ]
But what shapes necessity? We can not be satisfied with that word.
Necessity, natural law, causation, even will to power - all these rely on the principle of standard. Force can only affect force in the same context. Will to power is a general context. But it is not a sufficient definition of the particularity of the standard that enables this context - it is rather the logical outcome of such a standard.
Given that standard is the basic formula of existence, and existing is activity, being-standard is the primal activity. Being standard means self-setting, self-establishing. And there the circle is round - we arrive back at the idea of ‘attaining’ or ‘creating’ out of ones chaos of drives a subject.
Your comments elicit some comments from me too.
There are views that I do not share, but I don’t mean that they are mistaken.
This is indeed thin air, one should rejoice that there’s enough to fill the lungs of both of us - and that we can compare.
I will just try to explain why I differ, with no aim at a confutation.
That is not clear to me. I have re-read quickly the aphorism(-s) in question, but could get no reference to what you maintain here.
It seems quite dense too. I see that there is more in your blog about this - yet it remains not very clear to me.
Yes, I am OK with this, certain thoughts are related to certain types and conditions, the foreword to the 2nd edition of GS and parts of TI imply this thesis.
It seems quite consequent from the above premise, but I am uneasy with the term “will-compound”.
Your view is quite legitimate. I stick to mine because I do not see N. admitting compounds (sounds Hegel-like), only prevailing.
N. speaks of one drive, of one instinct that eventually prevails, not of new ones arising from that clash.
If the basic dynamics is that will-to-power tend to enlarge, absorb, get hold of anything else (which yet is - again - will-to-power), it would still be possible to maintain that the outcome is a compound - I acknowledge that.
However, I contend that there is only this tension for supremacy, the prevailing that tend to “silence” what has been conquered and the conquered that reacts. The seemingly comprehensive will would then be the reflection of the varying degree of supremacy between contrasting wills(-to-power).
This prevailing-only dynamics would also explain to me how elevation requires finesse. In the permanent tension of a never-ending conflict, finesse would be the capability to harmonise conflicting wills in “one direction”, it’d be a sort of policy skill capable to join forces of different wills in a unique strength.
In that respect one may even say compounding, actually. So in this respect I come to a view similar to yours (and to Jakob’s), yet it’s the compounding of forces exerted, not of various drives becoming one - I maintain that they remain distinct.
Finally, on this we’re lost in metaphysics. To my knowledge N. has never explained how will-to-power would differentiate itself, nor how it would join to or merge with others - though we can find plausible that this differentiation is a necessary part in its essential drive for conquering.
Yes. I would only observe that the drive is the same in both cases, ultimately more growth, more expansion, more power.
“Structural integrity” is the minimal precondition and what can be achieved by most, exceptions become “dictators of civilization”.
Eternal recurrence.
According to what the man said, there’s only will-to-power (and eternal recurrence).
Natural laws and causation are only interpretations or, in my view, illusions (and neither is condemnable in N.'s view). Maybe standards (I prefer the word type) too, though this is a concept that N. uses here and there.
We can infer that a standard is a recurrent “phenomenology” of will-to-power.
In this respect I maybe parallel your view. As individuals are only a function (or a conflict) of will-to-power, types are something before and after them. Character exists independently from subjects, not the other way round. Characters exist properly, individuals not really.
I find this thesis captivating, it has a sort of Pre-Socratic appeal. But as far as N. is concerned, I do not find this position in his works.
I agree that I think differently than Nietzsche. I will try to clarify. Nietzsche says:
“After all, one has even gone too far with this “one thinks”—even the “one” contains an interpretation of the process, and does not belong to the process itself.”
But who or what does this interpreting?
I contend that interpreting exists, and is part of the process.
Depending on the interpretation, it may adequately represent the process.
We must refine the interpretation of “one” - this is not necessarily given. What do we perceive as the atom, or as the willing subject?
Interpreting is what I call valuing, and the interpretation the value-content.
By this interpreting/valuing, a subjects substance is (re)created, replenished, ‘‘made to arise’’ as it does perpetually out of no-thingness/flux.
I agree that I take a step where Nietzsche, whose business is scepsis, refuses to tred.
I think however that my step is justified even from a Nietzschean scepsis - for we can not be said to be sceptical when we insist that there is in fact no subject. That would itself be a very radical interpretation.
I believe that I do not make any assumptions beyond the assuming (taking-on) of action, life, will to power itself, when I forge a definition of the being from the products of Nietzsches sceptical sugrgery.
