We may surmise that Nietzsche knows the
difference
between affect and pas- sion.
Heidegger - Nietzsche - v1-2
For Nietzsche these two questions are but one.
For in his view will is nothing else than will to power, and power nothing else than the essence of will.
Hence, will to power is will to will, which is to say, willing is self-willing.
But that requires elucida- tion.
With our attempt, as with all conceptual definitions elaborated in a similar fashion which claim to grasp the Being of beings, we must keep two things in mind. First, a precise conceptual definition that ticks off the various characteristics of what is to be defined remains vacuous and false, so long as we do not really come to know in an intimate way what is being talked about and bring it before our mind's eye. Second, in order to grasp the Nietzschean concept of will, the following is espe- cially important: if according to Nietzsche will as will to power is the basic character of all beings, then in defining the essence of will we cannot appeal to a particular being or special mode of Being which would serve to explain the essence of will.
Hence, will as the pervasive character of all beings does not yield any immediate sort of directive from which its concept, as a concept of Being, might be derived. Of course, Nietzsche never explicated this state of affairs systematically and with attention to principles; but he knew quite clearly that here he was pursuing an unusual question.
Two examples may illustrate what is involved. According to the usual view, will is taken to be a faculty of the soul. What will is may be determined from the essence of the psyche. The latter is dealt with in
38 THE WILL TO POWER AS ART
psychology. The psyche is a particular being, distinct from body and mind. Now, if in Nietzsche's view will determines the Being of every sort of being, then it does not pertain to the psyche; rather, the psyche somehow pertains to the will. But body and mind too are will, inasmuch as such things "are. " Furthermore, if will is taken to be a faculty, then it is viewed as something that can do something, is in a position to do it, possessing the requisite power and might. Whatever is intrinsically power, and for Nietzsche that is what will is, thus cannot be further characterized by defining it as a faculty or power. For the essence of a faculty is grounded in the essence of will as power.
A second example. Will is taken to be a kind of cause. We say that a man does something not so much by means of his intellect as by sheer willpower. Will brings something about, effects some consequence. But to be a cause is a particular mode of Being; Being as such cannot be grasped by means of causation. Will is not an effecting. What we usually take to be a thing that effects something else, the power of causation, is itself grounded in will (cf. VIII, 80).
If will to power characterizes Being itself, there is nothing else that will can be defined as. Will is will-but that formally correct definition does not say anything. It is in fact quite deceptive if we take it to mean that things are as simple as the simple phrase suggests.
For that reason Nietzsche can declare, "Today we know that it [i. e. , the will] is merely a word" (Tw1light of the Idols, 1888; VIII, 80). Corresponding to this is an earlier assertion from the period of Zara- thustra: "I laugh at your free will and your unfree one too: what you call will is to me an illusion; there is no will" (XII, 267). It is remarkable that the thinker for whom the basic character of all beings is will should say such a thing: "There is no will. " But Nietzsche means that there is no such will as the one previously known and designated as "a faculty of the soul" and as "striving in general. "
Whatever the case, Nietzsche must constantly repeat what will is. He says, for example, that will is an "affect," a "passion," a "feeling," and a "command. " But do not such characterizations of will as "affect," "passion," and so on speak within the domain of the psyche and of states of the soul? Are not affect, passion, feeling, and command each
Will as Will to Power 39
something different? Must not whatever is introduced in order to illuminate the essence of will itself be adequately clear at the outset? But what is more obscure than the essence of affect and passion, and the distinction between the two? How can will be all those things simultaneously? We can hardly surmount these questions and doubts concerning Nietzsche's interpretation of the essence of will. And yet, perhaps, they do not touch on the decisive issue. Nietzsche himself emphasizes, "Above all else, willing seems to me something complicat- ed, something that is a unity only as a word; and precisely in this one word a popular prejudice lurks which has prevailed over the always meager caution of philosophers" (Beyond Good and Evil; VII, 28). Nietzsche here speaks primarily against Schopenhauer, in whose opin- ion will is the simplest and best-known thing in the world.
But because for Nietzsche will as will to power designates the essence of Being, it remains forever the actual object of his search, the thing to be determined. What matters-once such an essence is discovered- is to locate it thoroughly, so that it can never be lost again. Whether Nietzsche's procedure is the sole possible one, whether the singularity of the inquiry concerning Being became sufficiently clear to him at all, and whether he thought through in a fundamental manner the ways that are necessary and possible in this regard, we leave open for now. This much is certain: for Nietzsche there was at the time no other alternative-given the ambiguity of the concepts of will and the multi- plicity of prevailing conceptual definitions-than to clarify what he meant with the help of what was familiar and to reject what he did not mean. (Cf. the general observation concerning philosophical concepts in Beyond Good and Evil; VII, 31 ff. )
If we try to grasp willing by that peculiarity which, as it were, first forces itself upon us, we might say that willing is a heading toward . . . , a going after . . . ; willing is a kind of behavior directed toward some- thing. But when we look at something immediately at hand, or observ- antly follow the course of some process, we behave in a way that can be described in the same terms: we are directed toward the thing by way of representation-where willing plays no role. In the mere obser- vation of things we do not want to do anything "with" them and do
40
THE WILL TO POWER AS ART
not expect anything "from" them; we let things be just as they are. To be directed toward something is not yet a willing, and yet such directed- ness is implied in willing. . . .
