To the
question
"What is truth?
Heidegger - Nietzsche - v1-2
For anyone who at the end of Western philosophy can and must still question philosophically, the decisive question is no longer merely "What basic character do beings manifest?
" or "How may the Being of beings be characterized?
" but "What is this 'Being' itself?
" The decisive question is that of "the meaning of Being," not merely that of the Being of beings.
"Meaning" is thereby clearly delineated concep- tually as that from which and on the grounds of which Being in general can become manifest as such and can come into truth.
What is prof- fered today as ontology has nothing to do with the question of Being proper; it is a very learned and very astute analysis of transmitted concepts which plays them off, one against the other.
The Unity of Will to Power 19
What is will to power itself, and how is it? Answer: the eternal recurrence of the same.
Is it an accident that the latter teaching recurs continually in decisive passages throughout all plans for the philosophical main work? What can it mean when in one plan, which bears the unadorned title "Eternal Return" (XVI, 414), Nietzsche lists the first part under the title "The most difficult thought"? To be sure, the question of Being is the most difficult thought of philosophy, because it is simultaneously its inner- most and uttermost thought, the one with which it stands and falls.
We heard that the fundamental character of beings is will to power, willing, and thus Becoming. Nevertheless, Nietzsche does not cling to such a position-although that is usually what we are thinking when we associate him with Heraclitus. Much to the contrary, in a passage purposely and expressly formulated to provide an encompassing over- view (WM, 617), Nietzsche says the following: "Recapitulation: To stamp Becoming with the character of Being-that is the supreme will to power. " This suggests that Becoming only is if it is grounded in Being as Being: "That everything recurs is the closest approximation of a world of Becoming to one of Being: peak of the meditation. "* With his doctrine of eternal return Nietzsche in his way thinks nothing else than the thought that pervades the whole of Western philosophy, a thought that remains concealed but is its genuine driving force.
Nietzsche thinks the thought in such a way that in his metaphysics he reverts to the beginnings of Western philosophy. More precisely, he reverts to that beginning which Western philosophy became accustomed to seeing in the course of its history. Nietzsche shared in
* Heidegger often cites the "Recapitulation" aphorism during the Nietzsche lectures and essays. See, for example, Nl, 466 and 656; Nil, 288, 327, and 339. He employs it also for instance in "The Anaximander Fragment," the first chapter of Martin Heidegger, Early Greek Thinking, tr. D. F. Krell and F. A. Capuzzi (New York: Harper & Row, 1975), p. 22. Yet it was not Nietzsche but Peter Cast (Heinrich Koselitz) who supplied the title of the aphorism: see Walter Kaufmann's note in his edition of The Will to Power, p. 330, and cf. CM VIII, I, p. 320, which does not print the title. Furthermore, WM, 617 is a note the entire context and contents of which must be carefully examined. The problem will be discussed in the Analysis of volume Ill in the present series.
20 THE WILL TO POWER AS ART
such habituation in spite of his otherwise original grasp of pre-Socratic philosophy.
In the popular view, and according to the common notion, Nietzsche is the revolutionary figure who negated, destroyed, and prophesied. To be sure, all that belongs to the image we have of him. Nor is it merely a role that he played, but an innermost necessity of his time. But what is essential in the revolutionary is not that he overturns as such; it is rather that in overturning he brings to light what is decisive and essen- tial. In philosophy that happens always when those few momentous questions are raised. When he thinks "the most difficult thought" at the "peak of the meditation," Nietzsche thinks and meditates on Being, that is, on will to power as eternal recurrence. What does that mean, taken quite broadly and essentially? Eternity, not as a static "now," nor as a sequence of "nows" rolling off into the infinite, but as the "now" that bends back into itself: what is that if not the concealed essence of Time? Thinking Being, will to power, as eternal return, thinking the most difficult thought of philosophy, means thinking Being as Time. Nietzsche thinks that thought but does not think it as the question of Being and Time. Plato and Aristotle also think that thought when they conceive Being as ousia (presence), but just as little as Nietzsche do they think it as a question.
If we do ask the question, we do not mean to suggest that we are cleverer than both Nietzsche and Western philosophy, which Nietz- sche "only" thinks to its end. W e know that the most difficult thought of philosophy has only become more difficult, that the peak of the meditation has not yet been conquered and perhaps not yet even discovered at all.
If we bring Nietzsche's "will to power," that is, his question concern- ing the Being of beings, into the perspective of the question concerning "Being and Time," that does not at all mean that Nietzsche's work is to be related to a book entitled Being and Time and that it is to be measured and interpreted according to the contents of that book. Being and Time can be evaluated only by the extent to which it is equal or unequal to the question it raises. There is no standard other than the question itself; only the question, not the book, is essential. Further-
The Unity of Will to Power 21
more, the book merely leads us to the threshold of the question, not yet into the question itself.
Whoever neglects to think the thought of eternal recurrence to- gether with will to power, as what is to be thought genuinely and philosophically, cannot adequately grasp the metaphysical content of the doctrine of will to power in its full scope. Nevertheless, the connec- tion between eternal recurrence as the supreme determination of Being and will to power as the basic character of all beings does not lie in the palm of our hand. For that reason Nietzsche speaks of the "most difficult thought" and the "peak of the meditation. " It is nonetheless true that the current interpretation of Nietzsche does away with the properly philosophical significance of the doctrine of eternal recur- rence and thus irremediably precludes a fertile conception of Nietz- sche's metaphysics. We will introduce two examples, each quite inde- pendent of the other, of such a treatment of the doctrine of eternal return in Nietzsche's philosophy: Alfred Baeumler, Nietzsche: Philoso- pher and Politician (I 931 ), and Karl Jaspers, Nietzsche: Introduction
to an Understanding of His Philosophizing (I936). * The negative position taken by each author with respect to the doctrine of eternal recurrence-and for us that means the misinterpretation by each-varies in kind and has different grounds.
Baeumler portrays what Nietzche calls the most difficult thought and the peak of the meditation as an entirely personal, "religious" conviction of Nietzsche's. He says, "Only one can be valid: either the doctrine of eternal return or the doctrine of will to power" (p. 80). He tries to ground this either-or by the following argument: will to power is Becoming; Being is grasped as Becoming; that is the ancient doctrine of Heraclitus on the flux of things and it is also Nietzsche's genuine teaching. His thought of eternal recurrence has to deny the unlimited flux of Becoming. The thought introduces a contradiction into
*Alfred Baeumler, Nietzsche der Philosoph und Politiker (Leipzig: P. Reclam, 1931), and Karl Jaspers, Nietzsche. Einfiihrung in das Verstiindnis seines Philosophierens (Berlin and Leipzig: Walter de Gruyter, 1936). Both books are discussed in the Analysis (section II) at the end of this volume. The analyses to the later volumes of the present series will treat Baeumler more thoroughly.
22 TilE WILL TO POWER AS ART
Nietzsche's metaphysics. Therefore, either the doctrine of will to power or that of eternal recurrence, only one of them, can define Nietzsche's philosophy. Baeumler writes, "In truth, seen from the point of view of Nietzsche's system, this thought is without impor- tance. " And on page 82 he opines, "Now, Nietzsche, who is a founder of religion, also accomplishes an Egyptification of the Heraclitean world. " According to Baeumler's account, the doctrine of eternal recurrence implies bringing Becoming to a standstill. With his either- or, Baeumler presupposes that Heraclitus teaches the eternal flux of things, in the sense of the ever-ongoing. For some time now we have known that this conception of Heraclitus' doctrine is utterly foreign to the Greek. Just as questionable as the interpretation of Heraclitus, however, is whether Nietzsche's will to power should automatically be taken as Becoming in the sense of the onward-flowing. In the end, such a concept of Becoming is so superficial that we had better not be too quick to ascribe it to Nietzsche. The immediate result of our consider- ations so far is that there is not necessarily a contradiction between the two statements "Being is Becoming" and "Becoming is Being. " Pre- cisely that is Heraclitus' teaching. But assuming that there is a contra- diction between the doctrines of will to power and eternal recurrence, we have known since Hegel's day that a contradiction is not necessarily
proof against the truth of a metaphysical statement, but may be proof for it. If therefore eternal recurrence and will to power contradict one another, perhaps the contradiction is precisely the demand to think this most difficult thought, instead of fleeing into the "religious. " But even if we concede that here we have a contradiction which cannot be transcended and which compels us to decide in favor of either will to power or eternal recurrence, why does Baeumler then decide against Nietzsche's most difficult thought, the peak of his meditation, and for will to power? The answer is simple: Baeumler's reflections on the relationship between the two doctrines do not press toward the realm of actual inquiry from either side. Rather, the doctrine of eternal recurrence, where he fears "Egypticism," militates against his concep- tion of will to power, which, in spite of the talk about metaphysics, Baeumler does not grasp metaphysically but interprets politically.
