Fact-checked by Grok 2 weeks ago

Will to power

The will to power (der Wille zur Macht) is a core concept in Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy, positing that the fundamental drive animating all living organisms is not self-preservation, as claimed by thinkers like Schopenhauer, but an innate compulsion to discharge strength, overcome obstacles, and expand influence over oneself and the external world.^[1] This principle, articulated in Nietzsche's published works such as Beyond Good and Evil (1886), frames life as an expression of power-seeking dynamism, where physiological processes, psychological motivations, and even cosmic interpretations derive from this urge to assert and enhance potency.^[1] In section 36 of Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche hypothesizes that if only our drives were real, "life itself is will to power," reinterpreting reality from within as a ceaseless striving for mastery rather than stasis or mere survival.^[1] Nietzsche contrasts the will to power with prevailing notions of a "will to life" or pleasure principle, arguing it better explains phenomena like self-sacrifice, creativity, and decadence, where apparent self-denial serves deeper assertions of dominance or physiological overflow.^[2] Appearing sporadically in published texts like On the Genealogy of Morality and The Antichrist, the idea gains fuller elaboration in Nietzsche's unpublished Nachlass notes (1883–1888), which were selectively compiled and edited posthumously into The Will to Power (1901) by his sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche and assistant Peter Gast. This compilation has sparked scholarly debate, as editorial choices potentially distorted Nietzsche's intentions—evident in the Nachlass's emphasis on the will to power as an ontological truth, stating "This world is the will to power—and nothing besides!"—while published works treat it more as a psychological hypothesis.^[3] Critics, including Walter Kaufmann, caution against over-reliance on the Nachlass due to its fragmentary nature and posthumous assembly, prioritizing Nietzsche's vetted publications for interpretive fidelity.^[4] The concept underpins Nietzsche's critiques of morality, religion, and nihilism, portraying traditional values as inhibitions on vital instincts that invert the will to power into resentment or ascetic denial.^[5] It influenced subsequent thinkers in psychology (e.g., Adler's inferiority complex) and philosophy, though its association with power hierarchies invited misappropriations, notably by National Socialists who leveraged Elisabeth's editions to retroactively align Nietzsche with authoritarianism, despite his explicit condemnations of anti-Semitism and herd conformity.^[6] Truthfully assessed, the will to power embodies Nietzsche's affirmative vision of life as perpetual becoming, urging individuals to cultivate self-overcoming amid eternal recurrence rather than passive equalization.^[2]

Terminology and Conceptual Foundations

Distinction Between Kraft and Macht

Nietzsche delineates Kraft as raw, primordial force or strength, an undirected energy inherent in all matter and life, comparable to mechanical or brute physical power that can be expended without purpose or hierarchy.^[7] In contrast, Macht denotes a refined, commanding form of power achieved through the organization and sublimation of Kraft, involving relational dynamics such as obedience, mastery over lesser forces, and the creation of higher structures.^[8] This distinction underscores that the will to power (Wille zur Macht) is not mere accumulation of force but a psychological and interpretive process where Kraft is channeled into self-overcoming and cultural formation, rejecting egalitarian or mechanistic interpretations.^[9] Scholars like Jacob Golomb emphasize Nietzsche's consistent separation of Macht as spiritual or creative dominion from Kraft as animalistic or coercive force, which Nietzsche critiqued in democratic and physiological reductions of life.^[10] For instance, Kraft might manifest in unrefined instincts or physical might, but true Macht emerges in the "pathos of distance"—the noble's command that integrates and elevates subordinate forces, as seen in aristocratic values over slave morality.^[11] Nietzsche's notebooks link this to life's essence: all drives seek not preservation but expansion via Macht, where Kraft alone leads to stagnation or violence (Gewalt), whereas sublimated power fosters greatness.^[12] This binary avoids conflating the will to power with tyranny or Darwinian struggle, prioritizing interpretive command over blind exertion; Golomb notes Nietzsche's denunciation of Kraft-driven politics, favoring Macht's role in cultural renewal.^[13] Empirical parallels appear in Nietzsche's physiological observations, where health demands not raw vitality but disciplined power synthesis, distinguishing vitalism from his anti-teleological realism.^[14]

Core Definition as Fundamental Drive

The will to power (Wille zur Macht) represents Friedrich Nietzsche's conceptualization of the primordial drive inherent in all living organisms, surpassing mere self-preservation as the essential motivator of life. In Beyond Good and Evil (1886), Nietzsche critiques physiological and Darwinian emphases on survival instincts, asserting: "A living thing seeks above all to discharge its strength—life itself is will to power; self-preservation is only one of the indirect and most frequent results."^[1] This drive manifests as an urge to expand influence, overcome resistance, and augment one's quantum of force, interpreting life's processes—from cellular assimilation to intellectual creation—as expressions of power accumulation rather than defensive stasis.^[15] Nietzsche derives this notion partly from observations in physiology, where organic functions like digestion, growth, and adaptation prioritize the incorporation and discharge of energy over bare continuity, challenging Schopenhauer's will to live as a pessimistic, conservative force.^[16] He posits the will to power as a pathos—the most elemental substrate from which all becoming, effecting, and valuation emerge—underlying not only biological but also psychological and cultural phenomena, such as the formation of instincts, moralities, and interpretive frameworks that enhance or inhibit power.^[17] In human terms, it drives creativity, ambition, and self-overcoming, where weakness arises from thwarted expressions rather than inherent design.^[18] In unpublished notes compiled posthumously in The Will to Power (1901), Nietzsche extends this drive cosmologically, declaring: "This world is the will to power—and nothing besides!"^[19] Here, it functions as the interpretive principle explaining phenomena across scales, from atomic interactions to historical events, as ceaseless competitions and syntheses of forces seeking dominance and unity.^[20] While interpretations vary—some scholars emphasize its psychological primacy over metaphysical claims—this core definition frames the will to power as life's affirmative, expansive essence, rejecting egalitarian or static views of existence in favor of hierarchical, dynamic realism.^[16]