But we can also "want" [i. e. , will-to-have] some thing, e. g. , a book or a motorbike. A boy "wills" to have a thing, that is, he would like to have it. This "would like to have" is no mere representation, but a kind of striving after something, and has the special characteristic of wishing. But to wish is not yet to will. Whoever only wishes, in the strict sense of the word, does not will; rather, he hopes that his wish will come true without his having to do anything about it. Is willing then a wishing to which we add our own initiative? No, willing is not wishing at all. It is the submission of ourselves to our own command, and the resoluteness of such self-command, which already implies our carrying out the command. But with this account of willing we have suddenly introduced a whole series of definitions that were not given in what we first discussed, namely, directing oneself toward something.
Yet it seems as though the essence of will would be grasped most purely if this "directing oneself toward," as pure willing, were canceled abruptly in favor of a directing oneself toward something in the sense of sheer desire, wishing, striving, or mere representing. Will would thus be posited as the pure relation of a simple heading toward or going after something. But this approach is misconceived. Nietzsche is con- vinced that Schopenhauer's fundamental error is his belief that there is such a thing as pure willing, a willing that becomes purer as what is willed is left more and more indeterminate and the one who wills left more and more decisively out of the picture. Much to the contrary, it is proper to the essence of willing that what is willed and the one who wills be brought into the willing, although not in the extrinsic sense in which we can say that to every striving belongs something that strives and something that is striven for.
The decisive question is this: how, and on what grounds, do the willed and the one who wills belong to the willing to will? Answer: on the grounds of willing and by means of willing. Willing wills the one who wills, as such a one; and willing posits the willed as such. Willing is resoluteness toward oneself, but as the one who wills what is posited
Will as Will to Power 41
in the willing as willed. In each case will itself furnishes thoroughgoing determinateness to its willing. Someone who does not know what he wants does not want anything and cannot will at all. There is no willing-in-general. "For the will, as an affect of command, is the deci- sive distinguishing mark of self-mastery and force" (The Gay Science, Bk. V, 1886; V, 282). In contrast, striving can be indeterminate, both with respect to what is actually striven for and in relation to the very one who strives. In striving and in compulsion we are caught up in movement toward something without knowing what is at stake. In mere striving after something we are not properly brought before ourselves. For that reason it is not possible for us to strive beyond ourselves; rather, we merely strive, and get wholly absorbed in such striving. By way of contrast, will, as resolute openness to oneself, is always a willing out beyond oneself. If Nietzsche more than once emphasizes the character of will as command, he does not mean to provide a prescription or set of directions for the execution of an act; nor does he mean to characterize an act of will in the sense of resolve. Rather, he means resoluteness-that by which willing can come to grips with what is willed and the one who wills; he means coming to grips as a founded and abiding decisiveness. Only he can truly com- mand-and commanding has nothing to do with mere ordering about -who is always ready and able to place himself under command. By means of such readiness he has placed himself within the scope of the command as first to obey, the paragon of obedience. In such decisive-
ness of willing, which reaches out beyond itself, lies mastery over . . . , having power over what is revealed in the willing and in what is held fast in the grips of resoluteness.
Willing itself is mastery over . . . , which reaches out beyond itself; will is intrinsically power. And power is willing that is constant in itself. Will is power; power is will. Does the expression "will to power" then have no meaning? Indeed it has none, when we think of will in the sense of Nietzsche's conception. But Nietzsche employs this expression any- how, in express rejection of the usual understanding of will, and espe- cially in order to emphasize his resistance to the Schopenhauerian notion.
42 THE WILL TO POWER AS ART
Nietzsche's expression "will to power" means to suggest that will as we usually understand it is actually and only will to power. But a possible misunderstanding lurks even in this explanation. The ex- pression "will to power" does not mean that, in accord with the usual view, will is a kind of desiring that has power as its goal rather than happiness and pleasure. True, in many passages Nietzsche speaks in that fashion, in order to make himself provisionally understood; but when he makes will's goal power instead of happiness, pleasure, or the unhinging of the will, he changes not only the goal of will but the essential definition of will itself. In the strict sense of the Nietzschean conception of will, power can never be pre-established as will's goal, as though power were something that could first be posited outside the will. Because will is resolute openness toward itself, as mastery out beyond itself, because will is a willing beyond itself, it is the strength that is able to bring itself to power.
The expression "to power" therefore never means some sort of appendage to will. Rather, it comprises an elucidation of the essence of will itself. Only when we have clarified Nietzsche's concept of will in these respects can we understand those designations Nietzsche often chooses in order to exhibit the complicated nature of what that simple word "will" says to him. He calls will-therefore will to power-an "affect. " He even says, "My theory would be that will to power is the primitive form of affect, that all other affects are but its configura- tions" (WM1 688). * Nietzsche calls will a "passion" as well, or a "feeling. " If we understand such descriptions from the point of view of our common psychology-something that always seems to happen-then we might easily be tempted to say that Nietzsche abandons the essence of will to the "emotional," or that he rescues it from the rationalistic misinterpretations perpetrated by Idealism.
Here we must ask two things. First, what does Nietzsche mean when
*Walter Kaufmann notes that the phrase "My theory would be" stems from the editors, not from Nietzsche himself. See his edition of The Will to Power, p. 366, n. 73.
Will as Will to Power 43
he emphasizes the character of will as affect, passion, and feeling? Second, when we believe we have found that the idealistic conception of will has nothing to do with Nietzsche's, how are we understanding "Idealism"?
