ILP thread on value-ontology (starting with Nietzsche, WTP)

Value-ontology subordinates all willings to power, all objectivity, and all expanse of power of any sort to a more fundamental self-referentiality that is the frame in which all other valuations/willing occur and must occur. Selves value - so what is a “self” that “values”? Valuing activity in its greatest sufficiency is self-reference, a circle. Why does this circle move, stray beyond only itself? Value is an over-flowing, self-reference may attain a greatest sufficiency but never a perfection, as circling involves spatial-temporal construction and at least the always potential for an entropy of energetic escape.

This idea is still very, very new. Its birth is slow, but even so far powerful implications stem from it, move just below the surface. It touches on what Nietzsche aspired to with revaluation of values, except in order to accomplish such a thing it is necessry to revalue revaluation itself, to seat value as the fundamental act and to subordinate all values to the valuer. Where this begins to take place, seemingly limitless utilities and possibilities begin to emerge.

As Fixed Cross has already said here, said of value-theory better than I:

Exactly. Value is that which establishes, grounds, predicates these terms as well as their supposed dualisms. The name value is not chosen arbitrarily to represent this idea. It is the recognition that without a “justification” qua standard no structure/being is possible and that no willing can occur without doing so based on such a prior standard of the ‘that which wills’, of the that from which a willing/s emerge as potent striving referentialities. Willing to power cannot be “pure willing” in a void, it is directionally relational and referential, it orients and is itself an orientating. So what is this orientating in terms of? Ultimately we are brought to the threshold where exteriority collapses back into an interiorizing from which most fundamentally it emerges and draws its own potency and ‘power’.

Yes. And through this we see that willing to power is secondary, it emerges from the nature of a subject which wills. The subject may will to itself, will from itself, will away from itself or toward itself, but whichever happens to be the case it always and only wills in terms of it’s own (standard of) value. It is in terms of itself that value is valuable, and where values go under and are subordinated here another valuation succeeds in reorientating and reinscribing value in terms of itself.

One of the problems we face here is that the common terms of Nietzsche’s are less than adequate to explain or offer a platform for development and exploration of value-ontology. Value ontology was developed external to a Nietzschean system, and attempting to go from Nietzsche to value-ontology can only ever be a partial success, at best, but will certainly create as many complications as possible resolutions. (A Heideggerian system, being far subtler than Nietzschean systems, seems more able to well capture value-ontology). The only effective way is to move from value-ontology to Nietzsche since value-ontology is external to Nietzsche’s system but also is able to explain it – to explain it to the extent that Nietzsche’s terms carry an actual meaning that is able to withstand the highest degree of scrutiny.

Yes - we find the valuer behind all value. This is far more than a language game or a mere relation of terms. This speaks to the nature of things, and leads us directly into the root of consciousness. From here we can perceive how this root is no different from that of so called unconscious or non-living things. Value theory is able to unite vastly different fields within each other, in part because it has no need to subordinate these higher understandings to a crude and simplistic “striving for power” only. Unlike Will to Power theory value-ontology has the ability to reverse and redefine previous relational systems and the referents within them, to inscribe new ways of encounter and new logics of systems. The logic of power is bound within its own confines – the logic of value seats value everywhere it is found, in context and extent of actual and possible effects. Entire fields of possibility open up thus, and not just to us (the “thinking subject”).

Willing to power fails to adequately capture self-referential value, subjectivity, firstly because this willing leaves insufficiently developed the that which wills, and secondly because power encapsulates a different sense of this interaction as interpretation than does value: to will to power is to expand for the sake of expansion, consolidation, influence; to value is to relate an other to oneself in terms of oneself, to create (a) meaning. It cannot be the case that all that is going on is “willings to power for the mere sake of power itself”, something else must be going on here. The notion of power is still evoked with valuation but valuing spans much farther than mere power-theory can capture alone. Value often involves a deliberate “loss of power” within an objective/otherness context-environment NOT in the sense that this increases power elsewhere or in some other manner, but simply because such loss is an effect of a more essential fidelity to one’s own terms for the sake of this “one’s own” alone.

Now, I propose that in order to effectively move here we must give up attempts to explain value-ontology or any aspect thereof from within an appeal, total or patially so, to a Nietzschean system. Rather we move with the direct implications of value-ontology itself and reverse this valuation! Let us see which perspective emerge as the most valuable.