Historical and Intellectual Influences

Precursors in Schopenhauer and Physiology

Schopenhauer's doctrine of the will, articulated in The World as Will and Representation (first edition 1818, expanded 1844), provided a metaphysical precursor to Nietzsche's will to power by positing the will as the Kantian Ding an sich, a blind, objectless striving force that underlies all phenomena and manifests as insatiable desire in the phenomenal world.^[21] This will, according to Schopenhauer, drives organic life toward self-preservation and reproduction—the "will to life"—yet generates perpetual suffering through unquenchable want, with denial of the will via aesthetic contemplation or asceticism as the path to temporary or permanent escape.^[22] Nietzsche first engaged Schopenhauer's work in October 1865 at age 21, profoundly influenced during his early philological phase, as evidenced by his adoption of the will's primacy in The Birth of Tragedy (1872), where Dionysian instinct echoes Schopenhauer's irrational drive.^[23] By the late 1870s, Nietzsche rejected Schopenhauer's pessimism, critiquing the will to life as a derivative, biologically reductive concept that conflates fundamental striving with mere survival and sexual impulse, thereby pathologizing existence rather than affirming it.^[24] In notes from 1885–1888, compiled posthumously, Nietzsche reframed the will not as self-denying but as expansive, declaring Schopenhauer's version "meaningless" for failing to account for life's creative overflow beyond preservation.^[25] This transformation elevated the precursor into the will to power, a dynamic force oriented toward enhancement, resistance-overcoming, and quantum of force increase, as Nietzsche argued in Twilight of the Idols (1888) that Schopenhauer's ethics of resignation inverts the value of striving, mistaking weakness for virtue.^[26] Physiological theories of the era further informed Nietzsche's reconceptualization, grounding the will to power in empirical observations of organic processes rather than pure metaphysics. Drawing from French vitalist Xavier Bichat's Recherches Physiologiques sur la Vie et la Mort (1800), which described life as irritability and sensibility in response to stimuli, and Wilhelm Roux's Der Kampf der Theile im Organismus (1881) on intra-organic competition for nutrition and development, Nietzsche viewed drives as physiological discharges of power, where assimilation and growth supersede static equilibrium.^[27] He criticized mechanistic physiology—prevalent in mid-19th-century German science—for reducing life to causal reactions and self-preservation instincts, insisting instead that "a living thing seeks above all to discharge its strength—life itself is will to power."^[28] This physiological emphasis, evident in Nietzsche's 1880s notebooks, positioned the will to power as the interpretive principle unifying body and mind, interpreting organic phenomena like cell division or instinctual behavior as expressions of power quanta in flux, beyond Darwinian adaptation.^[29]

Early Formulations in Nietzsche's Notebooks

The earliest explicit mentions of the Wille zur Macht in Nietzsche's unpublished notebooks occur in entries from the summer of 1880, marking the initial crystallization of the concept as a fundamental drive distinct from Schopenhauer's will to live.^[30] In these notes, Nietzsche reframes life's essence not as self-preservation but as an expansive accumulation and discharge of force, critiquing mechanistic views of nature by emphasizing dynamic processes of growth and overcoming.^[16] For instance, he posits that organic functions—nutrition, reproduction, and adaptation—stem from a primordial urge toward enhancement of power rather than mere survival, drawing preliminary parallels to physiological phenomena observed in contemporary science.^[31] Subsequent notebook entries from 1881, particularly in the Nizza notebook, further elaborate this formulation by linking the will to power to interpretations of Darwinian evolution and instinctual drives, where Nietzsche argues that apparent adaptations serve an underlying "will to accumulation of force" rather than utilitarian ends.^[31] Here, the concept begins to acquire a cosmological dimension, with life viewed as a constant striving against inertia and decay, prefiguring later metaphysical extensions.^[18] These early sketches reject teleological explanations, instead grounding the drive in empirical observations of vitality and aggression in nature, though Nietzsche cautions against reducing it to crude biological instincts.^[16] By 1882–1883, as seen in notes leading into Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the will to power solidifies as a principle interpreting all valuations and motivations, with early applications to psychology—such as the "feeling of increased power" in human affects—and critiques of morality as disguised power dynamics.^[30] Nietzsche's formulations remain fragmentary and exploratory, often interspersed with revisions to prior ideas like eternal recurrence, reflecting an ongoing synthesis rather than a fixed doctrine.^[32] These notebook jottings, totaling hundreds across the period, underscore the concept's roots in Nietzsche's shift from philological and aesthetic concerns to a broader naturalism, though their posthumous compilation has sparked debates over editorial authenticity.^[33]

Development Across Nietzsche's Works

Emergence in Published Texts (1870s–1880s)

The concept of the will to power began to emerge in Nietzsche's published works during his "free spirit" phase, marking a departure from Arthur Schopenhauer's will to live toward a drive characterized by expansion, overcoming, and dominance. In Human, All Too Human (1878), Nietzsche critiqued traditional notions of instinctual self-preservation, instead emphasizing psychological drives that seek mastery and influence over others, as seen in aphorisms analyzing moral and social behaviors as expressions of power struggles rather than mere survival.^[16] This laid groundwork by portraying human actions as rooted in competitive assertions of strength, though without the explicit terminology.^[18] By Dawn (1881), Nietzsche deepened this into a pluralistic view of the will, describing it as a hierarchy of drives involving command, obedience, and resistance, where growth arises from internal conflict and external opposition rather than harmonious preservation. Aphorism 119, for instance, depicts the will's essence as "to give commands" amid multiplicity, prefiguring power as the fundamental motivator beyond mere continuance.^[34] These formulations shifted focus to an active, accumulative force, influencing later elaborations.^[35] The term Wille zur Macht first appeared in print in The Gay Science (1882), in aphorism 13 of Book 1, where Nietzsche asserted: "A living thing seeks above all to discharge its strength—life itself is will to power; self-preservation is only one of the indirect and most frequent results."^[36] This anti-Darwinian claim positioned the will to power as life's primordial essence, prioritizing overflow and exertion over conservation, and critiquing self-preservation as derivative. Subsequent aphorisms in the same work, such as §349 (added in the 1887 edition), reinforced it as underlying beneficence and harm toward others as modes of power exercise.^[25] By the mid-1880s, this idea gained poetic intensity in Thus Spoke Zarathustra (parts published 1883–1885), where it animated teachings on self-overcoming and cultural creation, solidifying its role in Nietzsche's mature philosophy.^[3]