8. Will as Affect, Passion, and Feeling
In the passage last cited Nietzsche says that all affects are "configura- tions" of will to power. If we ask what will to power is, Nietzsche answers that it is the original affect. Affects are forms of will; will is affect. That is called a circular definition. Common sense feels itself superior when it discovers such "errors of logic" even in a philosopher. Affect is will and will is affect. Now, we already know-at least roughly -that the question of will to power involves the question concerning the Being of beings; Being itself can no longer be determined by any given beings, since it is what determines them. Therefore, if any desig- nation of Being is brought forward at all, and if it is supposed to say the same as Being, yet not in a merely empty way, then the determina- tion brought to bear must of necessity be drawn from beings-and the circle is complete. Nevertheless, the matter is not all that simple. In the case at hand Nietzsche says with good grounds that will to power is the original form of affect; he does not say that it is simply one affect, although we often find such turns of phrase in his hastily composed argumentative presentations.
To what extent is will to power the original form of affect, i. e. , that which constitutes the Being of an affect in general? What is an affect? To this, Nietzsche provides no clear and precise answer. Just as little does he answer the questions as to what a passion or a feeling may be. The answer ("configurations" of will power) does not immediately conduct us any farther. Rather, it assigns us the task of divining what it is in what we know as affect, passion, and feeling that signifies the essence of will to power. In that way we could derive particular char- acteristics which are suitable for making clearer and richer the previous
Wl11 as Affect, Passion, and Feeling 45
attempts to define the essential concept of will. This work we must do ourselves. Yet the questions (what are affect, passion, and feeling? ) remain unanswered. Nietzsche himself often equates the three; he follows the usual ways of representing them, ways still accepted today. With these three words, each an arbitrary substitute for the others, we depict the so-called irrational side of psychic life. For customary repre- sentational thought that may suffice, but not for trite knowledge, and certainly not if our task is to determine by such knowledge the Being of beings. Nor is it enough to revamp the current "psychological" explanations of affects, passions, and feelings. We must above all see that here it is not a matter for psychology, nor even for a psychology undergirded by physiology and biology. It is a matter of the basic modes that constitute Dasein, a matter of the ways man confronts the Da, the openness and concealment of beings, in which he stands.
We cannot deny that the things physiology grapples with-particu- lar states of the body, changes in internal secretions, muscle flexions, occurrences in the nervous system-are also proper to affects, passions, and feelings. But we have to ask whether all these bodily states and the body itself are grasped in a metaphysically adequate way, so that one may without further ado borrow material from physiology and biology, as Nietzsche, to his own detriment, so often did. The one fundamental point to realize here is that no result of any science can ever be applied immediately to philosophy.
How are we to conceive of the essence of affect, passion, and feeling, indeed in such a way that in each case it will be fruitful for an interpre- tation of the essence of will in Nietzsche's sense? Here we can conduct our examination only as far as illumination of Nietzsche's characteriza- tion of will to power requires.
Anger, for instance, is an affect. In contrast, by "hate" we mean something quite different. Hate is not simply another affect, it is not an affect at all. It is a passion. But we call both of them "feelings. " W e speak of the feeling of hatred and of an angry feeling. W e cannot plan or decide to be angry. Anger comes over us, seizes us, "affects" us. Such a seizure is sudden and turbulent. Our being is moved by a kind of excitement, something stirs us up, lifts us beyond ourselves, but in
46 THE WILL TO POWER AS ART
such a way that, seized by our excitement, we are no longer masters of ourselves. We say, "He acted on impulse," that is to say, under the influence of an affect. Popular speech proves to be keensighted when it says of someone w'ho is stirred up and acts in an excited manner, "He isn't altogether himself. " When we are seized by excitement, our being "altogether there" vanishes; it is transformed into a kind of "falling apart. " We say, "He's beside himself with joy. "
Nietzsche is obviously thinking of that essential moment in the affect when he tries to characterize will in its terms. Such being lifted beyond ourselves in anger, the seizure of our whole being, so that we are not our own master, such a "not" does not at all mean to deny that in anger we are carried beyond ourselves; such "not being master" in the affect, in anger, distinguishes the affect from mastery in the sense of will, for in the affect our being master of ourselves is transformed into a manner of being beyond ourselves where something is lost. Whatever is contrary we call "counter. " We call anger a counter-will
that subsists beyond us, in such a way that in anger we do not remain together with ourselves as we do when willing, but, as it were, lose ourselves. Here will is a counter-will. Nietzsche turns the state of affairs around: the formal essence of the affect is will, but now will is visualized merely as a state of excitement, of being beyond oneself.
Because Nietzsche says that to will is to will out beyond oneself, he can say that, in view of such being beyond oneself in the affect, will to power is the original form of affect. Yet he clearly wants to add the other moment of the affect for the sake of the essential characterization of will, that moment of seizure in the affect by which something comes over us. That too, and precisely that, in a manifold and Protean sense of course, is proper to the will. That we can be beyond or outside ourselves in this or that way, and that we are in fact constantly so, is possible only because will itself-seen in relation to the essence of man-is seizure pure and simple.
Will itself cannot be willed. We can never resolve to have a will, in the sense that we would arrogate to ourselves a will; for such resolute- ness is itself a willing. When we say, "He wants to have his will carried out in this or that matter," it means as much as, he really wants to stand
Will as Affect, Passion, and Feeling 47
firm in his willing, to get hold of himself in his entire being, to be master over his being. But that very possibility indicates that we are always within the scope of will, even when we are unwilling. That genuine willing which surges forward in resoluteness, that "yes," is what instigates the seizure of our entire being, of the very essence within us.
