The Will to Power

by Friedrich Nietzsche

Book Overview

Represents a selection from Nietzche's notebooks to find out what he wrote on nihilism, art, morality, religion, and the theory of knowledge, among others. Nietzsche's notebooks, kept by him during... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394704371
• ISBN13: 9780394704371
• Release Date: August 1968
• Publisher: Vintage
• Length: 608 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 1.1" x 5.1"

Customer Reviews

The Will to Power and The Dreaded Eternal Recurrence.

_Der Wille zur Macht_ consists of selections from the notebooks of Friedrich Nietzsche originally intended to compose a series of books by Nietzsche and published posthumously by his sister, Elisabeth Forster-Nietzsche. Originally considered to be Nietzsche's magnum opus, this book has now been relegated to an entirely different but still important status in the corpus of Nietzsche's writings. This book influenced the thought of such European thinkers as Martin Heidegger, Ernst Junger, Oswald Spengler, Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse, Julius Evola, and Mircea Eliade. Nietzsche's call for an overcoming of nihilism through the affirmation of the eternal recurrence was taken up by Nazi intellectuals in their quest to breed a superior race. Nietzsche argues for the creation of the "overman" through discipline and breeding. In this work, Nietzsche attempts his "revaluation of all values" by examining the rise of European nihilism and the decline of Christian morality summed up in Nietzsche's infamous phrase: "God is dead". Nietzsche writes, "Nihilism stands at the door: whence comes this uncanniest of guests?" Nietzsche tackles head on the issue of nihilistic decadence, the overturning of all values hitherto regarded as the highest values. He offers a powerful "Critique of Religion", "Critique of Morality", and "Critique of Philosophy". In this aspect, he finds the source of nihilism to be the Christian religion itself, a sort of Semiticized Platonic idealism for the herd - "the little people". These "little people" gave rise to Christian morality - a leveling of society -which Nietzsche thoroughly criticizes. From the Semitic myth of "the chosen", arose the Christian moral ideal. Against this "negative Semitic" religion of the New Testament, Nietzsche contrasts the "positive Semitic" religions encoded in the laws of Mohammed and certain parts of the Old Testament, the "negative Aryan" religion of Buddhism, and the "positive, affirmative Aryan" religion encoded in the Laws of Manu. Nietzsche views this "negative Semitic religion" as contrary to the existence of the state and the aristocracy, and as having given rise to nihilism. Against morality, moralistic idealism, weakness, and hypochondria, Nietzsche opposes the nihilistic affirmation of the eternal recurrence. To Nietzsche, the eternal recurrence is the boldest idea, that when faced can lead to an overcoming of nihilism. Nietzsche writes, "Let us think this thought in its most terrible form: existence as it is without meaning or aim, yet recurring inevitably without any finale of nothingness: "the eternal recurrence"." For Nietzsche, the Will to Power is considered as knowledge, as nature, as society and the individual, and as art. Nietzsche presents a biologistic interpretation of the Will to Power as life. Nietzsche's final section of the book devoted to the matter of "Discipline and Breeding" outlines Nietzsche's idea of the eternal recurrence and how this must be faced by th

Read this book yourself. Don't rely on the views of others

Nietzsche saw political correctness ("the values that judge") coming over a century before it started taking hold. It is only in this book of his notes that his ideas about the consequences of the feminism, physiological exhaustion, and degeneracy of our 'leading lights', and the passive and active nihilism that it brings forth, are expressed.This one extract says far more than all of the books by the modern 'philosophers' and 'psychologists' put together do about the nature of what we are still blindly staring in the face...37 (Spring - Fall 1887)"The development of pessimism into nihilism. - Denaturalisation of values. Scholasticism of values. Detached and idealistic, values, instead of dominating and guiding action, turn against action and condemn it. Opposites replace natural degrees and ranks. Hatred against the order of rank. Opposites suit a plebeian age because easier to comprehend. The repudiated world versus an artificially built "true, valuable" one. - Finally: one discovers of what material one has built the "true world": and now all one has left is the repudiated world, and one adds this supreme disappointment to the reasons why it deserves to be repudiated. At this point nihilism is reached: all one has left are the values that pass judgement - nothing else."Here the problem of strength and weakness originates:1. The weak perish of it.2. Those who are stronger destroy what does not perish.3. Those who are strongest overcome the values that pass judgement."In sum this constitutes the tragic age." If you have read all of Nietzsche's completed works you should have a good idea of the full compass of his thinking, and a good feel for his unique ability to express himself. You should be able to tell if two people with no such genius - his sister, Elizabeth, or his associate, Peter Gast - who were responsible for compiling this book - were in any way responsible for altering any of these notes in order to add weight to Nazi philosophy. If those talentless people had added ideas to these notes that Nietzsche would not have agreed with, the changes would have been all too apparent. For instance, all of a sudden Nietzsche would have been shown to hold anti-Semitic views. Views that he deplored. In fact, on one notable occasion, Wagner's anti-Semitism made him feel physically ill, and it was one of the reasons he ended his friendship with the composer. There could be no better antidote to the modern ills than this book.Eric Legge

A godless beautiful affirmation of life!