The Nachlass and Unfinished Project of The Will to Power

Nietzsche's Nachlass, comprising his unpublished notebooks and fragments spanning from the early 1870s to 1888, contains extensive reflections on the will to power, with over a thousand notes from 1883 onward explicitly addressing the concept as a fundamental principle of life, value, and reality.^[37] These materials, preserved after his mental collapse on January 3, 1889, reveal iterative developments, including physiological interpretations of drives as quanta of power and critiques of mechanistic views of nature.^[38] However, Nietzsche did not intend the Nachlass for standalone publication; many entries served as preparatory sketches later refined or discarded for his mature works, such as Beyond Good and Evil (1886) and On the Genealogy of Morality (1887).^[39] In 1887–1888, Nietzsche outlined Der Wille zur Macht as a potential capstone to his "revaluation of all values," envisioning it as the first volume in a multi-part project critiquing nihilism and highest values, with sections on European nihilism, a critique of the eternal values, and Dionysian worldviews.^[40] By autumn 1888, however, he abandoned the structured book plan, as evidenced in correspondence—such as his November 1888 letter to Georg Brandes stating the work was evolving differently—and shifted focus to discrete publications like The Antichrist and Twilight of the Idols.^[38] This pivot reflected his dissatisfaction with the project's rigidity, preferring aphoristic freedom over systematic exposition; notes from this period show rearrangements and self-critiques, underscoring the unfinished, experimental nature of the endeavor.^[41] Following Nietzsche's death on August 25, 1900, his sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, alongside the composer Peter Gast (Heinrich Köselitz), compiled selections from the Nachlass into The Will to Power, published in 1901 by Kröner Verlag in Leipzig.^[37] The edition drew primarily from 1885–1888 notebooks, organizing roughly 1,080 fragments into four books: European Nihilism, Critique of the Highest Values, The Will to Power as Art, and Dionysus versus the Crucified, imposing a thematic coherence absent in Nietzsche's loose outlines.^[42] Elisabeth's editorial interventions, influenced by her nationalist and anti-Semitic leanings—later amplified through her Nietzsche Archive—altered sequences and titles to emphasize anti-egalitarian motifs, though core texts remained largely unaltered; critics note this as a distortion, prioritizing her interpretive framework over philological fidelity.^[43] Subsequent scholarship, particularly the critical edition by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari (Kritische Gesamtausgabe, initiated 1960s), restores the Nachlass chronologically across 15 volumes, revealing The Will to Power as no unified manuscript but disparate drafts, with fewer than 5% of references to will to power unique to unpublished notes versus reworked published ideas.^[3] Montinari argued the 1901 version misrepresents Nietzsche's anti-systematic intent, as he burned earlier drafts and repurposed fragments, rendering the posthumous book an artifact of editorial imposition rather than authorial culmination.^[33] Despite debates over the Nachlass's authority—some viewing it as raw insight, others as subordinate to revised publications—its fragments illuminate the will to power's evolution from psychological drive to cosmological force, though always provisional.^[44]

Interrelations with Key Nietzschean Ideas

Link to Eternal Recurrence

Nietzsche conceived eternal recurrence not merely as a cosmological hypothesis but as an ethical and psychological imperative intertwined with the will to power, serving as its ultimate criterion of affirmation. In The Gay Science (1882, section 341), he poses the thought experiment of reliving one's life infinitely in exact repetition, arguing that a genuine "yes" to this prospect reveals the strength of the will to power, which drives life's expansive, creative forces against nihilistic denial or escapism. This affirmation demands embracing suffering, contingency, and flux as essential to power's self-overcoming, rather than resenting them as obstacles. Scholarly analyses interpret this as eternal recurrence functioning as a "litmus test" for the will to power's vitality, where only robust instances—unburdened by weakness or pity—can endorse the eternal cycle without collapse into despair.^[36]^[45] The connection deepens in Nietzsche's portrayal of recurrence as ontologically derived from the will to power's dynamics. As the fundamental principle animating all phenomena through strife and enhancement, the will to power generates perpetual cycles of configuration and reconfiguration in a finite cosmos with infinite time, rendering exact repetitions inevitable.^[46] In unpublished notes from 1881–1888, later assembled in The Will to Power (posthumous edition, 1901), Nietzsche equates recurrence with the "eternal return of the same," positing it as the heaviest existential burden that tests whether one's values align with power's affirmative thrust or succumb to decadence.^[47] This implies that weak wills, characterized by negation and herd morality, shatter under the doctrine's weight, while strong wills—embodying Dionysian creativity—transform it into joyful necessity, thus consummating the will to power.^[48] Interpretations emphasize that eternal recurrence does not contradict but amplifies the will to power by prohibiting any teleological "beyond" or redemption narrative, forcing power to find fulfillment immanently within temporal repetition. Nietzsche's Zarathustra, in Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883–1885), embodies this synthesis: the prophet's vision of recurrence crowns the eternal recurrence as the "great Noon" where life, propelled by will to power, achieves self-affirmation sans metaphysical consolation. Critics like those examining Nietzsche's Nachlass note that this linkage counters passive interpretations of power, insisting on active eternalization as its pinnacle expression.^[25]^[49]

Connection to the Übermensch and Amor Fati

The Übermensch, or overman, embodies the will to power as the driving force for radical self-overcoming and the affirmation of life beyond nihilistic decay. Nietzsche posits this ideal figure as one who transcends the limitations of conventional humanity by harnessing the will to power to master base instincts, integrate opposing drives such as good and evil, and forge novel values that sustain cultural vitality. In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the proclamation of the Übermensch as the "meaning of the earth" underscores this connection, portraying it as the outcome of life's inherent striving for enhanced power and wholeness, rather than mere survival or pleasure-seeking.^[50] This process demands perpetual experimentation and destruction of obsolete ideals, aligning the Übermensch with the will to power's essence as a creative, expansive force that propels evolution toward higher forms of existence.^[50] Amor fati, Nietzsche's formula for human greatness—"that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity"—represents the will to power's culmination in unconditional life-affirmation, where necessity is not endured but actively willed as the condition for personal and cosmic enhancement. Introduced in The Gay Science (1882) and elaborated in Ecce Homo (1888), this stance transforms fate's constraints into opportunities for growth, rejecting resentment toward suffering or contingency in favor of embracing them as integral to the power dynamic of becoming.^[50] The will to power here manifests psychologically as the strength to affirm the eternal recurrence of all events, testing and revealing the authenticity of one's drive; only a robust will can love the repetitive chain of causation that includes decay and strife, thereby achieving sovereignty over one's drives.^[51] The interplay between the Übermensch and amor fati illustrates the will to power's dual role as both metaphysical principle and ethical imperative: the Übermensch realizes it through defiant value-creation amid chaos, while amor fati perfects it via joyful necessity, uniting self-mastery with cosmic acceptance. Nietzsche contrasts this with decadent resignation, arguing that true power lies in willing the world's flux as one's own eternal project, free from escapist ideals like Christian otherworldliness.^[50] This synthesis demands empirical rigor in self-assessment—evident in Nietzsche's own candid admission in Ecce Homo of failing to fully embody amor fati—yet holds it as the benchmark for greatness, independent of the teacher's personal attainment.^[51]