Nietzsche designates will as passion just as often as affect. W e should not automatically conclude that he identifies affect and passion, even if he does not arrive at an explicit and comprehensive clarification of the essential distinction and connection between these two.
We may surmise that Nietzsche knows the difference between affect and pas- sion. Around the year 1882 he says regarding his times, "Our age is an agitated one, and precisely for that reason, not an age of passion; it heats itself up continuously, because it feels that it is not warm- basically it is freezing. I do not believe in the greatness of all these 'great events' of which you speak" (XII, 343). "The age of the greatest events will, in spite of all that, be the age of the most meager effects if men are made of rubber and are all too elastic. " "In our time it is merely by means of an echo that events acquire their 'greatness'-the echo of the newspapers" (XII, 344).
Usually Nietzsche employs the word "passion" interchangeably with "affect. " But if anger and hate, for example, or joy and love, not only are different as one affect is from another, but are distinct as affects and passions respectively, then here too we need a more exact defini- tion. Hate too cannot be produced by a decision; it too seems to overtake us-in a way similar to that when we are seized by anger. Nevertheless, the manner in which it comes over us is essentially differ- ent. Hate can explode suddenly in an action or exclamation, but only because it has already overtaken us, only because it has been growing within us for a long time, and, as we say, has been nurtured in us. But something can be nurtured only if it is already there and is alive. In contrast, we do not say and never believe that anger is nurtured. Because hate lurks much more deeply in the origins of our being it has a cohesive power; like love, hate brings an original cohesion and perdur- ance to our essential being. But anger, which seizes us, can also release
48 THE WILL TO POWER AS ART
us again-it "blows over," as we say. Hate does not "blow over. " Once it germinates it grows and solidifies, eating its way inward and consum- ing our very being. But the permanent cohesion that comes to human existence through hate does not close it off and blind it. Rather, it grants vision and premeditation. The angry man loses the power of reflection. He who hates intensifies reflection and rumination to the point of "hardboiled" malice. Hate is never blind; it is perspicuous. Only anger is blind. Love is never blind: it is perspicuous. Only infatua- tion is blind, fickle, and susceptible-an affect, not a passion. To passion belongs a reaching out and opening up of oneself. Such reach- ing out occurs even in hate, since the hated one is pursued everywhere relentlessly. But such reaching out in passion does not simply lift us up and away beyond ourselves. It gathers our essential being to its proper ground, it exposes our ground for the first time in so gathering, so that the passion is that through which and in which we take hold of our- selves and achieve lucid mastery over the beings around us and within us.
Passion understood in this way casts light on what Nietzsche calls will to power. Will as mastery of oneself is never encapsulation of the ego from its surroundings. Will is, in our terms, resolute openness, in which he who wills stations himself abroad among beings in order to keep them firmly within his field of action. * Now the characteristic traits are not seizure and agitation, but the lucid grip which simultaneously gathers that passionate being.
Affect: the seizure that blindly agitates us. Passion: the lucidly gath- ering grip on beings. We talk and understand only extrinsically when we say that anger flares and then dissipates, lasting but a short time,
*Perhaps a word is needed concerning the traditional translation of Entschlossenheit, "resoluteness. " Heidegger now hyphenates the German word to emphasize that Ent- schlossenheit, far from being a sealing-off or closing-up of the will in decision, means unclosedness, hence a "resolute openness. " The word thus retains its essential ties to Erschlossenheit, the disclosure of Being in Dasein. On Entschlossenheit see Martin Heidegger, Sein undZeit, 12th ed. (Tiibingen: M. Niemeyer, 1972), esp. p. 297; "Yom Wesen der Wahrheit," in Wegmarken (Frankfurt/Main: V. Klostermann, 1967), p. 90; and Celassenheit (Pfullingen: C. Neske, 1959), p. 59. Cf. Martin Heidegger: Basic
Writings, ed. D. F. Krell (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), p. 133 n.
Will as Affect, Passion, and Feeling 49
while hate lasts longer. No, hate and love not only last longer, they bring perdurance and permanence for the first time to our existence. An affect, in contrast, cannot do that. Because passion restores our essential being, because it loosens and liberates in its very grounds, and because passion at the same time reaches out into the expanse of beings, for these reasons passion-and we mean great passion-possesses ex- travagance and resourcefulness, not only the ability but the necessity to submit, without bothering about what its extravagance entails. It displays that self-composed superiority characteristic of great will.
Passion has nothing to do with sheer desire. It is not a matter of the nerves, of ebullition and dissipation. All of that, no matter how excited its gestures, Nietzsche reckons as attrition of the will. Will is what it is only as willing out beyond itself, willing more. Great will shares with great passion that serenity of unhurried animation that is slow to answer and react, not out of insecurity and ponderousness, but out of the broadly expansive security and inner buoyancy of what is superior.
