Ornello, the German language made an exception of that said rule long ago, very long before Nietzsche wrote his books; and later the English language made this exception too.
So “Nomen + zu + Nomen” is an accepted exception of the rule “Nomen + zu + Verb”.
Exactly the same in English: “noun + to + noun” is an accepted exception of the rule “noun + to + verb”.
Linguistically, why does power need to be considered a noun, rather than a verb?
It doesn’t matter whether German allows Wille zu + verb or noun. I have seen plenty of examples of both. My point is that in English, ‘will to’ + noun is impossible, because the ‘to’ is not a preposition but part of the infinitive.
There is no ‘will to cheese’, ‘will to ketchup’, ‘will to peanut butter’, etc., but ‘desire for’ works for those nouns, and for any noun. But, observe that ‘desire for’ cannot be followed by a verb: ‘desire for eat’, ‘desire for run’, ‘desire for fly’ are improper formations.
You don’t seem qualified to enter this discussion.
That’s funny. So is there an answer coming?
Uhm, no.
Darn. I thought ‘will to power’ was wrong, and that since you want a change of translation from the predominant one, that there was some conceptual difference you would highlight and correct with the change. (Usually the point of altering a translation).
Aren’t you useless.
No, and you did not carefully read my posts, because if you had done it, then you would have known that the rules and the changes in the history of both languages are the same - the only difference is that the German language allowed the said exception of that rule much earlier than the English language.
Yes, that is what I said as well, but I also said that both languages (German earlier, Englsih later) allowed an exception of that rule.
It’s not a goof. I will grant you that the construction “will to [noun]” did not exist in English. Then, however, there arose a demand for an English translation of texts of Nietzsche that contained the key phrase Wille zur Macht. Now just as translators would concur on “power” (as opposed to, say “might”), so they would on “will” (as opposed to, say, “want”). But how were they to translate the connective zur? (Naturally they let away the [de]r part, as “the will to the power” would be like a Russian saying “I want to buy car”.) So what were they to choose? “Will for power”, “will of power” (as happened in French), or simply “will to power”? The latter was not just the most obvious choice, but had the added advantage of leaving intact any strict meaning Nietzsche might have wanted to convey with zu. This made it a no-brainer, really.
“Will to power” is found throughout a huge body of scholarship and literature on Nietzsche, not to mention popular use.
But was Wille zur Macht comparably idiomatic in Nietzsche’s times, or even now? I think not. I think the words you may be looking for are Machtstreben (“striving for power”), Machtgier (“greed or desire for power”), or Machthunger (“hunger for power”). The will to power however is not a striving, greed/desire, or hunger; it’s not a want of power, but a will to power: it does not mean that one wants (lacks) power, but that one wills (imposes) it.
It’s the same in German: Der Wille (um) zu [infinitive]. In that case zu is no preposition, but a particle required by the infinitive.
It’s not quite right that all the examples you give for this are concrete things. But at least they’re better than the ones you gave before, like “will to car”–which naturally requires an article in order not to sound like a stereotypical English-speaking Russian.
Ultimately the problem with all your examples is that the will to power is not the will to have power.
The closest verb form would be “empower”, not “power”.
As I said, no matter which way Nietzsche intended it (which is why I avoid discussing dead philosophers), he was wrong.
There is no form or translation of “Will to Power” that reflects the actual reality of life. It is a simple minded, superficial notion, that just happens to be misleading, which is why it didn’t take over the entire world 10,000 years ago. It is only a “half-truth”.
I seriously doubt that.
No, there is no ‘exception’ to the rule in English. The earliest translation of Nietzsche’s expression I could find was ‘will for power’, from the 1890s. Some time later, so it seems, some translator used ‘to’ instead of ‘for’, probably because he didn’t know the German zu means ‘for’ since it sounds like ‘to’ and is used with verbs like the English ‘to’ is. But of course the academic morons have no sense and never even questioned it. Perhaps it was a native-speaking German translating into English (such mistakes are frequently made by non-natives). It is not ‘incorrect’, it is impossible.
The term wozu means, ‘what for?’, ‘why?’, ‘to what purpose?’.
But it ain’t so. Wille can be translated in many ways, depending on the context.
See pages 845-846 here:
https://books.google.com/books?id=SBdXAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA890&dq=Muret+Sanders+1901&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CEIQ6AEwB2oVChMI15P9pY7wxgIVxXo-Ch0rDQwl#v=onepage&q=Muret%20Sanders%201901&f=false
What do you expect from academics? Intelligence? Knowledge of English grammar? Keep wishing, baby.
(I have seen the term ‘overhumanity’ in Nietzsche literature, no joke.)
You just admitted that an exception was axccepted. The native speakers of the English language accepted the “to” in the term “will to power”, probably because there were more examples before the “will to power”. Centuries before this there was the same linguistical change in Germany.
The German “zu” and the English “to” have the same root. In Low German “to” is still used instead of “zu” which is High German, as i said several times. So “to” is not only used in English but also in Low German.
It is possible, but I guess that it did not happen in that way.
Again: The exception of that said rule was accepted and is accepted by the native speakers.
Language changes.
The verbs “machen” (German) and “make” (English) and the nouns “Macht” (German) and “might” (English) had lost their former much deeper relationship a bit, so that the rule “Nomen + zu + Verb” (“Wille zu machen”) / “noun + to + verb” (“will to make”) was not possible anymore and became a rule exception: “Nomen + zu + Nomen” (“Wille zur Macht”) / “noun + to + noun” (“will to might”). Use other examples in order to ascertain this rule exception by negating the other examples.
Arminius:
The German rules are irrelevant, why do you keep bringing them up? In English, what matters are English rules.
‘Will to power’ is impossible in English, no matter how many morons say it.
I am speaking of both the German and the English rules in order to show why both (and not merely one of the both) languages changed.
The English langauge has changed, Ornello.
This is nonsense. The German zu does not always mean “for”. The reason it sounds like “to” is that it’s etymologically the same word… The next thing you say is just a rant. And as for “will for power”, what’s your source for that?
Yes, but we’re discussing one very specific context, the context of Nietzsche’s key phrase Wille zur Macht…
Your example is indeed not very elegant; it should of course be “superhumanity”, “superhumankind”, “overmanhood”, or “overmankind”.
The German “zu” does almost always mean “to”. Hence I wrote:
No, it does not. Most of the time it means ‘for’, but it can mean ‘at’, ‘in’, or ‘to’.
forum.wordreference.com/threads/ … or.587402/
Besonders:
"My point was: an English German teacher might be able to answer this question; a German is puzzled by it, because a German does not perceive “zu” and “für” as related, or as competing prepositions.
You really need to give examples! Prepositions are tricky. They don’t translate well between languages. You basically have to learn for each expression what preposition is appropriate.
For example – Zum Beispiel.
For your information – zu Ihrer Information.
A gift for my brother – ein Geschenk für meinen Bruder.
For whatever reasons – aus welchen Gründen auch immer.
I don’t know that there is a rule. An English native fluent in German might be better qualified to answer this question."
Nietzsche never used the term Übermenschlichkeit, ever. The scholar who used this term (‘overhumanity’) made it up, and it has nothing to do with anything Nietzsche wrote.
Christa Davis Acampora:
That guy seems to be stupid.
Believe me, Ornello,“for” does almost always mean “für”, and “zu” does almost always mean “to”.
There are indeed some examples that show how problematic translation can be, but it is not as problematic as some morons say.