This book changed my life. Philosophy has always interested me, but it has always seemed that most philosophical systems were so dry and abstract to be devoid of any real implications to one's life. This book, I dare say, is more pratical, but not in a common everyday sense of that term. I would say this work is mystical, for lack of a better word. This is a collection of notes by a man, who not only interpreted the world in a unique way, but really felt it. To Nietzsche this was not just some various thought experiments. This work and his other works, particular his later material, are an attempt to provide a new worldview, a new way to interpret life that is almost the complete opposite of the traditional worldviews that have dominated the world, such as christianity, judaism, buddhism, i.e. the philosophies of world renunciation and the ascetic ideal. Nietzsche reveals how the world really is, not some ideal of the world, namely that the world is violent, chaotic, without any kind of teology. He then proceeds to affirm this world, otherwise affirming life for those very characteristics that had led others to deny it. The ultimate value by which all is measured in his works, particular in this work, is power. Life is seen as the will to power. In other words, life's essence is the drive, impulse to grow, to conquer, to dominate, and accumulate force, to increase and grow in every possible way, phsyically, mentally, and spiritual (remembering that all these are all still physiology to Nietzsche). ONe of the best ideas can be found when he contrasts the Dionysian worldview with the christian worldview, namely Dionysus vs. The Crucified. He says that the christian sees suffering as a means to an end, as necessary to attain holiness and heaven. The disciple of Dionysus however sees existence as holy enough to justify a monstrous amount of suffering. I often feel a mystical state of being, or as Nietzsche would say, intoxication, upon reading this book. NOthing has every touched me so closely, so personally, so intensely as this work. Do yourself a favor, if you are brave enough, and hard enough, and desire a alternative to the degenerate ascetic philosophies that dominate today, pick this up and revel in its utter tragic beauty.

A raw, passionate,superior interpretation of life.

The first thing to understand is that The Will to Power is not Nietzsche's magnum opus. It is a collection of his unpublished writings from the 1880's, collected by his sister and published under the title The Will to Power. I've studied Nietzsche for over two and half years now, extensively reading and comparing his works, specifically from The Gay Science on to The Will to Power. Those who say that this work presents ideas that contradict his published works are wrong. Nietzsche certainly does elaborate on certain concepts that are not introduced in detail in his published works. But this is to be expected. Being his notes, one can expect that these passages,aphorisms, quotes, and notes are rather unpolished and therefore lack the kind of sophisticated poetical style that characterizes his published work. However attempts to refute these notes as mere propaganda perpetuated by his sister is simply ludicrous. Certain concepts such as nihilism, breeding, the will to power, and the eternal recurrence are covered more. The writings do not usually go into great detail, and are often ambiguous, but this is what one should expect from one's notes. However you will not find ideas in this book that are really different from those in his published works. There have been two main errors that have been perpetuated upon this book. First, some take this as his magnum opus and therefore overlook his other writings, however others ignore this book and pass it off as propaganda that represented his sister's agenda. Most scholars of Nietzsche agree that this work is very important as long as one also reads his published works. From my studies,I have come to believe that this work merely represents ideas and passages that were not fully worked out, ideas that were still in process of being elaborated, and even ideas that were perhaps too extreme to put in his published writings. One must remember that Nietzsche was criticized over the extreme content of his published writings, and he probably knew that some of his material should be kept unpublished. However his most extreme ideas such as the glorification of war and conflict, his hypothesis of the will to power as the basic essence of life, his defense of aristocracy as a superior form of government, hatred of christianity and other institutions that preserve christian moral ideals,i.e.,democracy, socialism, his praise of master morality and the virtues associated with it..pride,domination,violence,cruelty,hardness,are all put forth in his published works as well, especially in Beyond Good and Evil, On the Genealogy of Morals, Ecce Homo, the Antichrist, and Thus Spoke Zarathustra. So if you have enough intelligence to read all of his works and comparatively study them and look beyond the mere raw form of these passages, you will find many notes and aphorisms that elaborate on the detailed work already put forth in his published writings.

Dionysus vs. The Crucified

Perhaps no one thinker has been as creative, poetic, and yet so extreme and, dare I use the word, evil as Nietzsche. I bought this after Beyond Good and Evil, The Antichrist, and Thus Spoke Zarathustra. After I read this, I went out and bought On the Genealogy of Morals, Ecce Homo,Twilight of the Idols, and The Gay Science. The book is certainly a necessity for Nietzsche scholars, philosophers, and those who have a love for VERY unconventional thought. Don't believe the hype that this book was just a propaganda tool for the nazis. People like to talk big but they rarely have evidence to back it up. People often have a adverse reaction to this book, particularly after having read his other works. Well, that is because this is really just a collection of Nietzsche's unpublished notes. Every major scholar of Nietzsche; Kaufman, Detwiler, Schutte, Gillespie, sees this work as important. Certainly Heidegger went to far to push this out as Nietzsche's magnum opus, which it certainly isn't. But if you read this, keeping in mind that Nietzsche's more speculative, not fully fledged out ideas are contained within, perhaps waiting for the day when the great thinker would polish them up and give them that great poetic and passionate flourish which characterized his published works. If you have focused on Nietzsche's middle period, Human, All Too Human, and Daybreak, you may be surprised and shocked at the extremity of some of these ideas. However those who are very familiar with his later works will find the same basic ideas. Certain topics are spelled out and analyzed that are not contained within his published works, but for all that I have studied this work (almost two years), I find that none of these ideas are inconsistent with the ideas expressed in his published works. As for the supposedly metaphysical twist of the work, I really don't see this. Certainly he takes the hypotheses of the will to power and eternal recurrence and poses them as interpretations of the intelligible character of existence, especially in a cosmological sense, but this is not metaphysical (keeping in mind what the term metaphysical connotated at that time; the term has often been used by various philosophers to refer to different methods, Nietzsche seems to characterize metaphysical as attempts to find out the true nature of reality as opposed to the apparent nature of reality,--a distinction he believed he did away with). Another word of caution: Many people like to read Nietzshce and pick out and concentrate on what they agree with and pass over his more violent and questionable material. Nietzsche himself talked of how he was misinterpreted in his own day. In Ecce Homo, he talks of how his alter-ego of Zarathustra, the annihilator of morality has been understood with the utmost of innocence in the sense of those very values whose opposite Zarathustra was meant to represent. This work represents thought that is honest about the nature o