Nietzsche's Core Philosophy: Will to Power, Superman, Eternal Recurrence

Nietzsche's Will to Power: Core Concepts

Nietzsche, who often seemed to mock all ideals, developed a philosophy whose core tenets, such as the Superman, the Will to Power, and Eternal Recurrence, are prominently featured in his seminal work, Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

The Will as Affirmation and the Superman

The Will is not merely a personal power but the fundamental force from which all things, including human subjects, arise. For Schopenhauer, the Will is desire; for Nietzsche, it is power. This power is also the desire for more, for everything. While power might seem to refer to the self, Nietzsche did not mean it as an individual's personal power or belonging to their own will. Instead, it is a fundamental drive. Zarathustra says, "I love those who cannot live otherwise than by perishing." It is not the 'I' that seeks to dominate, but the Will that creates and destroys.

The Superman (or Übermensch) is Nietzsche's ideal human who desires more than what has been previously desired, existing beyond conventional good and evil. The idea of the Superman involves three transformations of the spirit:

• The spirit becomes a camel, symbolizing the subjugation of the will.
• The camel transforms into a lion, symbolizing the courage of the will that destroys all existing values.
• The lion becomes a child, who is the Superman – a creator and destroyer, embodying Dionysian affirmation in accordance with the cycle of Eternal Recurrence.

The Eternal Recurrence: A Paradox?

For Nietzsche, Eternal Recurrence means that everything that has occurred will recur, over and over again. An important inconsistency is often observed between Eternal Recurrence and the Will to Power: accepting one theory seems to reject the other. According to Eternal Recurrence, one must desire this life to the point of also desiring its repetition down to its smallest details. However, the Will to Power is always the will that desires more.

Art, Truth, and Nietzsche's Philosophy of Suspicion

Nietzsche's writings on practical philosophy reveal an unmasking of ulterior motives, hidden in all phenomena of human life. For Nietzsche, 'truth,' as it has been developed by philosophy since Plato, is merely a useful convention that has been shared by all. The 'terrible truth' is that reality is an incessant and cruel becoming that destroys everything that seemed stable. Human beings cannot bear this truth and pretend otherwise, staying within the limits of expediency.

Nietzsche's Philosophy: A Call for Hermeneutics

One could say Nietzsche's philosophy has not remained explicit but only encrypted. Nietzsche's philosophy demands a hermeneutic interpretation, as the subject of philosophy itself is dark. The opaque character of reality is correlated with a divine intelligence.