The Unity of Will to Power 23
Nietzsche's doctrine of eternal recurrence conflicts with Baeumler's conception of politics. It is therefore "without importance" for Nietz- sche's system. This interpretation of Nietzsche is all the more remark- able since Baeumler belongs among those few commentators who re- ject Klages' psychological-biologistic interpretation of Nietzsche. *
The second conception of Nietzsche's doctrine of eternal return is that of Karl Jaspers. True, Jaspers discusses Nietzsche's teaching in greater detail and discerns that here we are in the presence of one of Nietzsche's decisive thoughts. In spite of the talk about Being, how- ever, Jaspers does not bring the thought into the realm of the ground- ing question of Western philosophy and thereby also into actual connection with the doctrine of will to power. For Baeumler the doc- trine of eternal recurrence cannot be united with the political interpre- tation of Nietzsche; for Jaspers it is not possible to take it as a question of great import, because, according to Jaspers, there is no conceptual truth or conceptual knowledge in philosophy.
But if in contrast to all this the doctrine of eternal recurrence is seen to coincide with the very center of Nietzsche's metaphysical thinking, is it not misleading, or at least one-sided, to collate all the preliminary sketches for a philosophical magnum opus under the plan that takes as its definitive title "Will to Power"?
That the editors selected the middle one of the three basic positions in the plans testifies to their considerable understanding. For Nietzsche himself first of all had to make a decisive effort to visualize the basic character of will to power throughout beings as a whole. Yet this was never for him the ultimate step. Rather, if Nietzsche was the thinker we are convinced he was, then the demonstration of will to power would always have to revolve about the thought of the Being of beings, which for Nietzsche meant the eternal recurrence of the same.
*Ludwig Klages (1872-1956) developed as his life's work a "biocentric metaphysics" which was to clarify once and for all the problem of the body-soul-mind relationship. His major work is the three-volume Der Geist als Widersacher der Seele (1929-32); the work Heidegger refers to here is Die psychologischen Errungenschaften Nietzsches (1926). Cf. section 17, below, and section II of the Analysis. For a critical edition of Klages' writings see Ludwig Klages, Siimtliche Werke (Bonn: Bouvier, 1964 H. ).
24 THE WILL TO POWER AS ART
But even if we grant the fact that this edition of the preliminary sketches for the major work, dominated by the theme of will to power, is the best edition possible, the book that lies before us is still some- thing supplementary. Nobody knows what would have become of these preliminary sketches had Nietzsche himself been able to transform them into the main work he was planning. Nevertheless, what is avail- able to us today is so essential and rich, and even from Nietzsche's point of view so definitive, that the prerequisites are granted for what alone is important: actually to think Nietzsche's genuine philosophical thought. W e are all the more liable to succeed in this endeavor the less we restrict ourselves to the sequence of particular fragments as they lie before us, collected and subsumed into book form. For such ordering of particular fragments and aphorisms within the schema of divisions, a schema which does stem from Nietzsche himself, is arbitrary and inessential. What we must do is think through particular fragments, guided by the movement of thought which occurs when we ask the genuine questions. Therefore, measured against the order established by the text before us, we will jump about within various particular divisions. Here too an arbitrariness, within certain limits, is unavoid- able. Still, in all this what remains decisive is to hear Nietzsche himself; to inquire with him and through him and therefore at the same time against him, but for the one single innermost matter that is common to Western philosophy. We can undertake such a task only if we limit its scope. But the important thing is to know where these limits are to be set. Such limitation does not preclude but expects and demands that in time, with the help of the book The Will to Power, you will work through whatever is not explicitly treated in the lectures, in the spirit and manner of our procedure here.
5. The Structure of the "Major Work. " Nietzsche's Manner of Thinking as Reversal
Nietzsche's basic metaphysical position may be defined by two state- ments. First, the basic character of beings as such is "will to power. " Second, Being is "eternal recurrence of the same. " When we think through Nietzsche's philosophy in a questioning way, along the guide- lines of those two statements, we advance beyond the basic positions of Nietzsche and of philosophy prior to him. But such advance only allows us to come back to Nietzsche. The return is to occur by means of an interpretation of "The Will to Power. "
The plan upon which the published edition is based, a plan Nietz- sche himself sketched and even dated (March 17, 1887), takes the following form (XVI, 421):
THE WILL TO POWER Attempt at a Revaluation of All Values
Book 1: European Nihili'sm.
Book II: Critique of the Highest Values. Book III: Principle of a New Valuation. Book IV: Discipline and Breeding.
Our inquiry proceeds immediately to the third book and restricts itself to that one. The very title, "Principle of a New Valuation," suggests that here a laying of grounds and an erection of structures are to be brought to language.
Accordingly, in Nietzsche's view, philosophy is a matter of valuation,
26 THE WILL TO POWER AS ART
that is, establishment of the uppermost value in terms of which and according to which all beings are to be. The uppermost value is the one that must be fundamental for all beings insofar as they are beings. A "new" valuation would therefore posit another value, in opposition to the old, decrepit one, which should be determinative for the future. For that reason a critique of the highest values hitherto is advanced before- hand, in Book II. The values in question are religion, specifically, the Christian religion, morality, and philosophy. Nietzsche's manner of speaking and writing here is often imprecise and misleading: religion, morality, and philosophy are not themselves the supreme values, but basic ways of establishing and imposing such values. Only for that reason can they themselves, mediately, be posited and taken as "highest values. "
The critique of the highest values hitherto does not simply refute them or declare them invalid. It is rather a matter of displaying their origins as impositions which must affirm precisely what ought to be negated by the values established. Critique of the highest values hith- erto therefore properly means illumination of the dubious origins of the valuations that yield them, and thereby demonstration of the question- ableness of these values themselves. Prior to this critique, which is offered in Book II, the first book advances an account of European nihilism. Thus the work is to begin with a comprehensive presentation of the basic development of Western history, which Nietzsche recog- nizes in its range and intensity here for the first time: the development of nihilism. In Nietzsche's view nihilism is not a Weltanschauung that occurs at some time and place or another; it is rather the basic character of what happens in Occidental history. Nihilism is at work even-and especially-there where it is not advocated as doctrine or demand, there where ostensibly its opposite prevails. Nihilism means that the uppermost values devalue themselves. This means that whatever realities and laws set the standard in Christendom, in morality since Hellenistic times, and in philosophy since Plato, lose their binding force, and for Nietzsche that always means creative force. In his view nihilism is never merely a development of his own times; nor does it pertain only to the nineteenth century. Nihilism begins in the pre-
The Structure of the "Major Work" 27
Christian era and it does not cease with the twentieth century. As a historical process it will occupy the centuries immediately ahead of us, even and especially when countermeasures are introduced. But neither is nihilism for Nietzsche mere collapse, valuelessness, and destruction. Rather, it is a basic mode of historical movement that does not exclude, but even requires and furthers, for long stretches of time, a certain creative upswing. "Corruption," "physiological degeneration," and such are not causes of nihilism but effects. Nihilism therefore cannot be overcome by the extirpation of those conditions. On the contrary, an overcoming of nihilism would merely be delayed by countermea- sures directed toward alleviation of its harmful side effects. In order to grasp what Nietzsche designates in the word "nihilism" we need pro- found insight and even more profound seriousness.
Because of its necessary involvement in the movement of Western history, and on account of the unavoidable critique of prior valuations, the new valuation is necessarily a revaluation of all values. Hence the subtitle, which in the final phase of Nietzsche's philosophy becomes the main title, designates the general character of the countermove- ment to nihilism within nihilism. No historical movement can leap outside of history and start from scratch. It becomes all the more historical, which is to say, it grounds history all the more originally, as it overcomes radically what has gone before by creating a new order in that realm where we have our roots. Now, the overwhelming experience derived from the history of nihilism is that all valuations remain with- out force if the corresponding basic attitude of valuing and the corre- sponding manner of thinking do not accompany them.
Every valuation in the essential sense must not only bring its pos- sibilities to bear in order to be "understood" at all, it must at the same time develop a breed of men who can bring a new attitude to the nevy valuation, in order that they may bear it into the future. New require- ments and prerequisites must be bred. And this process consumes, as it were, most of the time that is allotted to nations as their history. Great ages, because they are great, are in terms of frequency quite rare and of endurance very brief, just as the most momentous times for individual men often consist of a single moment. A new valuation itself
28 THE WILL TO POWER AS ART
implies the creation and inculcation of requirements and demands that conform to the new values. For that reason the work is to find its conclusion in the fourth book, "Discipline and Breeding. "
At the same time, however, it is a basic experience gained from the history of valuations that even the positing of the uppermost values does not take place at a single stroke, that eternal truth never blazes in the heavens overnight, and that no people in history has had its truth fall into its lap. Those who posit the uppermost values, the creators, the new philosophers at the forefront, must according to Nietzsche be experimenters; they must tread paths and break trails in the knowledge that they do not have the truth. But from such knowledge it does not at all follow that they have to view their concepts as mere betting chips that can be exchanged at any time for any currency. What does follow is just the opposite: the solidity and binding quality of thought must undergo a grounding in the things themselves in a way that prior philosophy does not know. Only in this way is it possible for a basic position to assert itself over against others, so that the resultant strife will be actual strife and thus the actual origin of truth. * The new thinkers must attempt and tempt. That means they must put beings themselves to the test, tempt them with questions concerning their Being and truth. So, when Nietzsche writes in the subtitle to his work, "attempt" at a revaluation of all values, the turn of phrase is not meant to express modesty and to suggest that what follows is still incomplete; it does not mean an "essay" in the literary sense; rather, in an utterly clearminded way, it means the basic attitude of the new inquiry that grows out of the countermovement against nihilism. " - W e are con- ducting an experiment with truth! Perhaps mankind will perish because of it! Fine! " (XII, 410).