Instead of "affect" and "passion" we also say "feeling," if not "sensa- tion. " Or, where affects and passions are distinguished, the two are conjoined in the genus "feeling. " Today if we apply the term "feeling" to a passion, it is understood as a kind of reduction. For we believe that a passion is not a mere feeling. Nevertheless, the simple fact that we refrain from calling passions feelings does not prove that we possess a more highly developed concept of the essence of passion; it may only be a sign that we have employed too paltry a concept of the essence of feeling. So it is in fact. But it may seem that here we are merely inquiring into word meanings and their appropriate applications. Yet the matter that is here in question is, first, whether what we have now indicated as being the essence of affect and of passion exhibits an original, essential connection between these two, and second, whether this original connection can truly be understood if only we grasp the essence of what we call "feeling. "
Nietzsche himself does not shy from conceiving willing simply as feeling: "Willing: a compelling feeling, quite pleasant! It is the epi- phenomenon of all discharge ofenergy" (XIII, 159). To will-a feeling of pleasure? "Pleasure is only a symptom of the feeling of power
50 THE WILL TO POWER AS ART
attained, a consciousness of difference ( - i t [a living creature] does not strive for pleasure: rather, pleasure enters on the scene when it achieves what it is striving for: pleasure accompanies, it does not motivate-)" (WM, 688). Is will accordingly but an "epiphenomenon" of energy discharge, an accompanying feeling of pleasure? How does that jibe with what was said about the essence of will in general, and in particular with respect to the comparison with affect and passion? There will appeared as what properly sustains and dominates, being synonymous with mastery itself. Is it now to be reduced to a feeling of pleasure that merely accompanies something else?
From such passages we see clearly how unconcerned Nietzsche is about a unified, solidly grounded presentation of his teaching. We realize that he is only getting under way, that he is resolutely open. His task is not a matter of indifference to him; neither is it of only supple- mental interest. He knows, as only a creator can, that what from the outside looks like a summary presentation is actually the configuration of the real issue, where things collide against one another in such a way that they expose their proper essence. Nevertheless, Nietzsche remains under way, and the immediate casting of what he wants to say always forces itself upon him. In such a position he speaks directly the lan- guage of his times and of the contemporary "science. " When he does so he does not shy from conscious exaggeration and one-sided formula- tions of his thoughts, believing that in this way he can most clearly set in relief what in his vision and in his inquiry is different from the run-of-the-mill. Yet when he proceeds in such a manner he is always able to keep his eye on the whole; he can make do, as it were, with one-sidedness. The results are fatal when others, his readers, latch onto such statements in a superficial way and, depending on what Nietzsche
just then is offering them, either declare it his sole opinion on the matter or, on the grounds of any given particular utterances, all too facilely refute him.
If it is true that will to power constitutes the basic character of all beings, and if Nietzsche now defines will as an accompanying feeling of pleasure, these two conceptions of will are not automatically compat- ible. Nor will one ascribe to Nietzsche the view that Being simply
Will as Affect, Passion, and Feeling 51
accompanies something else as a feeling of pleasure-that "something else" being yet another entity whose Being would have to be deter- mined. The only way out is to assume that the definition of will as an accompanying feeling of pleasure, which is at first so foreign to what was presented earlier, is neither the essential definition of will nor one such definition among others. It is much more the case that it refers to something altogether proper to the full essence of will. But if this is the case, and if in our earlier remarks we have sketched an outline of the essential structure of will, then the definition just mentioned must somehow fit into the general pattern we have presented.
"Willing: a compelling feeling, quite pleasant! " A feeling is the way we find ourselves in relationship to beings, and thereby at the same time to ourselves. It is the way we find ourselves particularly attuned to beings which we are not and to the being we ourselves are. In feeling, a state opens up, and stays open, in which we stand related to things, to ourselves, and to the people around us, always simultaneously. Feel- ing is the very state, open to itself, in which our Dasein hovers. Man is not a rational creature who also wills, and in addition to thinking and willing is equipped with feelings, whether these make him admirable or despicable; rather, the state of feeling is original, although in such a way that thinking and willing belong together with it. Now the only
important matter that remains for us to see is that feeling has the character of opening up and keeping open, and therefore also, depend- ing on the kind of feeling it is, the character of closing off.
But if will is willing out beyond itself, the "out beyond" does not imply that will simply wanders away from itself; rather, will gathers itself together in willing. That the one who wills, wills himself into his will, means that such willing itself, and in unity with it he who wills and what is willed, become manifest in the willing. In the essence of will, in resolute openness, will discloses itself to itself, not merely by means of some further act appended to it, some sort of observation of the willing process and reflection on it; on the contrary, it is will itself that has the character of opening up and keeping open. No self-obser- vation or self-analysis which we might undertake, no matter how pene- trating, brings to light our self, and how it is with our self. In contrast,
52 THE WILL TO POWER AS ART
in willing and, correspondingly, in not willing, we bring ourselves to light; it is a light kindled only by willing. Willing always brings the self to itself; it thereby finds itself out beyond itself. It maintains itself within the thrust away from one thing toward something else. Will therefore has the character of feeling, of keeping open our very state of being, a state that in the case of will-being out beyond itself-is a pulsion. Will can thus be grasped as a "compelling feeling. " It is not only a feeling of something that prods us, but is itself a prodding, indeed of a sort that is "quite pleasant. " What opens up in the will- willing itself as resolute openness-is agreeable to the one for whom it is so opened, the one who wills. In willing we come toward ourselves, as the ones we properly are. Only in will do we capture ourselves in our most proper essential being. He who wills is, as such, one who wills out beyond himself; in willing we know ourselves as out beyond ourselves; we sense a mastery over . . . , somehow achieved; a thrill of pleasure announces to us the power attained, a power that enhances itself. For that reason Nietzsche speaks of a "consciousness of difference. "
If feeling and will are grasped here as "consciousness" or "knowl- edge," it is to exhibit most clearly that moment of the opening up of something in will itself. But such opening is not an observing; it is feeling. This suggests that willing is itself a kind of state, that it is open in and to itself. Willing is feeling (state of attunement). Now since the will possesses that manifold character of willing out beyond itself, as we have suggested, and since all this becomes manifest as a whole, we can conclude that a multiplicity of feelings haunts our willing. Thus in Beyond Good and Evil (VII, 28-29) Nietzsche says:
. . . in every willing there is in the first place a multiplicity of feelings, namely, the feeling of the state away from which, the feeling of the state toward which, the feeling of this very "away" and "toward"; then there is also an accompanying feeling in the musculature that comes into play by force of habit as soon as we "will," even if we do not set "arms and legs" in motion.