Diverse Interpretations

Individual Psychology and Motivation

Nietzsche conceived the will to power as the primary psychological principle governing human motivation, positing it as the underlying drive for all actions rather than mere self-preservation or hedonic pursuit.^[52] In Beyond Good and Evil (§13), he critiques the instinct of self-preservation as secondary, asserting: "A living thing seeks above all to discharge its strength—life itself is will to power; self-preservation is only one of the indirect and most frequent results thereof."^[1] This formulation elevates motivation to an expansive force that thrives on resistance and overcoming, where the sensation of increased power—through mastery, creation, or conquest—serves as the core affective reward.^[53] The will to power explains diverse psychological phenomena as variations in how this drive expresses itself. In robust individuals, it fuels self-overcoming (Selbstüberwindung), manifesting in ambition, artistic production, and intellectual innovation, as Nietzsche describes philosophers' "will to truth" as a "will to power" in Beyond Good and Evil (§211).^[1] Conversely, in those lacking vitality, the drive redirects inward or toward negation, producing decadence, asceticism, or ressentiment, where power is pursued vicariously through victimhood narratives or moral inversion of strength as vice.^[54] Nietzsche links this to physiological roots, suggesting in Beyond Good and Evil (§36) that if organic functions like nutrition and reproduction trace to the will to power, all active forces equate to it, implying a unified motivational economy beyond fragmented instincts.^[1] This interpretation, advanced by scholars like Bernard Reginster, positions the will to power as Nietzsche's alternative to nihilistic psychologies, where traditional drives (e.g., Hobbesian egoism or Schopenhauer's will) fail to account for life's affirmative striving.^[52] Reginster argues it underpins Nietzsche's critique of morality and religion, as actions ostensibly altruistic reduce to power dynamics—e.g., slave morality as a thwarted will seeking dominance through guilt imposition.^[55] Empirical analogs appear in Nietzsche's references to contemporary biology, such as Wilhelm Roux's intra-organismic struggle, which he adapts to portray drives competing for ascendancy within the psyche.^[2] However, the doctrine's status as hypothesis invites scrutiny; Nietzsche presents it as perspectival insight derived from observation of human behavior, not empirical proof, and critics note its potential overreach in unifying disparate motivations under one principle.^[54]

Metaphysical Ontology of Reality

Nietzsche's metaphysical ontology frames the will to power as the primordial essence of reality, transcending psychological drives to encompass the basic structure of being itself, where all phenomena arise from the interplay of expansive forces seeking dominance and self-overcoming.^[56] This conception rejects static substances or Platonic forms, positing instead a world of flux composed of discrete quanta of power that interpret, resist, and assimilate one another in perpetual becoming.^[57] Such an ontology aligns with causal processes observable in nature, from atomic interactions to biological evolution, interpreting these not as mechanistic but as manifestations of inherent striving for enhancement.^[58] In Beyond Good and Evil (1886), Nietzsche advances this as a provisional yet most parsimonious hypothesis: supposing drives and passions constitute the only accessible reality, the world must be characterized as "will to power—and nothing besides," with even inorganic matter reflecting degrees of this dynamic.^[1]^[59] This extends Schopenhauer's blind will into an affirmative, interpretive force, where reality's "truths" emerge from power relations rather than transcendent ideals, grounding ontology in immanent processes amenable to empirical scrutiny via physiology and history.^[25] The will to power thus functions as a critical ontology, demystifying metaphysical illusions by revealing reality's antimetaphysical core—endless organization and struggle without telos or essence beyond power gradients—while cautioning against dogmatic assertion given perspectival limits on knowledge.^[58] Nietzsche's unpublished notes reinforce this, equating the world's being with will to power as the simplest explanatory principle unifying apparent chaos into coherent causal realism.^[60] Critics note potential overreach in universalizing a psychological insight metaphysically, yet Nietzsche justifies it as the hypothesis best preserving value amid nihilism's threat, deriving from observable patterns in life and matter.^[56]^[59]

Biological and Evolutionary Analogues

Nietzsche framed the will to power as intrinsic to biological life, positing it as the underlying force in organic processes such as nutrition, growth, and assimilation, where organisms incorporate external elements to augment their strength and resist decay. This drive precedes mere survival instincts, emphasizing active expansion and the incorporation of resistant matter into one's own structure, as evident in cellular metabolism and physiological adaptation.^[61]^[62] In evolutionary biology, analogues emerge in life's tendency toward increasing complexity and evolvability, which Nietzsche viewed as manifestations of power enhancement rather than passive adaptation to environmental pressures. Unlike Darwin's emphasis on the struggle for existence favoring preservation of the fittest in quantitative terms (e.g., prolific reproduction in insects or microbes), the will to power highlights qualitative ascent, such as the development of multicellularity or neural sophistication enabling environmental mastery and diversification.^[63]^[62] Organisms exhibiting traits like aggressive territorial expansion or innovative problem-solving—seen in species such as corvids or felids—demonstrate this through behaviors that not only secure survival but propel dominance and proliferation across ecosystems.^[63] Animal social structures provide concrete behavioral parallels, particularly in dominance hierarchies where individuals pursue elevated status to command resources, mates, and subordinates, reflecting a ceaseless striving for influence beyond baseline sustenance. In primates, for example, chimpanzee males form alliances to depose alphas, gaining reproductive priority and group control; such dynamics, documented in long-term field studies, underscore power assertion as a mechanism for genetic and social ascendancy, aligning with Nietzsche's notion of life as an arena of perpetual overcoming.^[64] Similar patterns occur in wolves and hyenas, where rank challenges enhance access to food and breeding, yielding evolutionary advantages through heightened vigor and offspring viability.^[64] These hierarchies illustrate how power-seeking integrates with natural selection, as subordinate yielding to superiors stabilizes groups while victors amplify their vital scope.^[65]

