the will to power

the belief that everything in the universe is run by the principle of will to power, that is that whatever in question's aim is to exert maximum power. this is the cornerstone of Nietzsche's philosophy.
1. an attempt to create favourable conditions for oneself in which they can expand all their energy and maximise power. these are fuelled by physiological desires.
nietzsche holds the idea that everything is the result of competing drives, and each drive aims for the will to power. e.g the process of thinking is a result of competing drives and when one gains dominance over the other that is how a thought occurs, the drives are competing for dominance.
it was previously thought that the will to self preservation was the key to life, this was created by spinoza. nietzsche argued that often the will to power expressed itself as the will to self preservation but there are times when these two notions conflict, e.g a suiscied bomber exerts their will to power through killing themselves (going against will to self preservation)
1. Nietzsche argued that spinoza believed in the will to self preservation because ofr him that was what life was about, he was constantly ill so life was a struggle to stay alive for hi, "the sickly hermit". also Spinoza is Jewish and would have been influenced by Pikuach Nefesh which is the principle that all human life should be preserved
  1. this also shows an element of will to power as Spinoza is trying to recreate the world in his image, and to exert favourable conditions for himself
as the will to power sees an animals intention to exert optimum power this brings conflict, this means those who are stronger will overpower those who are weaker.
the will to power is expressed in everything, even societies, and classes within societies. the 'original fact of all history' is that society is based on, and originated from exploitation. history is then a history of all forms of life through the will to power.
what is the will to power?: METAPHYSICAL: everything that exists is the will to power. ORGANIC: the will to power is specifically related to all life. PSYCHOLOGICAL: it is related to living creatures with a will.
1. the metaphysical interpretation.
  1. nietzsche has argued that how we understand things depends on our perspective, which embodies our values, which originates in our instincts. we can't go beyond the reality we experience, which is grounded in our instincts, to a deeper reality. noetzsche says that the hypothesis to be tested is that do all things with a energy in them opperate to a will to power. is nietzsche asserting that we should understand the world as will to power? most philosophers say yes, but some disagree. (1) nietzsche says that the causality of the will is the only causality. but he explicitly rejects both causality (as real) and the causality of the will. he argues that cause and effect should only be used as concepts for communication not explanation, to think of the word 'itself' containing causation, as the metaphysical interpretation does, then we are projecting our concepts on to it.
    1. (2) nietzsche rejects the projection of philosophical theories on to nature. (3) he claims that some forms of life can lack the will to power, as only creatures with an intellect can possess the will to power
2. the organic and psychological interpretation
  1. nietzsche asserts that life is the will to power, the will to power would then be what distinguishes between what's living and what's inanimate. but if by 'life' he means in the biological sense, he is still projecting a psychological theory onto nature, he says only things with an intellect can possess will to power,this then excludes all life which is not animals. nietzsche talks about societies being alive and possessing a will to power, which again indicates that 'life' is not meant biologically. so what does he mean by 'life'?
    1. it does express life in a biological sense, but he argues that people, values and other live things lack the will to power (through the ascetic ideal etc), this is because those values go against life or the will to power.
      1. the will to power is the basic character of our drives and instincts, the essence of a drive is to assert itself, to do so successfully, to achieve expression, is for it to have power. power is not a separate aim of drives, in asserting itself, each drive comes into competition with each other. and so drives are always in relation to power with each other. the will to powers greatest expression is through creativity.
objections
1. we can challenge nitezsche's claim that all of life can be understood in terms of the will to power. (1) would we not do better to say that, e.g. despair, decadence and passivity are not will to power at all (instead of weak forms of it)? but what force combats the will to power, and can it even be overcome? (2) can we accept that all love and thought are expressions of the will to power? even if they are, are they to be understood as nothing more?
will to power, values and new philosophers
1. the new philosopher is the greatest and purest expression of the will to power. (1) to say 'yes' to life is to say 'yes' to the will to power. affirming the eternal return is an expression of just how strongly they want to live. to understand why nietzsche sees the will to power as the basis of the new values that the new philosophers will create you have to remember the sense of joy that comes from expressing power. it is not necessarily power over people but the power of overcoming an obstacle. (2) the new philosopher recognises the will to power for what it is and its place in life, they are also the will to power recognising and affirming itself. they are its embodiment (3) they are commanders with a strong will, contrast to the mentality of obedience in ordinary people. (4) conduct experiments in breeding which will make the will to power stronger in the human race
  1. we can object that nietzsche moves from a factual claim that the instinctual life of human being is the will to power, to evaluative claims about the new philosophers. just because life is the will to power does not make the will to power the standard of what should be valued.
    1. nietzsche's argument occurs in the context if his rejection of a transcendent source of goodness. we create values, so without life valuing is not possible, therefore any value tat impoverish or deny our living undermine there own foundations. we must therefore take the affirmation of life to be the basis of all values, and that means the will to power is the evaluative standard we should endorse.
      1. but this argument uses life with two meanings. (1) the sense in which nietzsche approves of life as the strong expression of the will to power. (2) the sense of life that is necessary for valuing is simply a matter of being alive. people with a 'weak' will to power still have values. in fact, the forms of life nietzsche calls weak are doing very well at staying alive. the 'higher' forms of life he praises is not what makes valuing possible. so we should coherently ask why we should value it over the lower forms.

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