*The reference to strife and to the origin of truth is to "Der Ursprung des Kunst- werkes" ["The Origin of the Work of Art"]. See Martin Heidegger, Ho/zwege (Frank- furt/Main: V. Klostermann, 1950), pp. 37-38 ff. ; cf. the revised edition (Stuttgart: P. Reclam, 1960), pp. 51-52 ff. Heidegger first reworked this essay during the autumn of 1936, which is to say, while the first Nietzsche course was in session. W e will hardly be surprised therefore to hear echoes of each in the other. For an English translation of the essay, see Martin Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought, tr. Albert Hofstadter (New York: Harper & Row, 1971), pp. 17-87.
The Structure of the "Major Work" 29
We new philosophers, however, not only do we begin by presenting the actual gradations in rank and variations in value among men, but we also desire the very opposite of an assimilation, an equalizing: we teach estrange- ment in every sense, we tear open gaps such as never were, we want man to become more wicked than he ever was. Meanwhile, we ourselves live as strangers to one another, concealed from one another. It is necessary for many reasons that we be recluses and that we don masks-consequently, we shall do poorly in searching out our comrades. We shall live alone and probably come to know the torments of all seven solitudes. If perchance our paths should cross, you may wager that we will mistake one another or betray one another (WM, 988).
Nietzsche's procedure, his manner of thinking in the execution of the new valuation, is perpetual reversal. We will find opportunity enough to think through these reversals in a more detailed way. In order to clarify matters now we will bring forward only two examples. Schopenhauer interprets the essence of art as a "sedative for life," something that ameliorates the miseries and sufferings of life, that puts the will-whose compulsiveness makes existence miserable-out of commission. Nietzsche reverses this and says that art is the stimulans of life, something that excites and enhances life, "what eternally com- pels us to life, to eternal life" (XIV, 370). Stimulans is obviously the reverse of sedative.
A second example.
To the question "What is truth? " Nietzsche answers, "Truth is the kind of error without which a certain kind of living being could not live. The value for life ultimately decides" (WM, 493). "'Truth': this, according to my way of thinking, does not neces- sarily denote the antithesis of error, but in the most fundamental cases only the position of various errors in relation to one another" (WM, 535). It would of course be utterly superficial to explain such state. - ments in the following way: Nietzsche takes everything that is an error to be true. Nietzsche's statement-truth is error, error truth-can be grasped only in terms of his fundamental position in opposition to all Western philosophy since Plato. If we have grasped this fact, then the statement already sounds less alien. Nietzsche's procedure of reversal at times becomes a conscious mania, if not indeed a breach of good
30
THE WILL TO PO\VER AS ART
taste. With reference to the expression "Whoever laughs last, laughs best," he says, by way of reversal, "And today whoever laughs best also laughs last" (VIII, 67). In contrast to "Blessed are they who do not see and still believe," he speaks of "seeing and still not believing. " This he calls "the primary virtue of knowers," whose "greatest tempter" is whatever is "clear to the eyes" (XII, 241).
One need not penetrate too far into Nietzsche's thought in order to determine without difficulty that his procedure everywhere is one of reversal. On the basis of that determination a basic objection to Nietzsche's procedure and to his entire philosophy has been raised: reversal is merely denial-in setting aside the previous order of values no new values yet arise. With objections of this kind it is always advisable to suppose at least provisionally that the philosopher under consideration was after all alert enough to experience such doubts himself. Nietzsche not only avers that by means of reversal a new order of values should originate; he says explicitly that in this way an order should originate "ofitself" Nietzsche says, "If the tyranny of previous values has thus been shattered, if we have abolished the 'true world,' then a new order of values must follow of itself. "* Merely by doing away with the old, something new should eventuate of itself! Are we to ascribe such an opinion to Nietzsche, or do such "abolition" and "reversal" signify something other than what we usually represent to ourselves with the help of everyday concepts?
What is the principle of the new valuation? At the outset it is important to clarify in general the meaning of the title of the third book, to which we are limiting ourselves. "Principle," comes from principium, beginning. The concept corresponds to what the Greeks call arche, that on the basis of which something is determined to be what it is and how it is. Principle: the ground on which something stands, pervading it, guiding it in its whole structure and essence. W e also conceive of principles as fundamental propositions. But these are
*Heidegger cites no source, but the passage probably derives from WM, 461. If so, Heidegger misreads the phrase". . . Ordnung der Werte" as "Ordnung der Welt. " I have restored Nietzsche's text in the translation.
The Structure of the "Major Work" 31
"principles" only in a derived sense and only because and insofar as they posit something as the fundament of something else within a state- ment. A statement as such can never be a principle. The principle of a new valuation is that in which valuing as such has its supporting and guiding ground. The principle of a new valuation is that kind of ground which inaugurates a valuing that is new in contrast to previous kinds. The valuing is to be new: not only what is posited as a value but above all else the manner in which values are posited in general. If one objects that Nietzsche was basically uncreative and did not really establish any new values, such an objection first needs to be tested carefully. But however it turns out, the objection itself does not touch what Nietzsche actually wanted to do above all else, namely, to ground anew the manner in which values are posited, to lay a new ground for this purpose. Therefore, if we want to grasp what is thought here, we must read the title of Book III, "Principle of the New Valuation,"* as having the following sense: the new ground from which in the future the manner and kind of valuing will spring and upon which it will rest. How are we to conceive that ground?
If the work as a whole involves will to power, and if the third book is to exhibit the ground-laying and structuring principle of the new valuation, then the principle can only be will to power. How are we to understand this? We said by way of anticipation that will to power is a name for the basic character of all beings. It means precisely what properly constitutes the being in beings. Nietzsche's decisive consider- ation runs as follows: if we are to establish what properly should be, and what must come to be in consequence of that, it can be determined only if truth and clarity already surround whatever is and whatever constitutes Being. How else could we determine what is to be?
In the sense of this most universal consideration, whose ultimat~ tenability we must still leave open, Nietzsche says, "Task: to see things as they are! " (XII, 13). "My philosophy-to draw men away from semblance, no matter what the danger! And no fear that life will perish! " (XII, 18). Finally: "Because you lie concerning what is, the
*Heidegger changes here the indefinite article, einer, to the definite, der, Cf. p. 25.
32
THE \VILL TO POWER AS ART
thirst for what should come to be does not grow in you" (XII, 279). Demonstration of will to power as the basic character of beings is supposed to expunge the lies in our experience of beings and in our interpretation of them. But not only that. It is also supposed to ground the principle, and establish the ground, from which the valuation is to spring and in which it must remain rooted. For "will to power" is already in itself an estimating and valuing. If beings are grasped as will to power, the "should" which is supposed to hang suspended over them, against which they might be measured, becomes superfluous. If life itself is will to power, it is itself the ground, principium, of valua- tion. Then a "should" does not determine Being; Being determines a "should. " "When we talk of values we are speaking under the inspira- tion or optics of life: life itself compels us to set up values; life itself
values through us whenever we posit values. . . . " (VIII, 89). *
To exhibit the principle of the new valuation therefore first of all means to display will to power as the basic character of beings through- out all groups and regions of beings. With a view to that task the editors
of The Will to Power divided the third book into four divisions:
I. Will to Power as Knowledge. II. Will to Power in Nature.
III. Will to Power as Society and Individual. IV. Will to Power as Art.
Several of Nietzsche's sets of instructions could have been used for such a division, for example, Plan I, 7, dated 1885 (XVI, 415): "Will to Power. Attempt at an interpretation of all occurrence. Foreword on the 'meaninglessness' that threatens. Problem of pessimism. " Then comes a list of topics arranged vertically: "Logic. Physics. Morals, Art. Politics. " These are the customary disciplines of philosophy; the only one that is missing, and not by accident, is speculative theology. For
*To this analysis of the "should" compare that in Heidegger's lecture course during the summer semester of 1935, published as Einfiihrung in die Metaphysik (Tiibingen: M. Niemeyer, 1953), pp. 149-52; in the English translation, Martin Heidegger, An Introduction to Metaphysics, tr. Ralph Manheim (Carden City, N. Y. : Doubleday- Anchor, 1961), pp. 164-67.