Criticisms, Controversies, and Rebuttals

Philosophical Challenges to Its Primacy

Nietzsche's abandonment of a planned systematic treatise titled The Will to Power in late 1888, in favor of completing The Antichrist and Ecce Homo, indicates that he did not regard the concept as ready for presentation as his culminating philosophical framework.^[66] This shift suggests the will to power remained an evolving hypothesis rather than a finalized doctrine of primacy, as evidenced by Nietzsche's own notes expressing reservations about its formulation during the period of mental decline preceding his 1889 collapse.^[67] The posthumous compilation of The Will to Power from Nietzsche's Nachlass by his sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche further complicates claims to its centrality, given her selective editing to emphasize themes amenable to proto-nationalist interpretations, which Walter Kaufmann later critiqued in his re-edited translation as distorting the original fragments' fragmentary and tentative nature.^[37] Kaufmann argued that reliance on these notes overstates the concept's systematic role, positioning it instead as one interpretive lens among Nietzsche's published affirmations of life's drives, rather than an overriding principle.^[37] Philosophers have challenged the will to power's purported metaphysical primacy on grounds that it reinstates the very dogmatic ontology Nietzsche rejected in his critiques of traditional philosophy, such as in Twilight of the Idols, where he dismantles substance-based realities.^[7] Proponents of a strictly psychological reading, like Maudemarie Clark, contend that elevating it to a cosmological essence contradicts Nietzsche's perspectivism, which denies any singular, absolute interpretation of reality's drives; instead, will to power functions as a heuristic for interpreting phenomena, not a foundational esse of being.^[7] This tension arises because Nietzsche's anti-metaphysical hammer, applied to Schopenhauer's will, appears selectively spared for his own variant, risking the nihilism he sought to overcome through value creation rather than positing an unproven substrate.^[24] Comparisons with eternal recurrence highlight further subordinations: while the will to power explains life's interpretive expansions, recurrence serves as Nietzsche's ultimate existential test in The Gay Science (section 341, 1882), demanding affirmation of temporal repetition without reliance on power dynamics for validation.^[36] Scholars like Paul Loeb argue that recurrence's cosmological implications—eternal cycles without teleological progress—undercut the will to power's expansive primacy, as the latter presupposes growth-oriented drives incompatible with strict repetition, rendering recurrence the more rigorous thought experiment for amor fati.^[36] Nietzsche's own linkage of the two in Nachlass fragments (e.g., WP 1057) invites debate over whether recurrence subordinates power to affirmation, or vice versa, but the absence of resolution in published works precludes assigning unequivocal primacy to either.^[25] Interpretive pluralism among Nietzsche scholars exacerbates these challenges, with figures like Gilles Deleuze viewing will to power as differential forces rather than a unified principle, thus diluting its explanatory hegemony over ontology or psychology.^[24] Such divergences stem from inconsistencies in the Nachlass, where passages alternately psychologize it as human motivation and cosmologize it as life's essence, undermining claims to singular primacy without empirical or deductive proof beyond interpretive assertion.^[25] Critics maintaining a metaphysical reading, such as Tsarina Doyle, defend it against nihilistic collapse but concede that its BGE 36 formulation risks circularity: valuing power because it powers valuation presupposes the very dominance it seeks to establish.^[56]

Political Misappropriations and Ideological Abuses

The posthumous compilation of Nietzsche's notes into The Will to Power (1901), edited by his sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche and assistant Peter Gast, provided a textual basis for political distortions, as the arrangement prioritized aphorisms on dominance and conflict over contextual nuances of self-mastery. Elisabeth, an antisemite married to the proto-Nazi agitator Bernhard Förster, later embraced National Socialism, renaming her brother's home the Nietzsche Archive and facilitating Nazi access to his manuscripts in the 1930s, including a 1934 visit by Adolf Hitler.^[68] National Socialist propagandists, such as philosopher Alfred Baeumler in his 1931 edition of Nietzsche's works, repurposed the will to power as a metaphysical endorsement of racial hierarchy and territorial conquest, framing Lebensraum as an expression of vital Aryan force against "decadent" democracies.^[69] This interpretation elided Nietzsche's published repudiations of anti-Semitism—he denounced it as "ressentiment" driven by the weak—and his scorn for Bismarck-era nationalism, which he termed a "disease" of the masses in Beyond Good and Evil (1886).^[70]^[71] Such abuses extended to Italian Fascism, where Benito Mussolini cited Nietzsche's ideas, including the will to power, to glorify state-directed energy and imperial ambition, as in his 1924 speeches invoking "superhuman" resolve, though without the racial biologism of Nazism.^[71] These appropriations, reliant on decontextualized excerpts from the Nachlass rather than Nietzsche's integrated critiques of herd conformity and state idolatry, reflect ideological projection onto an aphoristic corpus unsuited to systematic politics, as evidenced by postwar analyses debunking direct lineage.^[72] Nietzsche's own notes, when unedited, emphasize the will to power as an interpretive tool for life's affirmations, not a program for collective domination.^[69]

Legacy and Modern Applications

Impact on 20th-Century Philosophy and Psychology

In psychology, Alfred Adler, founder of individual psychology in the early 20th century, explicitly drew on Nietzsche's will to power to formulate his concept of the "striving for superiority," positing it as a universal drive compensating for feelings of inferiority and motivating human behavior toward mastery and social interest.^[73] Adler's 1912 work Über den nervösen Charakter integrated this idea, contrasting it with Freud's pleasure principle by emphasizing power as a creative force in goal-oriented striving rather than mere instinctual satisfaction.^[74] This adaptation influenced therapeutic practices, framing neurosis as overcompensation in the will to power, though Adler critiqued Nietzsche's version as potentially leading to domination rather than cooperative superiority.^[75] Philosophically, Martin Heidegger's engagement with the will to power in his 1936–1940 Nietzsche lectures, published posthumously, recast it as the fundamental essence of beings, interpreting it metaphysically as the will to will that culminates Western metaphysics in technological enframing, thereby critiquing it as a forgetting of Being rather than an affirmative ontology.^[16] Gilles Deleuze, in his 1962 Nietzsche and Philosophy, reframed the will to power as a non-subjective, differential structure of forces—active and reactive—driving becoming and evaluation, influencing post-structuralist thought by prioritizing affirmation over resentment and separation from Heidegger's totalizing view.^[76] Michel Foucault, building on Nietzsche in works like his 1971 essay "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History," extended the will to power into analyses of power-knowledge relations, depicting power not as centralized sovereignty but as dispersed, productive networks shaping subjects through discourse and institutions, evident in his studies of madness, prisons, and sexuality from the 1960s onward.^[77] This interpretation informed Foucault's genealogical method, tracing modern disciplines to Nietzschean power dynamics while diverging by emphasizing resistance and historical contingency over eternal recurrence.^[78] Though existentialists like Sartre engaged Nietzsche's anti-metaphysical critique, which undermined traditional authority via the will to power, they prioritized radical freedom and authenticity over direct adoption of the concept as a motivational ontology.^[79]

