WILL TO POWER: THE MAIN MECHANISM OF NIETZSCHEAN EVOLUTION

Abstract

 Life is in becoming and under constant change for Nietzsche. The main mechanism of change is will to power that enacts the whole being. The appearance of will to power in the human world depends on the struggle between two types of human being. The first type is the one acting with will to power as a physiological organism, evolvent by shaping what is external to herself, displaying the ability of nutrition and reproduction and affirming herself by not only preserving her existence but by furthering life in terms of her own will. This type of human being has a fundamental role in human evolution and ensures the continuity of the species even if she has no such purpose after all. The second is physiologically weak type who has no strength to struggle in order to maintain her existence despite of failing in adaptation to life and poses an obstacle for the future of human species. This type, unable to stand for the conditions of will to power as the essence of life, finds the solution in novel truth and creates sublime values that secure this truth. The weak type manages to save herself from the struggle of will to power and learns to harbor the invented truth by complying with the values fabricated under this reality. In this article, the functionality of will to power and its evolutionary side is discussed through these two types.

Keywords: Nietzsche, evolution, Will to Power, morality, herd.

DELEUZE’S READING OF NIETZSCHE AS A PHILOSOPHY OF ‘AFFIRMATION’

Abstract

This study focuses on the key concepts of Gilles Deleuze’s Nietzschereading; which left its mark on the works prior to his collaboration with Felix Guattari; and clarifies the relation between Deleuze’s reception of Nietzsche and his philosophy of difference. The significant themes of Deleuze’s reading include the overturning of Platonism and the call for a non-philosophy; the phases of nihilism and the devaluation of moral values through the method genealogy; ‘will-to-power’ and the re-conception of the body as a multiplicity of forces; and the affirmation of ‘difference-in-itself’ through eternal return as an elective principle. The common aspect of these topics is Nietzsche’s anti-rationalism. In one of his early texts, The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche opposes the dead truth of the ‘Platonic Idea’ to the ‘primordial unity’ of existence, which always makes itself perceptible through the becoming of things, that is, in the semblance of semblance. According to Deleuze, Nietzsche’s life-affirming philosophy is a revolt against Platonism. Through the concepts of “will-to-power” and “eternal return”, he defends the dynamic and vital principles of the world of appearances against the subject, identity, representation and so forth all of which are artifacts of traditional philosophy. In this sense, Deleuze evaluates the idea of will-to-power as an approach that allows us to reinterpret the body (and the world) in the context of the interrelations of forces. The doctrine of eternal return, on the other hand, is a poetic depiction of the cosmological return, which simultaneously affirms the inherent destiny of existence and eliminates nihilistic values.

Keywords: Nietzsche, Deleuze, affirmation, genealogy, nihilism, will-to-power, eternal return, difference-in-itself.

THE MOMENT OF CONFRONTATION OF NIETZSCHE AS “THE STILLEST HOUR” WITH ZARATHUSTRA

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyse the chapter titled “The Stillest Hour” in Thus Spoke Zarathustra [Also sprach Zarathustra] by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche. For this, firstly, the last chapter of the first book, “On the Bestowing Virtue” [“Von der schenkenden Tugend”] will be examined. It will be explained that Zarathustra was not a teacher and that teaching was not his main task. Secondly, the outline of the section “The Stillest Hour” will be drawn. Thirdly, the eleven speeches of “the stillest hour” will be discussed. This section comes before the release of the eternal return, which is located in the middle of the text and one of the main themes of the text. This chapter is difficult to understand because it has an esoteric nature. However, this section is one of the key sections to understand the entire text. Here, it will be argued that the voice heard eleven times as the voice of the “the stillest hour” is Nietzsche himself. He adds his own voice to the text with words alongside Zarathustra, and he interferes in the text. Thus, Nietzsche can describe the critical points for understanding the Zarathustra stand between the reader and the text. He also presents the symbolic signs he uses on the theme of time in the text.