The Structure of the "Major Work" 33
the decisive stance vis-a-vis Nietzsche's interpretation of beings as will to power it is important to know that from the very start he saw beings as a whole in the perspectives of traditional disciplines of academic philosophy.
As a further aid in apportioning the aphorisms which appear in the handwritten notebooks into the chapters mentioned, the editors em- ployed an index in which Nietzsche himself numbered 372 aphorisms and divided them into particular books cited in a plan which, it is true, originates at a later date (Plan III, 6; XVI, 424). The index is printed in volume XVI, 454-67; it stems from the year 1888. *
The disposition of the third book of The Will to Power, as it lies before us today, is accordingly as well grounded as it could be on the basis of the extant handwritten materials.
However, we shall begin the interpretation of Book III not with the first chapter, "Will to Power as Knowledge," but with the fourth and final one, "Will to Power as Art. "
This chapter consists of aphorisms 794 to 853. Why we are begin- ning with the fourth chapter will soon become clear on the basis of that chapter's contents. Our immediate task must be to ask in what way Nietzsche perceives and defines the essence of art. As the very title of the chapter suggests, art is a configuration of will to power. If art is a configuration of will to power, and if within the whole of Being art is accessible in a distinctive way for us, then we should most likely be able to grasp what will to power means from the Nietzschean concep- tion of art. But lest the expression "will to power" remain an empty term any longer, let us delineate our interpretation of the fourth chapter by means of a preliminary observation. This we will do by asking, first, what does Nietzsche mean by the expression "will to power"; and second, why should it not surprise us that the basic. character of beings is here defined as will?
*Karl Schlechta indicates that the list of 372 aphorisms could apply to a number of plans other than that dated March 17, 1887. See Schlechta, Der Fall Nietzsche (Munich: C. Hanser, 2nd ed. , 1959), pp. 74 ff. and 88 ff.
.
6. The Being of beings as Will ID Traditional Metaphysics
We shall begin with the second question. The conception of the Being of all beings as will is very much in line with the best and greatest tradition of German philosophy. When we look back from Nietzsche our glance falls immediately upon Schopenhauer. His main work, which at first impels Nietzsche toward philosophy but then later repels him, bears the title The World as Will and Representation. But what Nietzsche himself understands by "will" is something altogether differ- ent. Nor is it adequate to grasp Nietzsche's notion of will as the reversal of the Schopenhauerian.
Schopenhauer's major work appeared in the year 1818. It was pro- foundly indebted to the main works of Schelling and Hegel, which had already appeared by that time. The best proof of this debt consists in the excessive and tasteless rebukes Schopenhauer hurled at Hegel and Schelling his life long. Schopenhauer called Schelling a "windbag," Hegel a "bumbling charlatan. " Such abuse, directed repeatedly against philosophy in the years following Schopenhauer, does not even have the dubious distinction of being particularly "novel. "
In one of Schelling's most profound works, the treatise On the Essence of Human Freedom, published in 1809, that philosopher writes: "In the final and ultimate instance there is no other Being at all than Willing. Willing is Primal Being" (I, VII, 350). *And in his
*During the previous semester (summer 1936) Heidegger had lectured on Schelling. See Martin Heidegger, Schellings Abhandlung iiber das Wesen der menschlichen Frei- heit (1809}, ed. Hildegard Feick (Tiibingen: M. Niemeyer, 1971). Especially useful in
The Being of beings 35
Phenomenology of Spirit (1807) Hegel grasps the essence of Being as knowing, but grasps knowing as essentially identical to willing.
Schelling and Hegel were certain that with the interpretation of Being as will they were merely thinking the essential thought of another great German thinker-the concept of Being in Leibniz. Leibniz de- fined the essence of Being as the original unity of perceptio and ap- petitus, representation and will. Not accidentally, Nietzsche himself referred to Leibniz in two decisive passages of The Will to Power: "German philosophy as a whole-Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, to name the great ones-is the most thoroughgoing kind of romanti- cism and homesickness that has ever existed: the longing for the best there ever was" (WM, 419). And: "Handel, Leibniz, Goethe, Bismarck -characteristic of the strong German type" (WM, 884).
Now, to be sure, one should not assert that Nietzsche's doctrine of will to power is dependent upon Leibniz or Hegel or Schelling, in order by such a pronouncement to cancel all further consideration. "De- pendence" is not a concept by which we can understand relationships among the greats. But the small are always dependent on the great; they are "small" precisely because they think they are independent. The great thinker is one who can hear what is greatest in the work of other "greats" and who can transform it in an original manner.
Reference to Nietzsche's predecessors with regard to the doctrine of Being as will is not meant to calculate some sort of dependence; it is rather to suggest that such a doctrine within Western metaphysics is not arbitrary but perhaps even necessary. Every true thinking lets itself be determined by what is to be thought. In philosophy the Being of beings is to be thought. For philosophy's thinking and questioning there is no loftier and stricter commitment. In contrast, all the sciences think always only of one being among others, one particular region of beings. They are committed by this region of beings only in an indirect manner, never straightforwardly so. Because in philosophical thought
the context of Heidegger's reading of Nietzsche are the notes sketched five years later for a seminar on that same treatise. The notes appear in an appendix to Heidegger's Schelling. See esp. pp. 224-25.
36 THE WILL TO POWER AS ART
the highest possible commitment prevails, all great thinkers think the same. Yet this "same" is so essential and so rich that no single thinker exhausts it; each commits all the others to it all the more strictly. To conceive of beings according to their basic character as will is not a view held by particular thinkers; it is a necessity in the history of the Dasein which those thinkers ground.
7. Will as Will to Power
But now, to anticipate the decisive issue, what does Nietzsche himself understand by the phrase "will to power"? What does "will" mean? What does "will to power" mean? For Nietzsche these two questions are but one. For in his view will is nothing else than will to power, and power nothing else than the essence of will. Hence, will to power is will to will, which is to say, willing is self-willing. But that requires elucida- tion.
With our attempt, as with all conceptual definitions elaborated in a similar fashion which claim to grasp the Being of beings, we must keep two things in mind. First, a precise conceptual definition that ticks off the various characteristics of what is to be defined remains vacuous and false, so long as we do not really come to know in an intimate way what is being talked about and bring it before our mind's eye. Second, in order to grasp the Nietzschean concept of will, the following is espe- cially important: if according to Nietzsche will as will to power is the basic character of all beings, then in defining the essence of will we cannot appeal to a particular being or special mode of Being which would serve to explain the essence of will.
Hence, will as the pervasive character of all beings does not yield any immediate sort of directive from which its concept, as a concept of Being, might be derived. Of course, Nietzsche never explicated this state of affairs systematically and with attention to principles; but he knew quite clearly that here he was pursuing an unusual question.
Two examples may illustrate what is involved. According to the usual view, will is taken to be a faculty of the soul. What will is may be determined from the essence of the psyche. The latter is dealt with in
38 THE WILL TO POWER AS ART
psychology. The psyche is a particular being, distinct from body and mind. Now, if in Nietzsche's view will determines the Being of every sort of being, then it does not pertain to the psyche; rather, the psyche somehow pertains to the will. But body and mind too are will, inasmuch as such things "are. " Furthermore, if will is taken to be a faculty, then it is viewed as something that can do something, is in a position to do it, possessing the requisite power and might. Whatever is intrinsically power, and for Nietzsche that is what will is, thus cannot be further characterized by defining it as a faculty or power. For the essence of a faculty is grounded in the essence of will as power.
A second example. Will is taken to be a kind of cause. We say that a man does something not so much by means of his intellect as by sheer willpower. Will brings something about, effects some consequence. But to be a cause is a particular mode of Being; Being as such cannot be grasped by means of causation. Will is not an effecting. What we usually take to be a thing that effects something else, the power of causation, is itself grounded in will (cf. VIII, 80).
If will to power characterizes Being itself, there is nothing else that will can be defined as. Will is will-but that formally correct definition does not say anything. It is in fact quite deceptive if we take it to mean that things are as simple as the simple phrase suggests.
For that reason Nietzsche can declare, "Today we know that it [i. e. , the will] is merely a word" (Tw1light of the Idols, 1888; VIII, 80). Corresponding to this is an earlier assertion from the period of Zara- thustra: "I laugh at your free will and your unfree one too: what you call will is to me an illusion; there is no will" (XII, 267). It is remarkable that the thinker for whom the basic character of all beings is will should say such a thing: "There is no will. " But Nietzsche means that there is no such will as the one previously known and designated as "a faculty of the soul" and as "striving in general. "
Whatever the case, Nietzsche must constantly repeat what will is. He says, for example, that will is an "affect," a "passion," a "feeling," and a "command. " But do not such characterizations of will as "affect," "passion," and so on speak within the domain of the psyche and of states of the soul? Are not affect, passion, feeling, and command each
Will as Will to Power 39
something different? Must not whatever is introduced in order to illuminate the essence of will itself be adequately clear at the outset? But what is more obscure than the essence of affect and passion, and the distinction between the two? How can will be all those things simultaneously? We can hardly surmount these questions and doubts concerning Nietzsche's interpretation of the essence of will. And yet, perhaps, they do not touch on the decisive issue.