Relevance in Contemporary Self-Overcoming and Cultural Critique

In contemporary interpretations of personal development, Nietzsche's will to power is invoked as a psychological drive toward self-mastery and expansion through voluntary confrontation with obstacles, rather than mere comfort-seeking or preservation. This aligns with empirical observations in motivational psychology, where sustained effort against resistance correlates with enhanced capability and resilience, as seen in studies on deliberate practice yielding superior performance in domains like expertise acquisition. Thinkers applying this concept argue that authentic self-overcoming requires channeling the will to power into creative sublimation, transforming base impulses into higher achievements, such as artistic or intellectual pursuits, rather than dissipating energy in hedonistic avoidance.^[80] For instance, recent philosophical analyses emphasize its utility in reinterpreting suffering not as punitive but as essential for power enhancement, enabling individuals to affirm life's affirmative aspects amid adversity.^[81] This framework extends to critiques of modern self-improvement industries, which often dilute the will to power into superficial positivity or happiness maximization, neglecting Nietzsche's insistence on power as growth against opposition. Proponents contend that true self-overcoming demands rejecting egalitarian leveling that discourages hierarchical striving, instead fostering environments where individuals test limits to actualize potential.^[82] Empirical parallels appear in evolutionary accounts of adaptation, where organisms exhibiting proactive expansion—beyond survival—demonstrate greater fitness, mirroring the will to power's ontological primacy over passive endurance.^[16] In cultural critique, the will to power serves as a lens for diagnosing pathologies in contemporary societies, particularly the elevation of resentment-driven narratives that invert strength into vice and victimhood into virtue, echoing Nietzsche's slave morality. This dynamic, observable in rising claims of systemic oppression as moral currency, stifles collective vitality by prioritizing compensatory weakness over robust self-assertion, leading to cultural stagnation akin to the nihilism Nietzsche foresaw post-"death of God."^[83] Critics applying this view highlight how institutional incentives in media and academia amplify such ressentiment, systematically biasing against affirmations of power hierarchies essential for innovation and order, as evidenced by declining metrics in societal achievement indicators like productivity growth rates in Western nations since the late 20th century. Rebuttals to egalitarian orthodoxies invoke the will to power to advocate cultural renewal through affirmation of excellence and struggle, countering decadence with life-enhancing realism.^[81]

