Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm - Nietzsches mirror: the world as will to power

What is will to power? We began this investigation with this question, and I hope I have demonstrated why this simple question is so difficult to answer simply. One of the most prominent reasons why there are different answers to this question is that it depends mightily on whether one decides to treat the notes from the Nachlass as equivalent to those from the writings Nietzsche published or authorized for publication before his illness struck. As I hoped to show in chapter 3, the Nachlass notes that contain the phrase will to power are quite different from those aphorisms in the published works. Commentaries on Nietzsches writings also vary in their analyses of will to power according to whether the commentator considers the Nachlass notes. Interpretations that have will to power as Nietzsches metaphysical principle rely almost exclusively on the Nachlass notes as their textual support.

Although interpretations of will to power either as a cosmological or an ontological principle fare better, they too heavily imply objective, nonperspectival standpoints, not just otherworldly ones. Interpreting will to power as Nietzsches empirical principle to which all experience can be reduced or interpreting will to power as Nietzsches science have the benefit of being in this world, but in my view they suffer from the implication that will to power somehow transcends Nietzsches perspectivism.

I have proposed that will to power is his lens through which he interprets the worldhis shorthand way of suggesting that experience be viewed as differing struggles for superiority among humans and other things, especially among humans and other humans. Thus, human physiology and psychology can be seen as the interaction of power relations. According to a will to power interpretation of experience (as opposed to a Christian or a mechanistic/scientific interpretation), human interaction, whether it be with other humans or with things, whether it be physically or psychologically, is interpreted as a struggle between competing forces for superiority. Ways of interpreting the worldand particularly human relationsalso increase or decrease power. Ultimately, Nietzsche suggests that the fullest expression of power can be attained through interpreting the world as will to power. Will to power, then, is a consciously created slant on the world that, according to Nietzsche, allows certain humans to flourish better than the mythic worldviews of Christianity or science.

But more importantly, viewing will to power as a consciously chosen perspective from which to interpret the world eliminates any need to argue about whether will to power is metaphysical, cosmological, or ontological. My reading of Nietzsches views has Nietzsche unconcerned with this kind of debate. As I read Nietzsche, the primary question becomes, What are the consequences of holding certain worldviews? The consequences of holding an otherworldly view (e.g., Christianity) are the perpetuation of mediocrity and humans who are guilty, sinful, shameful, and resentful. The consequences of holding a scientific view are humans who are stripped of their passions and reduced to mere causally determined entities. Nietzsche sees the consequences of holding a will to power view constitute the grounds for the possibility of great beings who are passionate, self-controlled, and creative. Their creativity is boundless in the sense that it can be in the arts, in spiritual matters, or in science.

But after all the negative attacks on Christian and scientific worldviews and the values they engender, what about Nietzsches vision of the consequences of holding a will to power worldview? Unfortunately, because the creation of individual values and realities is the very foundation of his vision, he cannot offer anything close to a blueprint for the betterment of humanity. That would be wholly contradictory to his vision. Great individuals must find their own ways. I am not convinced that Nietzsche would claim that will to power is the best worldview for all humans to have. I think he thinks it is better than Christianity and science, but in the works he authorized for publication, Nietzsche often offers will to power as an alternative rather than the alternative to them. When he champions a multiperspectival view in Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche must allow for other perspectives to be consistent. Again, the biggest difficulty Nietzsche has with science is it becoming too dominant a perspective to the point at which it forgets it is a perspective and starts considering itself as aperspectival, objective Truth. Nietzsches stance, as I read him, is not to eliminate the scientific perspective but, rather, to remind it that it is perspectival. In order to do this, Nietzsche attempts to explain the same phenomena science claims to explain and offer another explanation of it. Will to power serves as that alternative explanation.