The Unity of Will to Power 19
What is will to power itself, and how is it? Answer: the eternal recurrence of the same.
Is it an accident that the latter teaching recurs continually in decisive passages throughout all plans for the philosophical main work? What can it mean when in one plan, which bears the unadorned title "Eternal Return" (XVI, 414), Nietzsche lists the first part under the title "The most difficult thought"? To be sure, the question of Being is the most difficult thought of philosophy, because it is simultaneously its inner- most and uttermost thought, the one with which it stands and falls.
We heard that the fundamental character of beings is will to power, willing, and thus Becoming. Nevertheless, Nietzsche does not cling to such a position-although that is usually what we are thinking when we associate him with Heraclitus. Much to the contrary, in a passage purposely and expressly formulated to provide an encompassing over- view (WM, 617), Nietzsche says the following: "Recapitulation: To stamp Becoming with the character of Being-that is the supreme will to power. " This suggests that Becoming only is if it is grounded in Being as Being: "That everything recurs is the closest approximation of a world of Becoming to one of Being: peak of the meditation. "* With his doctrine of eternal return Nietzsche in his way thinks nothing else than the thought that pervades the whole of Western philosophy, a thought that remains concealed but is its genuine driving force.
Nietzsche thinks the thought in such a way that in his metaphysics he reverts to the beginnings of Western philosophy. More precisely, he reverts to that beginning which Western philosophy became accustomed to seeing in the course of its history. Nietzsche shared in
* Heidegger often cites the "Recapitulation" aphorism during the Nietzsche lectures and essays. See, for example, Nl, 466 and 656; Nil, 288, 327, and 339. He employs it also for instance in "The Anaximander Fragment," the first chapter of Martin Heidegger, Early Greek Thinking, tr. D. F. Krell and F. A. Capuzzi (New York: Harper & Row, 1975), p. 22. Yet it was not Nietzsche but Peter Cast (Heinrich Koselitz) who supplied the title of the aphorism: see Walter Kaufmann's note in his edition of The Will to Power, p. 330, and cf. CM VIII, I, p. 320, which does not print the title. Furthermore, WM, 617 is a note the entire context and contents of which must be carefully examined. The problem will be discussed in the Analysis of volume Ill in the present series.
20 THE WILL TO POWER AS ART
such habituation in spite of his otherwise original grasp of pre-Socratic philosophy.
In the popular view, and according to the common notion, Nietzsche is the revolutionary figure who negated, destroyed, and prophesied. To be sure, all that belongs to the image we have of him. Nor is it merely a role that he played, but an innermost necessity of his time. But what is essential in the revolutionary is not that he overturns as such; it is rather that in overturning he brings to light what is decisive and essen- tial. In philosophy that happens always when those few momentous questions are raised. When he thinks "the most difficult thought" at the "peak of the meditation," Nietzsche thinks and meditates on Being, that is, on will to power as eternal recurrence. What does that mean, taken quite broadly and essentially? Eternity, not as a static "now," nor as a sequence of "nows" rolling off into the infinite, but as the "now" that bends back into itself: what is that if not the concealed essence of Time? Thinking Being, will to power, as eternal return, thinking the most difficult thought of philosophy, means thinking Being as Time. Nietzsche thinks that thought but does not think it as the question of Being and Time. Plato and Aristotle also think that thought when they conceive Being as ousia (presence), but just as little as Nietzsche do they think it as a question.
If we do ask the question, we do not mean to suggest that we are cleverer than both Nietzsche and Western philosophy, which Nietz- sche "only" thinks to its end. W e know that the most difficult thought of philosophy has only become more difficult, that the peak of the meditation has not yet been conquered and perhaps not yet even discovered at all.
If we bring Nietzsche's "will to power," that is, his question concern- ing the Being of beings, into the perspective of the question concerning "Being and Time," that does not at all mean that Nietzsche's work is to be related to a book entitled Being and Time and that it is to be measured and interpreted according to the contents of that book. Being and Time can be evaluated only by the extent to which it is equal or unequal to the question it raises. There is no standard other than the question itself; only the question, not the book, is essential. Further-
The Unity of Will to Power 21
more, the book merely leads us to the threshold of the question, not yet into the question itself.
Whoever neglects to think the thought of eternal recurrence to- gether with will to power, as what is to be thought genuinely and philosophically, cannot adequately grasp the metaphysical content of the doctrine of will to power in its full scope. Nevertheless, the connec- tion between eternal recurrence as the supreme determination of Being and will to power as the basic character of all beings does not lie in the palm of our hand. For that reason Nietzsche speaks of the "most difficult thought" and the "peak of the meditation. " It is nonetheless true that the current interpretation of Nietzsche does away with the properly philosophical significance of the doctrine of eternal recur- rence and thus irremediably precludes a fertile conception of Nietz- sche's metaphysics. We will introduce two examples, each quite inde- pendent of the other, of such a treatment of the doctrine of eternal return in Nietzsche's philosophy: Alfred Baeumler, Nietzsche: Philoso- pher and Politician (I 931 ), and Karl Jaspers, Nietzsche: Introduction
to an Understanding of His Philosophizing (I936). * The negative position taken by each author with respect to the doctrine of eternal recurrence-and for us that means the misinterpretation by each-varies in kind and has different grounds.
Baeumler portrays what Nietzche calls the most difficult thought and the peak of the meditation as an entirely personal, "religious" conviction of Nietzsche's. He says, "Only one can be valid: either the doctrine of eternal return or the doctrine of will to power" (p. 80). He tries to ground this either-or by the following argument: will to power is Becoming; Being is grasped as Becoming; that is the ancient doctrine of Heraclitus on the flux of things and it is also Nietzsche's genuine teaching. His thought of eternal recurrence has to deny the unlimited flux of Becoming. The thought introduces a contradiction into
*Alfred Baeumler, Nietzsche der Philosoph und Politiker (Leipzig: P. Reclam, 1931), and Karl Jaspers, Nietzsche. Einfiihrung in das Verstiindnis seines Philosophierens (Berlin and Leipzig: Walter de Gruyter, 1936). Both books are discussed in the Analysis (section II) at the end of this volume. The analyses to the later volumes of the present series will treat Baeumler more thoroughly.
22 TilE WILL TO POWER AS ART
Nietzsche's metaphysics. Therefore, either the doctrine of will to power or that of eternal recurrence, only one of them, can define Nietzsche's philosophy. Baeumler writes, "In truth, seen from the point of view of Nietzsche's system, this thought is without impor- tance. " And on page 82 he opines, "Now, Nietzsche, who is a founder of religion, also accomplishes an Egyptification of the Heraclitean world. " According to Baeumler's account, the doctrine of eternal recurrence implies bringing Becoming to a standstill. With his either- or, Baeumler presupposes that Heraclitus teaches the eternal flux of things, in the sense of the ever-ongoing. For some time now we have known that this conception of Heraclitus' doctrine is utterly foreign to the Greek. Just as questionable as the interpretation of Heraclitus, however, is whether Nietzsche's will to power should automatically be taken as Becoming in the sense of the onward-flowing. In the end, such a concept of Becoming is so superficial that we had better not be too quick to ascribe it to Nietzsche. The immediate result of our consider- ations so far is that there is not necessarily a contradiction between the two statements "Being is Becoming" and "Becoming is Being. " Pre- cisely that is Heraclitus' teaching. But assuming that there is a contra- diction between the doctrines of will to power and eternal recurrence, we have known since Hegel's day that a contradiction is not necessarily
proof against the truth of a metaphysical statement, but may be proof for it. If therefore eternal recurrence and will to power contradict one another, perhaps the contradiction is precisely the demand to think this most difficult thought, instead of fleeing into the "religious. " But even if we concede that here we have a contradiction which cannot be transcended and which compels us to decide in favor of either will to power or eternal recurrence, why does Baeumler then decide against Nietzsche's most difficult thought, the peak of his meditation, and for will to power? The answer is simple: Baeumler's reflections on the relationship between the two doctrines do not press toward the realm of actual inquiry from either side. Rather, the doctrine of eternal recurrence, where he fears "Egypticism," militates against his concep- tion of will to power, which, in spite of the talk about metaphysics, Baeumler does not grasp metaphysically but interprets politically.