Keywords: Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, “The Stillest Hour”, Zarathustra, silence.

THE CONCEPT OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN NIETZSCHE: THE RE-INTERPRETATION OF THE FEELINGS OF (DIS)PLEASURE AND PAIN

Abstract

Asserting that the values determining the lives of modern human beings originate from nihilism, Friedrich Nietzsche emphasises the necessity of the project of Umwertung aller Werte, translated as ‘the revaluation of values’, in order to eliminate this impact of nihilism. Accordingly, the task of philosophy is the destruction of present values and their reproduction. When we look at Nietzsche’s critique of the concept of consciousness  which has assumed too much importance in modern philosophy, we could see that this discussion constitutes one of the most crucial themes of the project of ‘the revaluation of values’. In order to further elaborate and concretise this discussion, this article deals with Nietzsche’s attempt at the reevaluation of the feelings of pleasure, displeasure, and pain, which can be found in his posthumous works. The aim of this article lies in demonstrating that the reevaluation of these feelings is one of the most important components of Nietzsche’s critique of consciousness, in particular, and his project of Umwertung, in general. Also, it is argued that Nietzsche aims not at the complete elimination of consciousness and the said feelings, but at getting rid of the central importance attributed to them.

Keywords: Consciousness, Feelings, Pleasure, Displeasure, Pain.

AN UNUSUAL JOURNEY FROM THE CRITICISM OF DEMOCRACY TO A NEW INTERPRETATION OF DEMOCRACY IN NIETZSCHE

Abstract

In political theory, the name of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche and the concept of democracy appear as two elements that seem almost impossible to come together. In Nietzsche’s texts, democracy is a continuation of Christian understanding of the world; and defined as one of the secular forms of the ressentiment that opposes high values, and slave morality, as it homogenizes people and is shaped according to the weaknesses of the masses. In this study, it is argued that in addition to his arguments criticizing democracy, Nietzsche also has arguments that support democracy from another perspective. The reason for this paradoxical situation is that the understanding of democracy that Nietzsche criticizes and the interpretations of democracy that is predicted to contribute to contemporary theory of democracy are different from each other. In this respect, a contemporary interpretation of democracy is reached by using concepts such as overman, master morality, will to power, and perspectivism against the concepts such as herd, slave morality, and sameness, which stand out as a part of the understanding of democracy that Nietzsche criticizes. This interpretation, which is based on the view that democracy is an ongoing process of contingent grounding game, that no ultimate ground or principle can found the social, mostly takes place in the context of the post-foundational theory of democracy.

Keywords: herd, ressentiment, overman, perspectivism, democracy, postfoundational.

A MASTERY IN SILENCE: AN INTERTEXTUAL READING OF THE CONCEPT OF ‘SILENCE’ IN FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE’S PHILOSOPHY

Abstract

From Aristotle’s view of man as the “speaking animal”, Friedrich Nietzsche’s task of overcoming man” must be reinterpreted as that of “overcoming language”. To overcome language via language, Nietzsche came up with a new speech in which the ability to keep silent plays a central role. Nietzsche’s mastery of silence transformed him from a ‘centaur’ into a ‘halcyon’, from a speaker of a hybrid speech of art, science, and philosophy into a seabird singing the profound agony and joy of life in infinite tranquility. Through an intertextual reading of the concept of “silence” (Schweigen) in Nietzsche’s writings, this article aims to reveal different types of silence that are of pivotal significance in the philosopher’s task of overcoming language and to set forth the main characteristics of his “silent speech” by demonstrating not only about what he did not speak but also how he kept silent in his speech. After separating the two major types of keeping silent belonging to slave and master moralities, it is demonstrated how Nietzsche practiced the “ascetic silence”, conceptualized as “hibernation” and “contemplation”, to overcome language, while his hostile silence about the silence of his contemporaries against his philosophy and the politics of the period are discussed. Examining Nietzsche’s style of speaking subjectively, briefly, softly, and loftily, this article claims that his silent speech, which finds its most perfect expression in the idea of “the eternal recurrence of the same”, corresponds to the metaphysical side of his philosophy.