Aha! No I had not made the link to the passage you mean. A compliment indeed and a very interesting one, if this is what Cezar meant. It is true that, upon setting foot on a greater philosophical reality were metaphysics is no longer necessary (and this is in fact what has happened, “God”, with the traditional meaning, is not only become unnecessary but impossible), I have to move down and up again on such a ladder… although not as radically far down as Nietzsche imagined, as value-ontology is not actually that difficult to understand, does not really require, as far as I can see it now, myth-creating and holy lies… but perhaps perhaps I do not see the entire scope of the work that is ahead.

I fail to see where a will to objectivity has taken hold of my thinking, but I can not deny that it does, there is no doubt much that I do not see. If you see it in my expressed preference, know that I am fully aware that this is my own, subjective and contextual judgment.

Yea.

And I certainly am aware that Cezar is worth infinitely more than Sauwelios to Cezar. But perhaps I have indeed not done him justice. It is just that he does not seem interested in the specific content of the thread. My value-judgment was restricted to S/C’s worth to this thread, here and now, in this context.

I see that aletheia has done the work of explaining this. I would only be repeating him.
This is the origin:

“Willing to power fails to adequately capture self-referential value, subjectivity, firstly because this willing leaves insufficiently developed the that which wills.”

And by explaining the “that which wills”, also the how of the willing is further explained.

The will to power describes the activity of self-valuing entities (forms / forces) when they come into contact with each other. These entities can be either atoms or humans, or anything in between. Neither self-valuing nor willing-to-power needs to be conscious. In fact I believe that consciousness has been usefully redefined (made less spectacular, strange) by interpreting it as simply a more complex self-valuing / valuing in terms of self-value / willing to power/increase in self-value.

Let me be clear: I am not greater than Nietzsche, but I do reach higher. I stand on his shoulders. My thoughts could not exist without his. I have surpassed the limits of his thoughts, yes. By means of the very thoughts which before had these limits.

I think and write with the purpose furthering philosophy, not to appear greater than someone else to someone else. Having stressed that the above is an argument by your hand, not mine, I compliment you on your following ‘defense of Nietzsche’ if I may call it that. I will use your work here for my real purpose, which is not to prove myself greater than Nietzsche, but to build onward with what he made possible.

Rather, it is in the statement(s) he did not make, conclusions he did not explicitly draw from his thoughts, which are in my eyes all correct and necessary.

Nietzsche leaves this unaddressed: what is doing the valuing? How can valuing occur at all? What is subjectivity?
Let me translate from his notebooks a passage that illustrates how Nietzsche reaches for, points to, a value-ontology without yet being able to make it explicit.

“The powerful organic principle impresses me so, precisely due to the ease with which it assimilates inorganic substances in itself. I do not know how this purposefulness is explainable simply by increase. I would sooner believe that there always have been organic entities. -” ( 1883 12 [39] )

As you may see, value-ontology explains away the need for organic entities at the basis of all willing to power, and explains (makes understandable) also this “impressive” assimilating behavior as it exists in the in-organic.

Yes, I noticed that. I had assumed it was an error.

Both are quite dramatic errors, this one possibly worse than the last. I had already automatically corrected this in my mind while reading it.

Interesting indeed. For how can one combine the concepts chaos and sensation? A sensation implies a subject, there would have to be a chaos of subjects – but a subject already implies an order, a mechanism, a form-in-time – a self-referential circuit.

This is precisely where my proposed mechanism of self-valuing provides further insight.

It is indeed, but thereby this positing is not yet explained. How can something posit something, if it has not posited itself first – as a positing ? And how can something posit anything, except by a standard-value? How can a standard-value arise, in the most fundamental case, chaos ?

It is to make this answerable that I posit the mechanism [self-valuing / valuing in terms of self-value], as emerging spontaneously out of chaos / no-thingness – possible simply by the lack of its impossibility.

Very good. Two comments:

  • The will to power is not the most fundamental activity, as it is based on the existence of subjectivity, which still had to be explained.

  • Nietzsche did indeed aim to abolish the distinction between true and apparent. I have continued this work, and succeeded – e.g. by showing that whatever is apparent to a subject must be true to its terms, where it was already clear that whatever is true to a subject does so by virtue of its appearance to it.

aletheia, I’m still waiting for you to respond to this challenge—unless you are for all practical purposes, at least, interchangeable with Fixed Cross, in which case I refer you to my last post from November 6.