The Unity of Will to Power 23
Nietzsche's doctrine of eternal recurrence conflicts with Baeumler's conception of politics. It is therefore "without importance" for Nietz- sche's system. This interpretation of Nietzsche is all the more remark- able since Baeumler belongs among those few commentators who re- ject Klages' psychological-biologistic interpretation of Nietzsche. *
The second conception of Nietzsche's doctrine of eternal return is that of Karl Jaspers. True, Jaspers discusses Nietzsche's teaching in greater detail and discerns that here we are in the presence of one of Nietzsche's decisive thoughts. In spite of the talk about Being, how- ever, Jaspers does not bring the thought into the realm of the ground- ing question of Western philosophy and thereby also into actual connection with the doctrine of will to power. For Baeumler the doc- trine of eternal recurrence cannot be united with the political interpre- tation of Nietzsche; for Jaspers it is not possible to take it as a question of great import, because, according to Jaspers, there is no conceptual truth or conceptual knowledge in philosophy.
But if in contrast to all this the doctrine of eternal recurrence is seen to coincide with the very center of Nietzsche's metaphysical thinking, is it not misleading, or at least one-sided, to collate all the preliminary sketches for a philosophical magnum opus under the plan that takes as its definitive title "Will to Power"?
That the editors selected the middle one of the three basic positions in the plans testifies to their considerable understanding. For Nietzsche himself first of all had to make a decisive effort to visualize the basic character of will to power throughout beings as a whole. Yet this was never for him the ultimate step. Rather, if Nietzsche was the thinker we are convinced he was, then the demonstration of will to power would always have to revolve about the thought of the Being of beings, which for Nietzsche meant the eternal recurrence of the same.
*Ludwig Klages (1872-1956) developed as his life's work a "biocentric metaphysics" which was to clarify once and for all the problem of the body-soul-mind relationship. His major work is the three-volume Der Geist als Widersacher der Seele (1929-32); the work Heidegger refers to here is Die psychologischen Errungenschaften Nietzsches (1926). Cf. section 17, below, and section II of the Analysis. For a critical edition of Klages' writings see Ludwig Klages, Siimtliche Werke (Bonn: Bouvier, 1964 H. ).
24 THE WILL TO POWER AS ART
But even if we grant the fact that this edition of the preliminary sketches for the major work, dominated by the theme of will to power, is the best edition possible, the book that lies before us is still some- thing supplementary. Nobody knows what would have become of these preliminary sketches had Nietzsche himself been able to transform them into the main work he was planning. Nevertheless, what is avail- able to us today is so essential and rich, and even from Nietzsche's point of view so definitive, that the prerequisites are granted for what alone is important: actually to think Nietzsche's genuine philosophical thought. W e are all the more liable to succeed in this endeavor the less we restrict ourselves to the sequence of particular fragments as they lie before us, collected and subsumed into book form. For such ordering of particular fragments and aphorisms within the schema of divisions, a schema which does stem from Nietzsche himself, is arbitrary and inessential. What we must do is think through particular fragments, guided by the movement of thought which occurs when we ask the genuine questions. Therefore, measured against the order established by the text before us, we will jump about within various particular divisions. Here too an arbitrariness, within certain limits, is unavoid- able. Still, in all this what remains decisive is to hear Nietzsche himself; to inquire with him and through him and therefore at the same time against him, but for the one single innermost matter that is common to Western philosophy. We can undertake such a task only if we limit its scope. But the important thing is to know where these limits are to be set. Such limitation does not preclude but expects and demands that in time, with the help of the book The Will to Power, you will work through whatever is not explicitly treated in the lectures, in the spirit and manner of our procedure here.
5. The Structure of the "Major Work. " Nietzsche's Manner of Thinking as Reversal
Nietzsche's basic metaphysical position may be defined by two state- ments. First, the basic character of beings as such is "will to power. " Second, Being is "eternal recurrence of the same. " When we think through Nietzsche's philosophy in a questioning way, along the guide- lines of those two statements, we advance beyond the basic positions of Nietzsche and of philosophy prior to him. But such advance only allows us to come back to Nietzsche. The return is to occur by means of an interpretation of "The Will to Power. "
The plan upon which the published edition is based, a plan Nietz- sche himself sketched and even dated (March 17, 1887), takes the following form (XVI, 421):
THE WILL TO POWER Attempt at a Revaluation of All Values
Book 1: European Nihili'sm.
Book II: Critique of the Highest Values. Book III: Principle of a New Valuation. Book IV: Discipline and Breeding.
Our inquiry proceeds immediately to the third book and restricts itself to that one. The very title, "Principle of a New Valuation," suggests that here a laying of grounds and an erection of structures are to be brought to language.
Accordingly, in Nietzsche's view, philosophy is a matter of valuation,
26 THE WILL TO POWER AS ART
that is, establishment of the uppermost value in terms of which and according to which all beings are to be. The uppermost value is the one that must be fundamental for all beings insofar as they are beings. A "new" valuation would therefore posit another value, in opposition to the old, decrepit one, which should be determinative for the future. For that reason a critique of the highest values hitherto is advanced before- hand, in Book II. The values in question are religion, specifically, the Christian religion, morality, and philosophy. Nietzsche's manner of speaking and writing here is often imprecise and misleading: religion, morality, and philosophy are not themselves the supreme values, but basic ways of establishing and imposing such values. Only for that reason can they themselves, mediately, be posited and taken as "highest values. "
The critique of the highest values hitherto does not simply refute them or declare them invalid. It is rather a matter of displaying their origins as impositions which must affirm precisely what ought to be negated by the values established. Critique of the highest values hith- erto therefore properly means illumination of the dubious origins of the valuations that yield them, and thereby demonstration of the question- ableness of these values themselves. Prior to this critique, which is offered in Book II, the first book advances an account of European nihilism. Thus the work is to begin with a comprehensive presentation of the basic development of Western history, which Nietzsche recog- nizes in its range and intensity here for the first time: the development of nihilism. In Nietzsche's view nihilism is not a Weltanschauung that occurs at some time and place or another; it is rather the basic character of what happens in Occidental history. Nihilism is at work even-and especially-there where it is not advocated as doctrine or demand, there where ostensibly its opposite prevails. Nihilism means that the uppermost values devalue themselves. This means that whatever realities and laws set the standard in Christendom, in morality since Hellenistic times, and in philosophy since Plato, lose their binding force, and for Nietzsche that always means creative force. In his view nihilism is never merely a development of his own times; nor does it pertain only to the nineteenth century. Nihilism begins in the pre-
The Structure of the "Major Work" 27
Christian era and it does not cease with the twentieth century. As a historical process it will occupy the centuries immediately ahead of us, even and especially when countermeasures are introduced. But neither is nihilism for Nietzsche mere collapse, valuelessness, and destruction. Rather, it is a basic mode of historical movement that does not exclude, but even requires and furthers, for long stretches of time, a certain creative upswing. "Corruption," "physiological degeneration," and such are not causes of nihilism but effects. Nihilism therefore cannot be overcome by the extirpation of those conditions. On the contrary, an overcoming of nihilism would merely be delayed by countermea- sures directed toward alleviation of its harmful side effects. In order to grasp what Nietzsche designates in the word "nihilism" we need pro- found insight and even more profound seriousness.
Because of its necessary involvement in the movement of Western history, and on account of the unavoidable critique of prior valuations, the new valuation is necessarily a revaluation of all values. Hence the subtitle, which in the final phase of Nietzsche's philosophy becomes the main title, designates the general character of the countermove- ment to nihilism within nihilism. No historical movement can leap outside of history and start from scratch. It becomes all the more historical, which is to say, it grounds history all the more originally, as it overcomes radically what has gone before by creating a new order in that realm where we have our roots. Now, the overwhelming experience derived from the history of nihilism is that all valuations remain with- out force if the corresponding basic attitude of valuing and the corre- sponding manner of thinking do not accompany them.
Every valuation in the essential sense must not only bring its pos- sibilities to bear in order to be "understood" at all, it must at the same time develop a breed of men who can bring a new attitude to the nevy valuation, in order that they may bear it into the future. New require- ments and prerequisites must be bred. And this process consumes, as it were, most of the time that is allotted to nations as their history. Great ages, because they are great, are in terms of frequency quite rare and of endurance very brief, just as the most momentous times for individual men often consist of a single moment. A new valuation itself
28 THE WILL TO POWER AS ART
implies the creation and inculcation of requirements and demands that conform to the new values. For that reason the work is to find its conclusion in the fourth book, "Discipline and Breeding. "
At the same time, however, it is a basic experience gained from the history of valuations that even the positing of the uppermost values does not take place at a single stroke, that eternal truth never blazes in the heavens overnight, and that no people in history has had its truth fall into its lap. Those who posit the uppermost values, the creators, the new philosophers at the forefront, must according to Nietzsche be experimenters; they must tread paths and break trails in the knowledge that they do not have the truth. But from such knowledge it does not at all follow that they have to view their concepts as mere betting chips that can be exchanged at any time for any currency. What does follow is just the opposite: the solidity and binding quality of thought must undergo a grounding in the things themselves in a way that prior philosophy does not know. Only in this way is it possible for a basic position to assert itself over against others, so that the resultant strife will be actual strife and thus the actual origin of truth. * The new thinkers must attempt and tempt. That means they must put beings themselves to the test, tempt them with questions concerning their Being and truth. So, when Nietzsche writes in the subtitle to his work, "attempt" at a revaluation of all values, the turn of phrase is not meant to express modesty and to suggest that what follows is still incomplete; it does not mean an "essay" in the literary sense; rather, in an utterly clearminded way, it means the basic attitude of the new inquiry that grows out of the countermovement against nihilism. " - W e are con- ducting an experiment with truth! Perhaps mankind will perish because of it! Fine! " (XII, 410).