That Nietzsche designates will now as affect, now as passion, now as feeling should suggest that he sees something more unified, more
Will as Affect, Passion, and Feeling 53
original, and even 1pore fertile behind that single rude word, "will. " If he calls will an affect, it is not a mere equation, but a designation of will with regard to what distinguishes the affect as such. The same is true for the concepts of passion and feeling. W e have to go even further and reverse the state of affairs. What we otherwise recognize as affect, passion, and feeling, Nietzsche recognizes in its essential roots as will to power. Thus he grasps "joy" (normally an affect) as a "feeling- stronger," as a feeling of being out beyond oneself and of being capable of being so (WM, 917):
To feel stronger-or, to express it differently, joy-always presupposes comparison (but not necessarily with others; rather, with oneself, within a state of growth, and without first knowing to what extent one is com- paring-). .
This is a reference to that "consciousness of difference" which is not knowledge in the sense of mere representation and cognition.
Joy does not simply presuppose an unwitting comparison. It is rather something that brings us to ourselves, not by way of knowledge but by way of feeling, by way of an away-beyond-us. Comparison is not pre- supposed. Rather, the disparity implied in being out beyond ourselves is first opened up and given form by joy.
If we examine all this from the outside rather than the inside, if we judge it by the standards of customary theories of knowledge and consciousness, whether idealistic or realistic, we proceed to declare that Nietzsche's concept of will is an emotional one, conceived in terms of our emotional lives, our feelings, and that it is therefore ultimately a biological notion. All well and good. But such explanations pigeonhole Nietzsche in that representational docket which he would like to es- cape. That is also true of the interpretation that tries to distinguish Nietzsche's "emotional" concept of will from the "idealistic" one.
9. The Idealistic Interpretation of Nietzsche's Doctrine of Will
We have now arrived at the second of the questions posed above [p. 43], which asks: if we believe we have found that the idealistic concept of will has nothing to do with Nietzsche's, how are we understanding
"Idealism"?
Generally we can call "idealistic" that mode of observation which
looks to ideas. Here "idea" means as much as representation. To rep- resent means to envisage in the widest sense: idein. To what extent can an elucidation of the essence of will see in will a trait of representa- tion?
Willing is a kind of desiring and striving. The Greeks call it orexis. In the Middle Ages and in modern times it is called appetitus and inclinatio. Hunger, for example, is sheer compulsion and striving, a compulsion toward food for the sake of nourishment. In the case of animals the compulsion itself as such does not have explicitly in view what it is being compelled toward; animals do not represent food as such and do not strive for it as nourishment. Such striving does not know what it will have, since it does not will at all; yet it goes after what is striven for, though never going after it as such. But will, as striving, is not blind compulsion. What is desired and striven for is represented as such along with the compulsion; it too is taken up into view and co-apprehended.
To bring something forward and to contemplate it is called in Greek noein. What is striven for, orekton, in the willing is at the same time
The Idealistic Interpretation 55
something represented, noeton. But that does not at all mean that willing is actually representation of such a kind that a striving tags along after what is represented. The reverse is the case. We shall offer as unequivocal proof a passage from Aristotle's treatise Peri psyches, "On the Soul. "
When we translate the Greek psyche as "soul" we dare not think of it in the sense of "life experiences," nor may we think of what we know in the consciousness of our ego cogito, nor finally may we think of the "unconscious. " For Aristotle psyche means the principle of living creatures as such, whatever it is that makes living things to be alive, what pervades their very essence. The treatise just mentioned discusses the essence of life and the hierarchy of living creatures.
The treatise contains no psychology, and no biology either. It is a metaphysics of living creatures, among which man too belongs. What lives m9ves itself by itself. Movement here means not only change of place but every mode of behavior and self-alteration. Man is the highest form of living creature. The basic type of self-movement for him is action, praxis. So the question arises: what is the determining ground, the arche, of action, i. e. , of proceeding in a considered fashion and establishing something? What is determinative here, the represented as such or what is sought? Is the representing-striving determined by representation or desire? To ask it another way: is will a representing, and is it therefore determined by ideas, or not? If what is taught is that will is in essence a representing, then such a doctrine of will is "idealis- tic. "
What does Aristotle teach concerning will? The tenth chapter of Book III deals with orexis, desiring. Here Aristotle says (433a 15 ff. ):
Kai he orexis heneka tou pasa · hou gar he orexis, haute arche tou praktikou nou · to d' eschaton arche tes praxeos. Hoste eulogos dyo tauta phainetai t~ kinounta, orexis kai dianoia praktike · to orekton gar kinei, kai dia touto he dianoia kinei, hoti arche autes esti to orekton.
