The Unity of Will to Power

We are now ready to ask if all these descriptions of the Will in Nietzsche's writings can be brought together so as to form a systematic vision. Let's first of all give a brief summary of these descriptions. The concept of Will as it was presented in The Birth of Tragedy involved the concept of Becoming. It represented the tragic unity of life as presented through the image of Dionysus. Thus the first use of the term Will refers to the concept of life itself, viewed under the aspect of Becoming. The second use of the term Will is found in the ability of the individual to affirm life. It refers to the individual's ability to overcome any resentment to life, to overcome any temptation to posit an afterlife or another World as the value and measure of this world. It refers to the Overman's ability to say "yes" to this life. But saying "yes" to this life entails saying "yes" to Will to Power, for this life is nothing but Will to Power. This means: Life is nothing else but competing interpretations or posited value-horizons. Now one such posited value-horizon is the theory of Will to Power. In this theory life (i.e., Becoming) gets interpreted as the constant conflicting, controlling and overcoming of quantities of power. This world picture is one of an immense manifold of struggle and change that repeats itself within the great cycles of eternity. It is a dynamic vision of life that values life in its aspect of Becoming. It is the kind of home wherein the Overman can live. Here the world of Becoming gets interpreted as a dynamic unfolding of preservation and enhancement conditions which elicit the approval of the Overman. This, then, is the unity within the four major demarcations of the Will in Nietzsche's thought. (1) The Primal Will which equals Becoming. (2) The Will in the theory of Will to Power which equals the dynamic unfolding of quantities of power under the conditions of preservation and enhancement. (3) The Will in the notion of Will to Power which equals the power of positing values i.e., the creating of horizons through form-creating interpretations. And (4) the Will of the child which equals the ability to affirm life as it is, i.e., to see the self as ground for valuation. But this is to say that the self sees itself as Will to Power and in seeing itself as Will to Power it sees itself as an interpreting activity. The Will of the child as a self-propelling wheel will ultimately will its own most interpretation, for in that interpretation it wills itself. In this sense the theory is an interpretation of Becoming which requires a yes-saying.


copyright: Robert Cavalier, Department of Philosophy
Carnegie Mellon University