*The reference to strife and to the origin of truth is to "Der Ursprung des Kunst- werkes" ["The Origin of the Work of Art"]. See Martin Heidegger, Ho/zwege (Frank- furt/Main: V. Klostermann, 1950), pp. 37-38 ff. ; cf. the revised edition (Stuttgart: P. Reclam, 1960), pp. 51-52 ff. Heidegger first reworked this essay during the autumn of 1936, which is to say, while the first Nietzsche course was in session. W e will hardly be surprised therefore to hear echoes of each in the other. For an English translation of the essay, see Martin Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought, tr. Albert Hofstadter (New York: Harper & Row, 1971), pp. 17-87.
The Structure of the "Major Work" 29
We new philosophers, however, not only do we begin by presenting the actual gradations in rank and variations in value among men, but we also desire the very opposite of an assimilation, an equalizing: we teach estrange- ment in every sense, we tear open gaps such as never were, we want man to become more wicked than he ever was. Meanwhile, we ourselves live as strangers to one another, concealed from one another. It is necessary for many reasons that we be recluses and that we don masks-consequently, we shall do poorly in searching out our comrades. We shall live alone and probably come to know the torments of all seven solitudes. If perchance our paths should cross, you may wager that we will mistake one another or betray one another (WM, 988).
Nietzsche's procedure, his manner of thinking in the execution of the new valuation, is perpetual reversal. We will find opportunity enough to think through these reversals in a more detailed way. In order to clarify matters now we will bring forward only two examples. Schopenhauer interprets the essence of art as a "sedative for life," something that ameliorates the miseries and sufferings of life, that puts the will-whose compulsiveness makes existence miserable-out of commission. Nietzsche reverses this and says that art is the stimulans of life, something that excites and enhances life, "what eternally com- pels us to life, to eternal life" (XIV, 370). Stimulans is obviously the reverse of sedative.
A second example.
To the question "What is truth? " Nietzsche answers, "Truth is the kind of error without which a certain kind of living being could not live. The value for life ultimately decides" (WM, 493). "'Truth': this, according to my way of thinking, does not neces- sarily denote the antithesis of error, but in the most fundamental cases only the position of various errors in relation to one another" (WM, 535). It would of course be utterly superficial to explain such state. - ments in the following way: Nietzsche takes everything that is an error to be true. Nietzsche's statement-truth is error, error truth-can be grasped only in terms of his fundamental position in opposition to all Western philosophy since Plato. If we have grasped this fact, then the statement already sounds less alien. Nietzsche's procedure of reversal at times becomes a conscious mania, if not indeed a breach of good
30
THE WILL TO PO\VER AS ART
taste. With reference to the expression "Whoever laughs last, laughs best," he says, by way of reversal, "And today whoever laughs best also laughs last" (VIII, 67). In contrast to "Blessed are they who do not see and still believe," he speaks of "seeing and still not believing. " This he calls "the primary virtue of knowers," whose "greatest tempter" is whatever is "clear to the eyes" (XII, 241).
One need not penetrate too far into Nietzsche's thought in order to determine without difficulty that his procedure everywhere is one of reversal. On the basis of that determination a basic objection to Nietzsche's procedure and to his entire philosophy has been raised: reversal is merely denial-in setting aside the previous order of values no new values yet arise. With objections of this kind it is always advisable to suppose at least provisionally that the philosopher under consideration was after all alert enough to experience such doubts himself. Nietzsche not only avers that by means of reversal a new order of values should originate; he says explicitly that in this way an order should originate "ofitself" Nietzsche says, "If the tyranny of previous values has thus been shattered, if we have abolished the 'true world,' then a new order of values must follow of itself. "* Merely by doing away with the old, something new should eventuate of itself! Are we to ascribe such an opinion to Nietzsche, or do such "abolition" and "reversal" signify something other than what we usually represent to ourselves with the help of everyday concepts?
What is the principle of the new valuation? At the outset it is important to clarify in general the meaning of the title of the third book, to which we are limiting ourselves. "Principle," comes from principium, beginning. The concept corresponds to what the Greeks call arche, that on the basis of which something is determined to be what it is and how it is. Principle: the ground on which something stands, pervading it, guiding it in its whole structure and essence. W e also conceive of principles as fundamental propositions. But these are
*Heidegger cites no source, but the passage probably derives from WM, 461. If so, Heidegger misreads the phrase". . . Ordnung der Werte" as "Ordnung der Welt. " I have restored Nietzsche's text in the translation.
The Structure of the "Major Work" 31
"principles" only in a derived sense and only because and insofar as they posit something as the fundament of something else within a state- ment. A statement as such can never be a principle. The principle of a new valuation is that in which valuing as such has its supporting and guiding ground. The principle of a new valuation is that kind of ground which inaugurates a valuing that is new in contrast to previous kinds. The valuing is to be new: not only what is posited as a value but above all else the manner in which values are posited in general. If one objects that Nietzsche was basically uncreative and did not really establish any new values, such an objection first needs to be tested carefully. But however it turns out, the objection itself does not touch what Nietzsche actually wanted to do above all else, namely, to ground anew the manner in which values are posited, to lay a new ground for this purpose. Therefore, if we want to grasp what is thought here, we must read the title of Book III, "Principle of the New Valuation,"* as having the following sense: the new ground from which in the future the manner and kind of valuing will spring and upon which it will rest. How are we to conceive that ground?
If the work as a whole involves will to power, and if the third book is to exhibit the ground-laying and structuring principle of the new valuation, then the principle can only be will to power. How are we to understand this? We said by way of anticipation that will to power is a name for the basic character of all beings. It means precisely what properly constitutes the being in beings. Nietzsche's decisive consider- ation runs as follows: if we are to establish what properly should be, and what must come to be in consequence of that, it can be determined only if truth and clarity already surround whatever is and whatever constitutes Being. How else could we determine what is to be?
In the sense of this most universal consideration, whose ultimat~ tenability we must still leave open, Nietzsche says, "Task: to see things as they are! " (XII, 13). "My philosophy-to draw men away from semblance, no matter what the danger! And no fear that life will perish! " (XII, 18). Finally: "Because you lie concerning what is, the
*Heidegger changes here the indefinite article, einer, to the definite, der, Cf. p. 25.
32
THE \VILL TO POWER AS ART
thirst for what should come to be does not grow in you" (XII, 279). Demonstration of will to power as the basic character of beings is supposed to expunge the lies in our experience of beings and in our interpretation of them. But not only that. It is also supposed to ground the principle, and establish the ground, from which the valuation is to spring and in which it must remain rooted. For "will to power" is already in itself an estimating and valuing. If beings are grasped as will to power, the "should" which is supposed to hang suspended over them, against which they might be measured, becomes superfluous. If life itself is will to power, it is itself the ground, principium, of valua- tion. Then a "should" does not determine Being; Being determines a "should. " "When we talk of values we are speaking under the inspira- tion or optics of life: life itself compels us to set up values; life itself
values through us whenever we posit values. . . . " (VIII, 89). *
To exhibit the principle of the new valuation therefore first of all means to display will to power as the basic character of beings through- out all groups and regions of beings. With a view to that task the editors
of The Will to Power divided the third book into four divisions:
I. Will to Power as Knowledge. II. Will to Power in Nature.
III. Will to Power as Society and Individual. IV. Will to Power as Art.
Several of Nietzsche's sets of instructions could have been used for such a division, for example, Plan I, 7, dated 1885 (XVI, 415): "Will to Power. Attempt at an interpretation of all occurrence. Foreword on the 'meaninglessness' that threatens. Problem of pessimism. " Then comes a list of topics arranged vertically: "Logic. Physics. Morals, Art. Politics. " These are the customary disciplines of philosophy; the only one that is missing, and not by accident, is speculative theology. For
*To this analysis of the "should" compare that in Heidegger's lecture course during the summer semester of 1935, published as Einfiihrung in die Metaphysik (Tiibingen: M. Niemeyer, 1953), pp. 149-52; in the English translation, Martin Heidegger, An Introduction to Metaphysics, tr. Ralph Manheim (Carden City, N. Y. : Doubleday- Anchor, 1961), pp. 164-67.
The Structure of the "Major Work" 33
the decisive stance vis-a-vis Nietzsche's interpretation of beings as will to power it is important to know that from the very start he saw beings as a whole in the perspectives of traditional disciplines of academic philosophy.