And every desire has that on account of which it is desire [what the desire aims at]; it is that on the basis of which the considering intellect as such
56 THE WILL TO POWER AS ART
determines itself; the terminal point is that by which the action is deter- mined. Therefore these two, desiring and the considering intellect, show themselves with good grounds to be what moves; for what is desired in the desiring moves, and the intellect, representation, moves only because it represents to itself what is desired in the desiring.
Aristotle's conception of the will becomes definitive for all Western thought; it is still today the common conception. In the Middle Ages voluntas is interpreted as appetitus intellectualis, i. e. , orexis dianoetike, the desiring which is proper to intellectual representation. For Leibniz agere, doing, is perceptio and appetitus in one; perceptio is idea, representation. For Kant the will is that faculty of desire which works according to concepts, which is to say, in such a way that what is willed, as something represented in general, is itself determinative of action. Although representation sets in relief the will as a faculty of desire over against sheer blind striving, it does not serve as the proper moving and willing force in will. Only a conception of will that would ascribe to representation or the idea such an unjustified preeminence could be classified as idealistic in the strict sense. Indeed we do find such concep- tions. In the Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas inclines toward such an interpretation of the will, although even with him the question is not decided so unequivocally. Viewed as a whole, the great thinkers have never assigned to representation the highest rank in their conceptions of the will.
If by an "idealistic interpretation of the will" we understand every conception that in any way emphasizes representation, thought, knowl- edge, and concept as essential components of will, then Aristotle's interpretation of will is undoubtedly idealistic. So in the same way are those of Leibniz and Kant; but then so too is that of Nietzsche. Proof for this assertion is quite easy to come by: we need only read a bit farther into that passage where Nietzsche says that will consists of a multiplicity of feelings.
Therefore, just as we must acknowledge feeling, and indeed many types of feelings, as ingredients of the will, so must we also in the second place
The Idealistic Interpretation 57
acknowledge thinking: in every act of the will there is a commandeering thought; - a n d one should not think that he can sever this thought from the "willing," as though will would be what were left over! (VII, 29).
With our attempt, as with all conceptual definitions elaborated in a similar fashion which claim to grasp the Being of beings, we must keep two things in mind. First, a precise conceptual definition that ticks off the various characteristics of what is to be defined remains vacuous and false, so long as we do not really come to know in an intimate way what is being talked about and bring it before our mind's eye. Second, in order to grasp the Nietzschean concept of will, the following is espe- cially important: if according to Nietzsche will as will to power is the basic character of all beings, then in defining the essence of will we cannot appeal to a particular being or special mode of Being which would serve to explain the essence of will.
Hence, will as the pervasive character of all beings does not yield any immediate sort of directive from which its concept, as a concept of Being, might be derived. Of course, Nietzsche never explicated this state of affairs systematically and with attention to principles; but he knew quite clearly that here he was pursuing an unusual question.
Two examples may illustrate what is involved. According to the usual view, will is taken to be a faculty of the soul. What will is may be determined from the essence of the psyche. The latter is dealt with in
38 THE WILL TO POWER AS ART
psychology. The psyche is a particular being, distinct from body and mind. Now, if in Nietzsche's view will determines the Being of every sort of being, then it does not pertain to the psyche; rather, the psyche somehow pertains to the will. But body and mind too are will, inasmuch as such things "are. " Furthermore, if will is taken to be a faculty, then it is viewed as something that can do something, is in a position to do it, possessing the requisite power and might. Whatever is intrinsically power, and for Nietzsche that is what will is, thus cannot be further characterized by defining it as a faculty or power. For the essence of a faculty is grounded in the essence of will as power.
A second example. Will is taken to be a kind of cause. We say that a man does something not so much by means of his intellect as by sheer willpower. Will brings something about, effects some consequence. But to be a cause is a particular mode of Being; Being as such cannot be grasped by means of causation. Will is not an effecting. What we usually take to be a thing that effects something else, the power of causation, is itself grounded in will (cf. VIII, 80).
If will to power characterizes Being itself, there is nothing else that will can be defined as. Will is will-but that formally correct definition does not say anything. It is in fact quite deceptive if we take it to mean that things are as simple as the simple phrase suggests.
For that reason Nietzsche can declare, "Today we know that it [i. e. , the will] is merely a word" (Tw1light of the Idols, 1888; VIII, 80). Corresponding to this is an earlier assertion from the period of Zara- thustra: "I laugh at your free will and your unfree one too: what you call will is to me an illusion; there is no will" (XII, 267). It is remarkable that the thinker for whom the basic character of all beings is will should say such a thing: "There is no will. " But Nietzsche means that there is no such will as the one previously known and designated as "a faculty of the soul" and as "striving in general. "
Whatever the case, Nietzsche must constantly repeat what will is. He says, for example, that will is an "affect," a "passion," a "feeling," and a "command. " But do not such characterizations of will as "affect," "passion," and so on speak within the domain of the psyche and of states of the soul? Are not affect, passion, feeling, and command each
Will as Will to Power 39
something different? Must not whatever is introduced in order to illuminate the essence of will itself be adequately clear at the outset? But what is more obscure than the essence of affect and passion, and the distinction between the two? How can will be all those things simultaneously? We can hardly surmount these questions and doubts concerning Nietzsche's interpretation of the essence of will. And yet, perhaps, they do not touch on the decisive issue. Nietzsche himself emphasizes, "Above all else, willing seems to me something complicat- ed, something that is a unity only as a word; and precisely in this one word a popular prejudice lurks which has prevailed over the always meager caution of philosophers" (Beyond Good and Evil; VII, 28). Nietzsche here speaks primarily against Schopenhauer, in whose opin- ion will is the simplest and best-known thing in the world.
