36 pages • 1 hour read
Friedrich Nietzsche, Ed. Walter Kaufmann, Transl. R.J. HollingdaleThe Will to Power
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1901A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Book 3, Parts 1-2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Book 3, Part 1 Summary: “The Will to Power as Knowledge”
In Book 2, Nietzsche developed the idea that underpinning everything all supposedly sacred ideals and values are certain perspectives and interests. He now applies this theory to dominant ideas about consciousness and epistemology. In particular, he criticizes the theory known as positivism, which states that “there are only facts” (267). Nietzsche argues that there are no pure facts “in themselves.” All supposed “facts,” and our broader understanding of the world, are forms of “interpretation.” These interpretations are, in turn, rooted in the struggle for dominance within us of various needs and drives. As Nietzsche says, “it is our needs that interpret the world; our drives and their For and Against” (267). In contrast to “positivism,” Nietzsche proposes “perspectivism.”
Nietzsche likewise questions the idea of the “subject” proposed by the philosopher Descartes, who argued that a human being is a unitary consciousness possessing reason and free will. His main argument is that Descartes’s justification for such a subject draws an undue inference. Descartes says, “there is thinking: therefore there is something that thinks” (268). Nietzsche argues that from the fact that there is thinking it does not follow that there is any “thinking substance,” or subject, of which this thinking is a property. It is only “grammatical custom” (268), rather than a necessary truth, that there must be “a doer to every deed” (268). This supposed unitary “thinking substance,” or subject, is regarded as an entity “behind” and holding together all our experiences. But must there be a substantial, unifying subject? Nietzsche suggests that there may be a multiplicity of “subjects” across a stream of experiences.
Nietzsche goes on to discuss consciousness. He argues that “consciousness is present only to the extent that consciousness is useful” (275). What we are conscious of, and what we perceive, are not objects from “outside” passively received by us. Rather, pragmatic interests and value judgements form our perceptions and construct our consciousness. These interests and values determine what types of perception enter our awareness from the huge quantity of stimuli and determine the way they are given to us and united in consciousness. Nietzsche argues that consciousness itself is a surface phenomenon caused by underlying drives largely invisible to us. Consciousness, both our perceptions and our thoughts, are not then self-causing and based on reason. Instead, our subconscious drives order our experiences and shape the concepts we employ to make sense of the world. For example, while (in truth) each thing in the world is different from all other things, we group things into kinds or species so that we can subject them to calculation, manipulation, and use.
Book 3, Part 2 Summary: “The Will to Power in Nature”
Nietzsche here outlines the philosophy to which his theory of “the will to power” is opposed. This is the mechanistic view of the world, which is defined by two core ideas. The first is atomism, the belief that the world can be understood in terms of distinct, self-contained units, or atoms. The second is that these atoms can be set in motion by other atoms. Nietzsche argues that this “theory of motion is already a translation into the sense language of man” (338). In other words, this theory reflects the grammatical rule that for any motion there must be a metaphysically distinct subject that is moving. Thus, it confuses the structure of human grammar with the structure of the physical world. In place of this theory, Nietzsche outlines his notion of the “will to power.” This is the idea that there are no atoms in motion but a continual play of forces and “power relationships” trying to manifest and express themselves (336).
Nietzsche next applies his theory of will to power to the category of organic life. He argues, against Darwin, that a living organism does not primarily seek self-preservation. Rather, it pursues greater expressions of its power and strength in overcoming resistance. The instinct of self-preservation, like those of hunger and procreation, are secondary drives stemming from an original will to power. Further, Darwin overestimates the importance of external circumstances in the development of species. In Nietzsche’s view, a greater role should be given to the inherent form-creating power in the organism. The external environment is, in a sense, the effect of evolution rather than its cause.
Finally, in Part 2, Nietzsche explores the application of the will to power to the case of human beings. He argues that humans do not primarily pursue happiness but rather the overcoming of resistance. He also suggests that the will to power acts as an unconscious force behind our actions. All purposes and goals, which may appear rational and conscious are, in fact, expressions of the will to power. They are expressions of a will to grow and impose oneself on existence. Likewise, all our valuations are expressions not of logical inference or moral insight but an underlying will to power.
Book 3, Parts 1-2 Analysis
Most biologists and physiologists, as Nietzsche says, posit “‘the instinct of preservation’ as the cardinal drive in an organic creature” (344). Especially since Darwin, it has become almost an article of faith that the primary drive of all life is to preserve itself and procreate. Other instincts are explained with reference to preservation. For example, the sexual instinct, or libido, reflects an unconscious desire to “preserve” one’s genes through procreation. Likewise, aggression is seen as a by-product of the drive to survive. On this theory, the reason some creatures attack others beyond immediate needs is to preemptively protect themselves. However, Nietzsche, like his contemporary Sigmund Freud, believes that self-preservation cannot account for the level of aggression, and the will to dominate, present in humans and some other animals. Nor can it account for the ferocity of the procreative drive. An animal or human risking its life for a chance to pass on half its genes cannot be adequately explained as a mere offshoot of the preservation instinct.
In Freud’s case, such observations lead him to posit, first, an instinctual dualism of libidinal and egoistic drives, one seeking the preservation of the species the other the individual. He then suggests a dualism between libidinal and aggressive instincts, or “love and hate.” This was before finally settling on a distinction between “life” instincts, Eros, and the “death instinct,” Thanatos, in Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920). In many ways, Nietzsche’s idea of the “will to power,” is even more radical than Freud’s theory. Nietzsche argues that all organic life “strives to become master over all space and to extend its force (—its will to power:) and to thrust back all that resists its extension” (340). Life does not primarily strive for preservation. Rather, it seeks to develop and manifest its greatest possible strength by overpowering other life. It strives to impose itself on existence.
Thus, Nietzsche’s theory of the will to power explains aggressive and procreative forces in organisms by seeing procreation as an expression of a deeper will: not to preserve the organism but to create beyond it. Nietzsche calls it the “creative drive” in life (333). And it explains how life is not, as for Darwin, “the adaptation of inner circumstances to outer ones” (361). Instead, life’s “inner” creative power comes first, with the outer world later being subdued by, incorporated into, and “adapted” to the organism.
Further, Nietzsche’s view has more radical philosophical implications than Freud’s. While Freud rejects the conventional emphasis on survival by positing several types of drives, he remains within the ontological picture to which Darwin and others subscribed, which says that drives are fundamental and are the internal attributes that move us. This view is captured in expressions such as “my survival instinct” or “my libido,” analogous to the way in which a moving object can be distinguished from the force propelling it. According to Nietzsche, by contrast, we “do what we are” (356). The will to power is not an attribute or power we “have,” which may motivate us to greater and lesser extents. It is rather the principle and material of our existence. We are nothing other than our striving to express, impose on, and creatively form the world. Only a trick of grammar, which divides the world into subject and attribute, leads us to think otherwise.
Finally, Nietzsche’s theory has radical implications for our understanding of human psychology. As he says, “it is notably enlightening to posit power in place of individual ‘happiness’” (366). If all we are is the will to power, traditional eudemonistic theories of human motivation are false. Pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain are secondary to our will to create. As Nietzsche often suggests, the process of creation, of self-creation, may contain a great deal of pain in the confrontation with obstacles that most prove the will’s strength. More accurately, the distinction between pain and pleasure becomes blurred. If pleasure is the consequence of overcoming, which is necessarily conflictual and difficult, then it is unclear where pain ends and pleasure begins. We cannot have one without the other, and sometimes we cannot even tell them apart. Nietzsche develops this thought further in his discussion of the “eternal return” and the ultimate affirmation of life.
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