Nietzschean Concepts: Will, Metaphor, and Eternal Return

The Will to Power and Reality

The will to power is the will to illusion. This desire is deeper than the will actually prevailing in the reign of the supersensible world, and it is deeper because it knows the true reality of being-becoming, and knows that human reason can never totalize or simplify its categories. The truth is change.

Metaphor Versus Concept

Against the petrification that becoming suffers by being set in a category that belief and habit renders immutable, the text exalts the power of metaphorical imagination, which is more appropriate for humanity. The metaphor offers a possibility beyond Platonic dogmatism because the metaphor is open to the world, unlike the closed, simplistic model of the concept. The only possible metaphysical relationship is through art. The essence of man is his creativity, the essential element of the will to power. The metaphor allows many interpretations, while the concept allows only one.

Atheism and the Death of God

Being, as the will to power, is self-affirmed in its own production (God is dead). New values are still possible (overcoming of nihilism) because the plurality of meanings of being has been rediscovered. What does the will to power claim? It claims the earth, full life in its constructive and destructive aspects. It can create new values without the need for God.

The Eternal Recurrence

The eternal recurrence of the same revolves around time and the will to power itself. Before the death of God, time was controlled; there was an eternal beyond that rescued the low value of all things subject to time.

Affirming Immanence

The Enlightenment critique held the forfeiture sentence, giving the role of absolute transcendence to other, older modern forms of divine eternity: reason, the state, etc. Again, eternity watches from outside the time period to ensure meaning and provide a final goal. With the dichotomy between the two worlds annulled, recovering the sense of the earth is necessary to recover the immanence of eternity. It is a resounding yes to life, affirming not only the values of this earth but also the desire to repeat them eternally.

The Übermensch (Superman)

The Übermensch (Superman) is intellectually superior to the current man, capable of creating his own values and not depending on other worlds. After the death of God, new, lucid thinking becomes possible as a basis for the creation of new values.