Keywords: asceticism, contemplation, eternal recurrence of the same, hibernation, language, Nietzsche, ressentiment, revenge, silence, speech.

AUTHENTIC EXISTENCE AND THE OVER MAN: A COMPARISON OF HEIDEGGER AND NIETZSCHE

Abstract

This paper, in which the common aspects of Martin Heidegger’s and Friedrich Nietzsche’s conceptions of human being are investigated, claims these aspects to have arisen not due to an accidental similarity, but that they point to a structural commonness between their philosophies as well as the explicit effect of Nietzsche’s philosophy on Heidegger’s earlier thought. In the first part of the paper, ‘Dasein’, which Heidegger sees as the unique and only being that has an understanding of Being, is problematized in terms of its possibilities of being ‘authentic’ as well as ‘inauthentic’ In its inauthentic mode, Dasein loses its self-ness and turns out to be a member of “the they” (das Man), which is the average, standard existence of everydayness. In this case, it is determined by the overall social, moral, cultural, etc. norms. In the second part of the paper, Nietzsche’s conception of human being is investigated in the light of four concepts; ‘the herd’, ‘the free-man’, ‘the tragic-man’ and ‘the over-man’. As the paper also shows, there is a structural commonness not only between the concept pair of Nietzsche’s ‘herd’ and Heidegger’s ‘das Man’, but also between that of ‘the over-man’ and ‘the authentic Dasein’, which cannot be seen as an accidental coincidence. Within this, Nietzsche’s ‘free man’ can be interpreted as a transitory, bridge concept between Heidegger’s ‘authentic Dasein’ and his ‘inauthentic Dasein’. In the context of these common aspects, the effect of Nietzsche’s philosophy on that of  Heidegger’s becomes visible due to their similar ways of problematization of themes like ‘freedom’, ‘determination’, ‘autonomy’, ‘self-ness’ using very similar conceptual schemes.

Keywords: Heidegger, Nietzsche, Dasein, Das Man, Herd Man, Free Man, Tragic Man, Over-Man.

THE WILL TO POWER VS. THE DEATH DRIVE OR CAN NIETZSCHE BE REDUCED TO FREUD?

Abstract

Sigmund Freud, throughout his life, has been somewhat ambivalent about his relationship with Friedrich Nietzsche, and he has frequently expressed his active avoidance of Nietzsche, claiming that he did not want to be influenced by him. However, in 1924, in a paper called The Economical Problem of Masochism, Freud in just one sentence (“The drive is then called the destructive drive, the drive for mastery, or the will to power”) subtly tries to settle accounts with Nietzsche’s metapsychology and the central concept of his metapsychology i.e., the will to power. According to Freud, Nietzsche’s will to power corresponds to one of his two principles, the death drive. By trying to reduce the will to power to the death drive, Freud tries to overcome Nietzsche. In this paper, I will examine Freud’s attempt at overcoming Nietzsche. Accordingly, first, I will trace Nietzsche’s concept of will to power in the entirety of his corpus, starting with his concept of feeling of power. After I have shown that the will to power can be interpreted as a  metapsychological concept, I will go through Freud’s drive theory to understand the similarities and differences between the will to power and the death drive. Thus, I wish to see if one can be reduced to the other or not. Consequently, I will argue that instead of trying to reduce the will to power to the death drive, we should do the opposite and see the death drive as one of the expressions of the will to power, for this is a more precise, fruitful and efficient interpretation. Hence, I will end my paper by posing a question which I think will expand our horizons about the will to power and the death drive: “why does the will to power express itself as the death drive?”

Keywords: Nietzsche, Freud, Drive Theory, the Will to Power, the Death Drive, Metapsychology, Psychoanalysis.