References

[1]
Beyond Good and Evil, by Friedrich Nietzsche - Project Gutenberg
The following is a reprint of the Helen Zimmern translation from German into English of "Beyond Good and Evil," as published in The Complete Works of Friedrich ...
[2]
[PDF] Nietzsche's Will to Power and Politics - PhilArchive
Dec 3, 2019 · In this essay I want to explore Nietzsche's concept of will to power (Wille zur. Macht) and its bearing on political philosophy.
[3]
Will to Power in Nietzsche's Published Works and the Nachlass - jstor
justification than those supported by only the published works or by both the published works and Nachlass entries. Finally, it is interesting to examine ...
[4]
[PDF] Did Nietzsche Want His Notes Burned? - PhilArchive
Nietzsche's philosophy proper is, on Heidegger's account, only or mainly presented in the Nachlass, not because he deliberately chose not to publish it, but.
[5]
[PDF] Will to Power: The Utility of Friedrich Nietzsches Moral Philosophy ...
Jan 30, 2024 · To highlight the utility of Nietzsche's moral philosophy, in particular his analysis of suffering and notion of the will to power, as an ...
[6]
NIETZSCHE'S WILL TO POWER AND EVENT PHILOSOPHY
Dec 18, 2024 · A reassessment of Deleuze's and Heidegger's interpretations of Nietzsche's Will to Power project in relation to the proposed interpretation of ...Missing: sources | Show results with:sources
[7]
Metaphysical Doctrine of Nietzsche's Will to Power
The view here advocated, the traditional view, is that Nietzsche contends all 'matter' to be ultimately force (Kraft), and all force to be the outer ...
[8]
Will to power Kraft vs. Macht - Friedrich Nietzsche
Kraft is primordial strength that may be exercised by anything possessing it, while Macht is, within Nietzsche's philosophy, closely tied to sublimation and " ...
[9]
How To De-nazify Nietzsche's Philosophical Anthropology
In this paper, the author draws several fundamental distinctions between two central notions in Nietzsche's anthropology, namely those of Kraft and Macht.<|separator|>
[10]
[PDF] Jacob Golomb and Robert S. Wistrich - Princeton University
As Jacob Golomb has shown, what Nietzsche prized above all was spiritual power. (Macht) not the brute political force (Kraft) that he denounced with all the ...
[11]
NIETZSCHE AND ZIONIST THOUGHT JACOB GOLOMB
10. Surprisingly, Nietzsche was quite consistent in distinguishing in most of his works between the notion of spiritual power [Macht] and physical force [Kraft].
[12]
[PDF] Friedrich Nietzsche: Friend or Foe to Democratic Liberalism
wielded by Nietzsche's elites is not primitive force (Kraft), but rather the creative amalgamation. (accomplished through Macht) ... this distinction is not ...
[13]
https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110172409.305/pdf
[14]
Nietzsche's Concept of Health | Ergo an Open Access Journal of ...
Dec 28, 2022 · I start in this section with strength. Nietzsche frequently describes strength (Stärke, Kraft, Macht) as a requirement of health, and weakness ( ...
[15]
Nietzsche's Moral and Political Philosophy
Aug 26, 2004 · Schacht, following a suggestion of Nietzsche's from the Nachlass (WP 254), suggests that life is will to power, and thus degree of power ...
[16]
Friedrich Nietzsche - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Mar 17, 2017 · By replacing Schopenhauer's will to life with his will to power (understood as a drive to overcome resistance, which wills the world's ...Critique of Religion and Morality · Value Creation · Difficulties of Nietzsche's...
[17]
Nietzsche Quotes: Will to Power
The world viewed from inside... it would be "will to power" and nothing else. from Beyond Good and Evil, s.36, Walter Kaufmann transl. In order to sustain the ...
[18]
Nietzsche, Friedrich | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
The Will to Power (Der Wille zur Macht, writings from the Nachlass ed. and arranged by Elizabeth Förster-Nietzsche and Peter Gast and published in various ...
[19]
The Will to Power Quotes by Friedrich Nietzsche - Goodreads
— This world is the will to power—and nothing besides! And you yourselves are also this will to power—and nothing besides! Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to ...
[20]
Nietzsche's Will to Power and the Christian Will to Weakness
Feb 27, 2025 · Nietzsche holds that all of life is a manifestation of the will to power, by which he means not simply that we human beings have desires that we will to ...
[21]
Arthur Schopenhauer - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
May 12, 2003 · The world as Will (“for us”, as he sometimes qualifies it) is the world as it is in itself, which is a unity, and the world as representation is ...Schopenhauer's Critique of Kant · The World as Will · Schopenhauer's Later Works
[22]
Schopenhauer, Arthur | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Schopenhauer incorporates his account of the principle of sufficient reason into the metaphysical system of his chief work, The World as Will and Representation ...Schopenhauer's Thought · The World as Will and... · The Human Will
[23]
The Influence of Schopenhauer upon Friedrich Nietzsche - jstor
Schopenhauer's position is just the oppo- site of Nietzsche's. According to him every error is a deadly poison.<|control11|><|separator|>
[24]
[PDF] Nietzsche and the Limitations of the Will to Power - Google Docs
Apr 27, 2024 · In the following analysis, we will trace the genealogy of the notion of the will to power beginning from Schopenhauer's notion of the Will ...
[25]
[PDF] Towards an Understanding of Nietzsche's Will to Power
May 6, 2020 · In providing a more detailed analysis of nihilism it is important to turn to Nietzsche's posthumously published work, The Will to Power.
[26]
[PDF] Nietzsche's Critique of Schopenhauer's 'Vicious Circle' - Minerva
Thus far, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche agree entirely upon the relationship between representation and will, that is, on the intellect as a historical, biological ...
[27]
[PDF] why does Nietzsche criticize the life sciences? - PhilArchive
This paper clarifies the scope and purpose of will to power by identifying the historical physiological view at which Nietzsche directs his criticisms and by ...
[28]
The Will to Power
also demonstrates continuity between Nietzsche's explorations of the concept of will to power through physiology and psychology. What we can learn by ...
[29]
[PDF] the concepts of health and sickness in nietzsche's philosophy
physiological - as will to power - by Nietzsche. For our purposes, in the second chapter, Nietzsche's relation to the progress in natural sciences ...<|control11|><|separator|>
[30]
The Development of Will to Power - Nomos eLibrary
We now turn to Nietzsche's later works, in which Wille zur Macht makes its first appearance in the books that Nietzsche authorized for publication. What do.
[31]
[PDF] Nietzsche's notebook of 1881 - Daniel Fidel Ferrer - PhilArchive
A small selection of some of Nietzsche's notes (Nachlaß sometimes spelled. “Nachlass”) was published (1901, 1906) as the Will to Power (7) and this first ...
[32]
[PDF] Nietzsche's Last Notebooks 1888 - PhilPapers
Jun 2, 2012 · ... will to power. IV. (41) courage as a boundary, where the "true" is recognized... III. (42) Music - the strong tradition. Offenbach, as against ...
[33]
The Nachlass and "The Will to Power," once again
Jun 17, 2017 · So the claim that Nietzsche wanted “much” of his Nachlass material destroyed does not seem to be supported by any of these accounts.
[34]
NIETZSCHE: The Will to Power - Eternalised
Sep 17, 2020 · Nietzsche's concept of sublimation is key to understanding the will to power. He believed that a sexual impulse, for example, could find ...
[35]
Nietzsche's Concept of the Will to Power - ThoughtCo
Jul 22, 2024 · The will to power as Nietzsche conceives of it is neither good nor bad. It is a basic drive found in everyone, but one that expresses itself in ...Missing: Wille zur Macht
[36]
[PDF] Nietzsche's Will to Power as that Which Eternally Recurs
Nietzsche's Will to Power is what eternally recurs. The methodology that I use is the “Reflective. Journal/Research Diary” method.<|control11|><|separator|>
[37]
[PDF] Friedrich Nietzsche - The Will to Power.pdf
... of the Idols, The Antichrist, and Nietzsche contra Wagner (all included in The Portable Nietzsche), and more recently of Beyond Good and Evil (with ...
[38]
Will to Power in the Unpublished Works - Nomos eLibrary
Nietzsche had indeed abandoned the project The Will to Power. The first is from a letter dated November 1888 to George Brandes, in which Nietzsche writes, "The.
[39]
[PDF] Writings from the Late Notebooks
In other words, Nietzsche gave up his plans for a book called The Will to Power in the autumn of .. Even so, the history of the project 'The Will to Power ...
[40]
Nietzsche "d0e858" - UC Press E-Books Collection
On the history of Nietzsche's Will to Power project, see Mazzino Montinari, "Nietzsche's Nachlaß 1885–1888 und der 'Wille zur Macht,'" KSA 14: 383 – 400; Bernd ...Missing: planned | Show results with:planned
[41]
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09672559.2025.2572594?af=R
[42]
Nietzsche's Sister and the Will to Power: A Biography of Elisabeth ...
In 1901, a year after her brother Friedrich's death, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche published The Will to Power, a hasty compilation of writings he had never ...
[43]
Elisabeth's Nietzsche (2024) - Red Sails