Summarizing my position: it is valuing (interpreting) which constitutes what we experience and interpret as a being. But what allows valuing? There must be a standard. Value is after all measure. And strong versus weak does not meanin anything in itself, as these are only predicates. To speak, to be logical, we must have ‘‘cases’’. We must for example have strong will versus weak will.
But what is this will? Is it not a subject? And what is the subject if not a standard of value?
So we asymptotically approach an ontology of value. We can never quite explicate it, as the concept value underlies the very nature of language, and concepual thought, itself.
I agree with your objections and corrections. The strongest will, when it manages to be highest, conditions all the other wills to its own terms, so that the compound is effectively one will.
Our task as humans (the master-type, who wills a self, and knows that it is not given but conquered, created) is to hierarchize our drives. We can constantly exist in flux, which is the Dionysian suffering, we can submit to external standards, which is half-life, or we can forge ourselves into a standard to our Dionysian chaos, so that it becomes an Olympus of will, a magnificence, an artwork.
I agree, the forces can be broken apart from the pyramid, such as in a ‘‘slave revolt’’. They are only one, in that a master - will effectively signifies all within the logos of the whole.
Indeed, that is where I found my necessity, my philosophical task.
Indeed - and if such dictatorship is an entity’s maximal precondition it is the minimal precondition to a greater entity - the dictator becomes the master-signifier of a greater whole.
The smaller entities then become awar eof this significance as truth - depending on their type they would embrace this truth as their truth (noble), or as the truth (ignoble).
Can you explain that? I have always been at odds with the ER as an obtological device. I have interpreted it as an agent of a state of consciousness.
I have never been at ease with The Seven Seals - I find that Nietzsche overstretches himself, and when I first read it in German I was physically nauseated as I sensed that he abandoned his reason for madness, in a mad will to submit the unsignifiable process, and by doing so damaged, tore apart himself.
Yes, exactly.
And in this sense I can agree with the ER - that it is a perpetually self-affirming, self-setting standard. This is in fact how Capable, of the before the light forum ( a collective project of him and me ) interprets it. I am much more at ease with this approach.
The possibility of type is the possibility of being itself. Type, thus difference, is implicit in the concept being. Ábsolute homogeneity equals nothingess, equals impossibility.
I humbly accept that as a great compliment.
If Nietzsche is in a sense the anti-Plato, then I am happy to be perceived as moving back in time respective to Plato - that means I am moving forward from Nietzsche.
Nietzsche is clearly the standard, the basis of philosophy, but I think we are now able to positively build on his foundation.
It looks like the standard “self” has become more on weight than even power.
One needs clearly to declare what for himself is power in the “will to power”. He must use his own words to define it if he wants to avoid the accusation of being a torturer of nature, and we need this accusation today more than ever, and we will need it until Christianity is broken apart.
Can this sentence be understood from another post of view?
Maybe all objections are just slave (subject) rebellions? One has replaced agreeing with “loyalty”.
You gave me a number of things to ponder, and I am sincerely grateful.
All these questions are most legitimate and I can’t say that Nietzsche disproofs them, thou he presents a different perspective in my view.
I have experienced some stirring while reading and re-reading this. I have the brilliant «will as a standard of value» swirling in my mind, it points me to GS, V, 344 & 345. It takes me also to reconsider some things that Gianni Vattimo wrote in his The subject and the mask (which is Heidegger’s territory) .
I do not feel like tackling any of these points, at least for the moment, I need some decanting first.
There is possibly one more step, thew will to overcome the self. Not to give it away, but to consciously merge into the flux. Joyfully dissolving, the peak of consciousness becomes the ultimate sacrifice. And that leads to the Zarathustra.
I am always most cautious when handling the Zarathustra, I never feel like I can express any view based on it. The book is too open and then too specific - purposely. (I felt comforted reading an interview to Lampert, where he explained how he spent a decade on the book - with a lot of Sitzfleish).
So, about the seven seals, I guess (and I am just guessing) it’s more related to that step hinted above, becoming the flux, the eternal recurrence - portrayed here as a sacred, intimate, sensual bond like marriage. N. stresses the desire to procreate sons, descendants given by the love for eternity. One may see these sons as both the projection of Z. into ER as well as the impulse to fertilize eternity by releasing his self into it.
Anyway, all this is way too shaky and I do not feel comfortable in formulating any of these views. The Z. remains to me a sort of very private encounter with its author, something one does not speak easily about.
Coming to the eternal recurrence, well… I have been baffled by it for years, until eventually it became very simple.
The most literal take it’s the one to me. (That occurred to me quite often when dealing with N. - and not only with him. One has to “deleverage” interpretation as much as one can. Quite usually the concepts stand before us expressed in the most clear and accessible way, the hindrance to understanding is given by our countless assumptions and hypotheses, not by the text).