I contend that valuation is interpretation: interpretation of something (and be it oneself) as valuable to something (someone!) else. (To say that something is valuable to itself is nonsense, by the way.) In fact, valuation is probably identical with interpretation: inasmuch as interpretation is always valuation, is always interpretation in terms of value (e.g., an interpreter who translates a word from a foreign language into a word his employer may understand: in which context understanding is considered valuable). As such, valuation is will to power, an act of the will to power—as I already argued 1.5 years ago here: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100412100113AAQSots.

First of all ontology is a “branch of metaphysics”. What has that to do with Nietzsche?

Are you not talking in this thread about value as a thing in itself?

I haven’t seen a single personal experience from your self anyway!

The source of your “self-value” is most probably in religion!

I am waiting for almost a decade to see Sauwelios and Jakob taking responsibility for their acts and words, but until now without success.

It seems always someone else to be responsible…

But as you may see, this note is from 1883. The “subjects” he mentions in that second quote from 1887, for example, need not be organic.

But on page 1 of this thread, you said:

There are only two alternatives: either something was always there, or it came from nothing (which is technically saying the same thing, by the way). You simply replace a God That has always existed with a God That “created Himself from nothing”…

Well, first off, I don’t think it can be explained (to say that it emerged out of nothing is no more an explanation than to say that it always existed—see above), and second, the notion of “subjects that will” is subject to Nietzsche’s critique of the concept “subject”:

“If the innermost essence of being is will to power, if pleasure is every increase of power, displeasure every feeling of not being able to resist and dominate; may we not then posit pleasure and displeasure as cardinal facts? Is will possible without these two oscillations of Yes and No? But who feels pleasure?.. But who wants power?.. Absurd question, if the essence is itself power-will and consequently feelings of pleasure and displeasure! Nonetheless: opposites, obstacles are needed; therefore, relatively, encroaching units…” (Nietzsche, The Will to Power, section 693, entire.)

This may be a good occasion to start reading a book I recently acquired. It’s titled The Quantum Nietzsche.

http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?p=2084622#p2084622

This has something to do with a stupid ILP topic where underage (irresponsible) people bash about NOTHING.

Or maybe you just don’t understand it—like this one: http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?p=2130810#p2130810.

I understand perfectly well that the source of all metaphysics is weakness!
Something that you obviously avoid to think of like the dog avoids the wolf.

You have nonsensed my son, who can save you now?

“Metaphysics” in the popular sense of the word, or in the true, Aristotelian sense?

Aristotle was not so true. They both, Aristotle and Plato were offering things that didn’t belong to them. Copy-cats. I didn’t even read anything from them about metaphysics. One must save his eyes for better things.

I wasn’t talking about the content of Aristotelian metaphysics. I was talking about the meaning of the term “metaphysics” in Aristotelianism. Nietzsche’s doctrine of the will to power is metaphysical in that sense: it’s a teaching about existence as a whole.

Nietzsche’s WTP is not a teaching as a whole!

Nietzsche in the teaching of the ER clearly says there are centers of energy and combinations of those centers, and he clearly denies anything “whole”.

There is a stupid chaos from which fckn stars are born!

Perpetuum mobile!

Yes: that there are only such centers and combinations of those centers.

So what? You can specify what they are so you can distinguish what is impossible, or what?

Again that sht “thing in itself”?

Is that Nietzschean? Is it you idiot?

Sauwelios ist die Sau which will rather believe in Nothing than not to believe. Ende Gelände.

To the question of “What is Cezar contributing to this thread?” the answer is “Opposing it in a simmilar way as Nietzsche might have opposed it.”.

The accusation that you are using metaphysics and thus continuing christianity is a Nietzshean one. What is your answer?

Nietzche wasn’t perfect. He had some points though, which some people can find useful.
We shouldn’t look at only a man when we are dreaming and forming ideas.
I don’t think Nietzche’s goal was to guide the world or provide a system like that.
Religious figures would like everyone on the planet to follow their ideology word for word,
in hopes that that would cause some sort of eutopia. But N didn’t do that. So when someone
tries to get that out of Nietzche, an ‘ontology’, they will have to make most of it up themselves.