Nietzsche's Superman: Will to Power and Eternal Return

Nietzsche: The Superman

Platonism, Christianity, and Nihilism

With the advent of Platonism and Christianity, existing values are reversed and all that is sensitive and vital, represented by Dionysus, is subordinated to the suprasensible world. This devaluation of the sensible world, after two millennia of Christian domination, led to nihilism, the will to nothingness.

Negative Criticism and the Path to Affirmation

To overcome nihilism, it must be radicalized until it exhausts itself. Nietzsche contributed to this process through what can be called his negative criticism or philosophy.

Positive or Affirmative Philosophy

Then begins his positive or affirmative philosophy: the attempt to establish a new system of values and to describe the human type it can assume—the Superman. Nietzsche denies any received ideal; insofar as prevailing ideals enforce conformity they are a slave morality. However, he proposes a new ideal: the Superman.

Foundations of a New Value System

To organize such a new system of values one must take into account the will to power and the eternal recurrence of the same.

Will to Power

For Nietzsche, life is will to power. A living being does not merely live; it wants more, it wants what is not yet, it wants power. He understands the desire for power as a will to create, since for him the model of the superior man is the artist.

Eternal Return of the Same

The eternal return of the same is another central concept in Nietzsche's positive philosophy. The world is external and finite; therefore there will come a time when all possible states have occurred and will be repeated countless times. With this, being is conceived as dynamic, as becoming.

Reiteration of the Critique

Nietzsche denies any received ideal; insofar as prevailing ideals enforce conformity they are a slave morality. However, he proposes a new ideal: the superman.

What Nietzsche Means by the Superman

By "Superman" Nietzsche meant the individual capable of embracing the idea of the eternal return of the same, making every moment an absolute value. The Superman is not a finished reality but a hope; not a goal already reached, but one to be pursued. It is the meaning of life and the world. It is the overcoming of God and of nihilism. It is the affirmation of life as will to power, the creator of new values and the annihilator of the old ones. It is the human turned toward humanity rather than toward God; like a child, possessing innocence and forgetfulness, the creator of values.