Finally, the eternal recurrence is the doctrine saying that everything, regardless whether we experience it as a mental or a physical state, takes place necessarily. There is only one way in which things happen, as for the past, the present and the future.
Never the chance determines any outcome, in fact there is no chance or possibility, everything that happens - mental and physical - is due to happen and it couldn’t have been different. The lives of everyone, the totality of their acts, feelings, thoughts… everything, absolutely everything is “written” and happens as it is “written”. (So, in this respect, an individual would become only an aspect of ER, a «fragment of fatum», as he said).
I find that there are not many people buying this. Why’s that? Well, I guess that somehow it seems terribly un-sophisticated, almost superstitious. Yet, it’s also very pre-Socratic, don’t you think? Btw, looking at it more theoretically, I guess that one can’t falsify it… at least I could find no way.
I support this interpretation basically because of two elements. The first, as I said, is the text of GS, IV, 341 - and I did not find anything in the Z. contrasting that.
The second element, and this one is more propaedeutical, is the parallelism with Spinoza (which also provides guidelines on the nature of will-to-power). N. studied (in the public library, it seems) Spinoza during his first stay in Sils Maria, when it occurred to him the «abyssal thought» of the ER (and he conceived the figure of his Z.). In those days N. wrote to Overbeck that Spinoza was his predecessor.
Then there is the recurrent question whether will-to-power and eternal recurrence are not mutually exclusive.
Vaste débat… I have no answer for this one, if not that Nietzsche always refused the systematic approach, considering it as “a lack of honesty”.
Here my perspective differs. To me self-affirming is ultimately surrender, surrender to will-to-power and to ER. This is what makes the saint as well as Cesare Borgia possible…
Your approach seems a lot more “active” than mine. The agent to me is a “dealer” of will-to-power, he’s not a user, he’s being used. The force that he channels around him it is not him, he’s its puppet. He exists inasmuch that force uses him, and the quality of his existence is determined by how much that “force is strong in him” - actually determining the perception of a strong individuality.
Again I parallel your views in a way, but coming from a different angle.
I would not say it like that, yet that are many elements that I could make mine. As I said above, I need more time for this.
And as a compliment it was intended. I am a fan of some pre-Socratics too, mainly Heracleitus (like Sauwelios, probably) - and a big fan of Thucydides.
Keep on the good work.
Nihilism does not depend on a lack of God or religion, it depends on a lack of being confined to any one ideal, even Nietzsche’s ideals. Nihilism is not an anti religious philosophy per se, it is an anti dogma philosophy, to first grow one must accept nothing.
The N guy lived in the wrong time to believe that you can will yourself to power, I Think the only way you can is to transcend being human, and that is no mean feet even now, and given he was so far ahead of his time, killing God is far beyond our scope let alone man.
Although I might be wrong. 
What is “power”? Good question…
I can only think of some infinite set of situations describing it, nothing too “intensional”. I may volunteer something like “the condition that it takes for prevailing, expanding, conquer, submit”. I guess that it would not be acceptable to you.
In a Nietzschean perspective, here we get to the very basics and ultimately its metaphysical… It’s a way to define, it doesn’t accept a definition easily.
As it is, your post is not very accessible to me.
I would appreciate if you present your question and your view with more details - or with “more”, tout-court - before dealing with it.
For instance, «torturer of nature» would deserve some explanation, in my opinion.
Torture of nature - one needs first to have a clear picture of the natural development of morals. When religion takes over and interrupts this, then it is a torture.
Also nihilism is a torture, since “man is (naturally) the moral animal”. - Nietzsche
What the Greeks can not deliver to us, history can, or it isn’t possible. Read my signature.
I still have problems to grasp what you mean.
I do not see the link between torture and the natural development of morals, you don’t explain why this clear picture of the natural development of morals would matter - not to imply that it would not, why it becomes relevant in the discussion about the self and the subject - not to imply that it is irrelevant.
I also have not clear why you requested a definition of “power”.
As for Greeks and history, what makes you think that? What would they deliver?
I am willing to engage in a conversation, but it’d be helpful if you can volunteer a more comprehensive view, or something more to chew, anyway.
(As for your signature, are you sure that all those quotes - except the one of yourself - are accurate?)
Because non-nihilists have a goal and want the means too.
Nihilists think everything “is” and nothing shall become.
That is how parasite work. He is fully dependent on the “is” outside…
Is there food?
Is there clothing?
Is there money?
And who has stolen “it” from me?
And not how can I be useful!
Consequently there are too many ISes around…