As a further aid in apportioning the aphorisms which appear in the handwritten notebooks into the chapters mentioned, the editors em- ployed an index in which Nietzsche himself numbered 372 aphorisms and divided them into particular books cited in a plan which, it is true, originates at a later date (Plan III, 6; XVI, 424). The index is printed in volume XVI, 454-67; it stems from the year 1888. *
The disposition of the third book of The Will to Power, as it lies before us today, is accordingly as well grounded as it could be on the basis of the extant handwritten materials.
However, we shall begin the interpretation of Book III not with the first chapter, "Will to Power as Knowledge," but with the fourth and final one, "Will to Power as Art. "
This chapter consists of aphorisms 794 to 853. Why we are begin- ning with the fourth chapter will soon become clear on the basis of that chapter's contents. Our immediate task must be to ask in what way Nietzsche perceives and defines the essence of art. As the very title of the chapter suggests, art is a configuration of will to power. If art is a configuration of will to power, and if within the whole of Being art is accessible in a distinctive way for us, then we should most likely be able to grasp what will to power means from the Nietzschean concep- tion of art. But lest the expression "will to power" remain an empty term any longer, let us delineate our interpretation of the fourth chapter by means of a preliminary observation. This we will do by asking, first, what does Nietzsche mean by the expression "will to power"; and second, why should it not surprise us that the basic. character of beings is here defined as will?
*Karl Schlechta indicates that the list of 372 aphorisms could apply to a number of plans other than that dated March 17, 1887. See Schlechta, Der Fall Nietzsche (Munich: C. Hanser, 2nd ed. , 1959), pp. 74 ff. and 88 ff.
.
6. The Being of beings as Will ID Traditional Metaphysics
We shall begin with the second question. The conception of the Being of all beings as will is very much in line with the best and greatest tradition of German philosophy. When we look back from Nietzsche our glance falls immediately upon Schopenhauer. His main work, which at first impels Nietzsche toward philosophy but then later repels him, bears the title The World as Will and Representation. But what Nietzsche himself understands by "will" is something altogether differ- ent. Nor is it adequate to grasp Nietzsche's notion of will as the reversal of the Schopenhauerian.
Schopenhauer's major work appeared in the year 1818. It was pro- foundly indebted to the main works of Schelling and Hegel, which had already appeared by that time. The best proof of this debt consists in the excessive and tasteless rebukes Schopenhauer hurled at Hegel and Schelling his life long. Schopenhauer called Schelling a "windbag," Hegel a "bumbling charlatan. " Such abuse, directed repeatedly against philosophy in the years following Schopenhauer, does not even have the dubious distinction of being particularly "novel. "
In one of Schelling's most profound works, the treatise On the Essence of Human Freedom, published in 1809, that philosopher writes: "In the final and ultimate instance there is no other Being at all than Willing. Willing is Primal Being" (I, VII, 350). *And in his
*During the previous semester (summer 1936) Heidegger had lectured on Schelling. See Martin Heidegger, Schellings Abhandlung iiber das Wesen der menschlichen Frei- heit (1809}, ed. Hildegard Feick (Tiibingen: M. Niemeyer, 1971). Especially useful in
The Being of beings 35
Phenomenology of Spirit (1807) Hegel grasps the essence of Being as knowing, but grasps knowing as essentially identical to willing.
Schelling and Hegel were certain that with the interpretation of Being as will they were merely thinking the essential thought of another great German thinker-the concept of Being in Leibniz. Leibniz de- fined the essence of Being as the original unity of perceptio and ap- petitus, representation and will. Not accidentally, Nietzsche himself referred to Leibniz in two decisive passages of The Will to Power: "German philosophy as a whole-Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, to name the great ones-is the most thoroughgoing kind of romanti- cism and homesickness that has ever existed: the longing for the best there ever was" (WM, 419). And: "Handel, Leibniz, Goethe, Bismarck -characteristic of the strong German type" (WM, 884).
Now, to be sure, one should not assert that Nietzsche's doctrine of will to power is dependent upon Leibniz or Hegel or Schelling, in order by such a pronouncement to cancel all further consideration. "De- pendence" is not a concept by which we can understand relationships among the greats. But the small are always dependent on the great; they are "small" precisely because they think they are independent. The great thinker is one who can hear what is greatest in the work of other "greats" and who can transform it in an original manner.
Reference to Nietzsche's predecessors with regard to the doctrine of Being as will is not meant to calculate some sort of dependence; it is rather to suggest that such a doctrine within Western metaphysics is not arbitrary but perhaps even necessary. Every true thinking lets itself be determined by what is to be thought. In philosophy the Being of beings is to be thought. For philosophy's thinking and questioning there is no loftier and stricter commitment. In contrast, all the sciences think always only of one being among others, one particular region of beings. They are committed by this region of beings only in an indirect manner, never straightforwardly so. Because in philosophical thought
the context of Heidegger's reading of Nietzsche are the notes sketched five years later for a seminar on that same treatise. The notes appear in an appendix to Heidegger's Schelling. See esp. pp. 224-25.
36 THE WILL TO POWER AS ART
the highest possible commitment prevails, all great thinkers think the same. Yet this "same" is so essential and so rich that no single thinker exhausts it; each commits all the others to it all the more strictly. To conceive of beings according to their basic character as will is not a view held by particular thinkers; it is a necessity in the history of the Dasein which those thinkers ground.
7. Will as Will to Power
But now, to anticipate the decisive issue, what does Nietzsche himself understand by the phrase "will to power"? What does "will" mean? What does "will to power" mean? For Nietzsche these two questions are but one. For in his view will is nothing else than will to power, and power nothing else than the essence of will. Hence, will to power is will to will, which is to say, willing is self-willing. But that requires elucida- tion.
With our attempt, as with all conceptual definitions elaborated in a similar fashion which claim to grasp the Being of beings, we must keep two things in mind. First, a precise conceptual definition that ticks off the various characteristics of what is to be defined remains vacuous and false, so long as we do not really come to know in an intimate way what is being talked about and bring it before our mind's eye. Second, in order to grasp the Nietzschean concept of will, the following is espe- cially important: if according to Nietzsche will as will to power is the basic character of all beings, then in defining the essence of will we cannot appeal to a particular being or special mode of Being which would serve to explain the essence of will.
Hence, will as the pervasive character of all beings does not yield any immediate sort of directive from which its concept, as a concept of Being, might be derived. Of course, Nietzsche never explicated this state of affairs systematically and with attention to principles; but he knew quite clearly that here he was pursuing an unusual question.
Two examples may illustrate what is involved. According to the usual view, will is taken to be a faculty of the soul. What will is may be determined from the essence of the psyche. The latter is dealt with in
38 THE WILL TO POWER AS ART
psychology. The psyche is a particular being, distinct from body and mind. Now, if in Nietzsche's view will determines the Being of every sort of being, then it does not pertain to the psyche; rather, the psyche somehow pertains to the will. But body and mind too are will, inasmuch as such things "are. " Furthermore, if will is taken to be a faculty, then it is viewed as something that can do something, is in a position to do it, possessing the requisite power and might. Whatever is intrinsically power, and for Nietzsche that is what will is, thus cannot be further characterized by defining it as a faculty or power. For the essence of a faculty is grounded in the essence of will as power.
A second example. Will is taken to be a kind of cause. We say that a man does something not so much by means of his intellect as by sheer willpower. Will brings something about, effects some consequence. But to be a cause is a particular mode of Being; Being as such cannot be grasped by means of causation. Will is not an effecting. What we usually take to be a thing that effects something else, the power of causation, is itself grounded in will (cf. VIII, 80).
If will to power characterizes Being itself, there is nothing else that will can be defined as. Will is will-but that formally correct definition does not say anything. It is in fact quite deceptive if we take it to mean that things are as simple as the simple phrase suggests.
For that reason Nietzsche can declare, "Today we know that it [i. e. , the will] is merely a word" (Tw1light of the Idols, 1888; VIII, 80). Corresponding to this is an earlier assertion from the period of Zara- thustra: "I laugh at your free will and your unfree one too: what you call will is to me an illusion; there is no will" (XII, 267). It is remarkable that the thinker for whom the basic character of all beings is will should say such a thing: "There is no will. " But Nietzsche means that there is no such will as the one previously known and designated as "a faculty of the soul" and as "striving in general. "
Whatever the case, Nietzsche must constantly repeat what will is. He says, for example, that will is an "affect," a "passion," a "feeling," and a "command. " But do not such characterizations of will as "affect," "passion," and so on speak within the domain of the psyche and of states of the soul? Are not affect, passion, feeling, and command each
Will as Will to Power 39
something different? Must not whatever is introduced in order to illuminate the essence of will itself be adequately clear at the outset? But what is more obscure than the essence of affect and passion, and the distinction between the two? How can will be all those things simultaneously? We can hardly surmount these questions and doubts concerning Nietzsche's interpretation of the essence of will. And yet, perhaps, they do not touch on the decisive issue.