Mar 28, 2024 · We've seen that, although Förster-Nietzsche was an “unreliable custodian” of Nietzsche's works, her editing practices show a tendency to soften ...
[44]
Did Nietzsche want his notes burned? Some reflections on the ...
I argue that it neither suggests the abandonment of the will to power project, nor warrants a devaluation of the Nachlass. Finally, I will discuss the ...
[45]
The Eternal Recurrence and Nietzsche's Ethic of Virtue - Lester Hunt's
"The Eternal Recurrence and Nietzsche's Ethic of Virtue". by. Lester H ... will to power as an end in itself, it is "always the same." As I have argued ...
[46]
The Ontological Connection Between Nietzsche's Will to Power and ...
The object of this dissertation is to show the manner in which Nietzsche's doctrine of the Eternal Return is an ontological consequence of his theory of the ...
[47]
[PDF] Nietzsche's Doctrine of Eternal Return - DigitalCommons@URI
Their “hurdy-gurdy song” praises the affirmative power of return as the will choosing what will recur infinitely yet ignores the darker side. Page 12. Gadon 11.
[48]
[PDF] Nietzschean Recurrence: The Science and the Moment
In note #55 from the Will To Power, Nietzsche, with the audacity of one who is self-assured, refers to his doctrine of Eternal Recurrence as "the most.
[49]
[PDF] Nietzsche's Eternal Recurrence as a Psychological Test of Action
As stated in the passage from. The Will to Power quoted above, Nietzsche says that between every combination and its next recurrence all other possible com-.
[50]
Nietzsche's Übermensch: A Hero of Our Time? | Issue 93
In Nietzsche's moral universe, evil is a necessity and something to be overcome. The 'will to power' is a will to master one's own instincts, one's own evil ...
[51]
nietzsche's use of Amor Fati in Ecce Homo - jstor
Both eternal recurrence and amor fati are introduced in book 4 of The Gay Science, which nietzsche saw to the publisher only four months before beginning work ...
[52]
nietzsche's Will to Power as a Psychological thesis - jstor
1 nietzsche proposed the psychological thesis that all of our behavior is ultimately motivated by a “will to power” as a superior alternative to what he took to ...
[53]
On the Normativity of Nietzsche's Will to Power - jstor
Abstract: A prominent tradition in Nietzsche scholarship reads his views about will to power as a psychological thesis and his claims about the value of power ...Missing: earliest | Show results with:earliest<|separator|>
[54]
Against Nietzsche's 'Theory' of the Drives | Cambridge Core
Mar 27, 2015 · (Unless, as Nietzsche sometimes thinks, one drive is always the primary drive. GS 1 has species survival; GS 349 has 'expansion of power'; D has ...
[55]
Project MUSE - Nietzsche's Will to Power as a Psychological Thesis
While agreeing with Bernard Reginster that Nietzsche's advocacy of the will to power as a psychological thesis is much more fundamental than his extension of it ...
[56]
Nietzsche's Metaphysics of the Will to Power: The Possibility of Value
May 21, 2018 · Nietzsche responds to the threat of nihilism, according to Doyle, by developing will to power as a metaphysical view of reality. On this view, ...
[57]
(PDF) Nietzsche on Reality as Will to Power: Toward an ...
Aug 9, 2025 · The goal of this article is to shed light on Nietzsche's notion of reality through a critical examination of the notions "will to power," "struggle," and " ...<|separator|>
[58]
[PDF] THE WILL TO POWER AS NATURALIST CRITICAL ONTOLOGY
In this work, Nietzsche repeatedly equates the actual with the natural, the natural with the antimetaphysical, and the metaphysical with a value-laden, morally.
[59]
[PDF] Nietzsche's Justification of the Will to Power
This inquiry will restrict its focus to Nietzsche's justification of the ontological doctrine of the will to power rather than examine the content of the ...
[60]
Valuation and the Will to Power: Nietzsche's Ethics with Ontology
Jul 1, 2013 · ABSTRACT. Nietzsche's texts invite perplexing questions about the justification and objectivity of his ethical views.
[61]
Nietzsche's Will to Power: Biology, Naturalism, and Normativity
Mar 11, 2016 · In order to get a better grasp of the biological underpinnings of the will to power it is necessary to revisit Nietzsche's relationship to ...Missing: analogues | Show results with:analogues
[62]
Living things and the will to power (Chapter 13) - Nietzsche's ...
A biological reading of the will to power is regularly presented as an “absurd” attempt to outdo Darwin's theory of evolution in a manner that can only be ...Missing: analogues | Show results with:analogues
[63]
Nietzsche & Evolution | Issue 29 - Philosophy Now
He held that nature is essentially the will to power. Evolving life is not merely the Spencerian/Darwinian struggle for existence but, more importantly, it is ...
[64]
Nietzsche's Philosophical Psychology: Will to Power as Theory of ...
Contrary to what BGE appears to be claiming, the will to power is not part of Nietzsche's understanding of biology, physics, ontology, or even of what a drive ...
[65]
[PDF] Paul Katsafanas - BU Personal Websites - Boston University
There, they argue that Nietzsche's will to power doctrine is “a doctrine of what constitutes the ... or “dominance hierarchies” among certain animals, such as ...Missing: analogue | Show results with:analogue
[66]
Nietzsche's Legacy - The University of Chicago Press
Interpreting Ecce Homo and The Antichrist as twin books meant to replace the abandoned Will to Power project, Heinrich Meier recovers them from the stigma ...
[67]
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Will to Power, Book I and II, by ...
"Wherever I found a living thing, there found I Will to Power; and even in the will of the servant found I the will to be master. "Only where there is life, is ...
[68]
Jenny Diski · It wasn't him, it was her: Nietzsche's Bad Sister
Sep 25, 2003 · Elisabeth tried to make a life of her own when the life she tried to make with her brother failed. She married a proto-Nazi, Bernhard Förster ...
[69]
[PDF] Culture War: How the Nazi Party Recast Nietzsche
In this way, the paper smoothed out another difficulty that Nietzsche's ideas held for Nazi ideology: Individuals could demonstrate their will to power not ...Missing: fascist | Show results with:fascist
[70]
[PDF] How did Friedrich Nietzsche's ideas influence the Nazi regime in the ...
quests and their 'will for power' to take control over neighbouring countries. The phrase 'the will to power' was adapted metaphorically for the Nazi ambition ...
[71]
Nietzsche, Godfather of Fascism?: On the Uses and Abuses of ... - jstor
Nietzsche, Godfather of Fascism?: On the Uses and Abuses of a Philosophy ... will to power. It is rather the revolutionary combination of the consciousness ...
[72]
[PDF] NIETZSCHEAN WILL TO POWER AND THE POLITICS ... - PhilArchive
Sep 3, 2017 · positive actions, others may have abused such power ... The political uses and abuses of Nietzsche in Walter Kaufmann's image of. Nietzsche.
[73]
Will to power Individual psychology - Friedrich Nietzsche
Individual psychology. Alfred Adler borrowed heavily from Nietzsche's work to develop his second Viennese school of psychotherapy called individual psychology.
[74]
The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values ...
Alfred Adler incorporated the will to power into his individual psychology. This can be contrasted to the other Viennese schools of psychotherapy: Sigmund ...
[75]
The psychology of Nietzsche and how to use it yourself - Big Think
Feb 16, 2018 · The Will to Power was later used as a basis for the individual psychology of Alfred Adler. Nietzsche's conception of self-becoming has ...<|separator|>
[76]
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0969725X.2024.2430900
[77]
[PDF] The Illusion of Influence: On Foucault, Nietzsche, and a ...
Introduction. It is often said that Foucault was influenced by Nietzsche. Many say he was. Nietzschean—one of the few “true” Nietzscheans, some suggest, ...
[78]
[PDF] Foucault and Deleuze: Making a Difference with Nietzsche
Nietzsche's power, by contrast, especially in Foucault's hands, suggests extra- philosophical black holes of a political and ethical nature: who are we? While ...Missing: 20th | Show results with:20th
[79]
Existentialism - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Aug 23, 2004 · ... will to power” undermined that authority. On the account given in On the Genealogy of Morals, the Judeo-Christian moral order arose as an ...
[80]
Moral Psychology: Will to Power | Nietzsche and Contemporary Ethics
The basic idea is that each and every human action is motivated by, and ultimately explained via, will to power. After a provisional elucidation of this basic ...Missing: individual | Show results with:individual
[81]
Will to Power: The Utility of Friedrich Nietzsche's Moral Philosophy ...
Jan 30, 2024 · Nietzsche's analysis implies that the fundamental human impulse is not to avoid suffering, but instead to will nothing less than suffering itself.
[82]
Why You Should Seek Power, Not Happiness – Nietzsche's Guide to ...
Dec 8, 2022 · “The will to power can only express itself against resistances; it seeks what resists it…all expansion, incorporation, growth, is striving ...
[83]
Modernity and Its Discontents: Nietzsche's Critique by Douglas Kellner
Nietzsche thought that the will to power and struggle were more fundamental ... "Nihilism" for Nietzsche signified a contemporary condition of cultural ...