But because for Nietzsche will as will to power designates the essence of Being, it remains forever the actual object of his search, the thing to be determined. What matters-once such an essence is discovered- is to locate it thoroughly, so that it can never be lost again. Whether Nietzsche's procedure is the sole possible one, whether the singularity of the inquiry concerning Being became sufficiently clear to him at all, and whether he thought through in a fundamental manner the ways that are necessary and possible in this regard, we leave open for now. This much is certain: for Nietzsche there was at the time no other alternative-given the ambiguity of the concepts of will and the multi- plicity of prevailing conceptual definitions-than to clarify what he meant with the help of what was familiar and to reject what he did not mean. (Cf. the general observation concerning philosophical concepts in Beyond Good and Evil; VII, 31 ff. )
If we try to grasp willing by that peculiarity which, as it were, first forces itself upon us, we might say that willing is a heading toward . . . , a going after . . . ; willing is a kind of behavior directed toward some- thing. But when we look at something immediately at hand, or observ- antly follow the course of some process, we behave in a way that can be described in the same terms: we are directed toward the thing by way of representation-where willing plays no role. In the mere obser- vation of things we do not want to do anything "with" them and do
40
THE WILL TO POWER AS ART
not expect anything "from" them; we let things be just as they are. To be directed toward something is not yet a willing, and yet such directed- ness is implied in willing. . . .
But we can also "want" [i. e. , will-to-have] some thing, e. g. , a book or a motorbike. A boy "wills" to have a thing, that is, he would like to have it. This "would like to have" is no mere representation, but a kind of striving after something, and has the special characteristic of wishing. But to wish is not yet to will. Whoever only wishes, in the strict sense of the word, does not will; rather, he hopes that his wish will come true without his having to do anything about it. Is willing then a wishing to which we add our own initiative? No, willing is not wishing at all. It is the submission of ourselves to our own command, and the resoluteness of such self-command, which already implies our carrying out the command. But with this account of willing we have suddenly introduced a whole series of definitions that were not given in what we first discussed, namely, directing oneself toward something.
Yet it seems as though the essence of will would be grasped most purely if this "directing oneself toward," as pure willing, were canceled abruptly in favor of a directing oneself toward something in the sense of sheer desire, wishing, striving, or mere representing. Will would thus be posited as the pure relation of a simple heading toward or going after something. But this approach is misconceived. Nietzsche is con- vinced that Schopenhauer's fundamental error is his belief that there is such a thing as pure willing, a willing that becomes purer as what is willed is left more and more indeterminate and the one who wills left more and more decisively out of the picture. Much to the contrary, it is proper to the essence of willing that what is willed and the one who wills be brought into the willing, although not in the extrinsic sense in which we can say that to every striving belongs something that strives and something that is striven for.
The decisive question is this: how, and on what grounds, do the willed and the one who wills belong to the willing to will? Answer: on the grounds of willing and by means of willing. Willing wills the one who wills, as such a one; and willing posits the willed as such. Willing is resoluteness toward oneself, but as the one who wills what is posited
Will as Will to Power 41
in the willing as willed. In each case will itself furnishes thoroughgoing determinateness to its willing. Someone who does not know what he wants does not want anything and cannot will at all. There is no willing-in-general. "For the will, as an affect of command, is the deci- sive distinguishing mark of self-mastery and force" (The Gay Science, Bk. V, 1886; V, 282). In contrast, striving can be indeterminate, both with respect to what is actually striven for and in relation to the very one who strives. In striving and in compulsion we are caught up in movement toward something without knowing what is at stake. In mere striving after something we are not properly brought before ourselves. For that reason it is not possible for us to strive beyond ourselves; rather, we merely strive, and get wholly absorbed in such striving. By way of contrast, will, as resolute openness to oneself, is always a willing out beyond oneself. If Nietzsche more than once emphasizes the character of will as command, he does not mean to provide a prescription or set of directions for the execution of an act; nor does he mean to characterize an act of will in the sense of resolve. Rather, he means resoluteness-that by which willing can come to grips with what is willed and the one who wills; he means coming to grips as a founded and abiding decisiveness. Only he can truly com- mand-and commanding has nothing to do with mere ordering about -who is always ready and able to place himself under command. By means of such readiness he has placed himself within the scope of the command as first to obey, the paragon of obedience. In such decisive-
ness of willing, which reaches out beyond itself, lies mastery over . . . , having power over what is revealed in the willing and in what is held fast in the grips of resoluteness.
Willing itself is mastery over . . . , which reaches out beyond itself; will is intrinsically power. And power is willing that is constant in itself. Will is power; power is will. Does the expression "will to power" then have no meaning? Indeed it has none, when we think of will in the sense of Nietzsche's conception. But Nietzsche employs this expression any- how, in express rejection of the usual understanding of will, and espe- cially in order to emphasize his resistance to the Schopenhauerian notion.
42 THE WILL TO POWER AS ART
Nietzsche's expression "will to power" means to suggest that will as we usually understand it is actually and only will to power. But a possible misunderstanding lurks even in this explanation. The ex- pression "will to power" does not mean that, in accord with the usual view, will is a kind of desiring that has power as its goal rather than happiness and pleasure. True, in many passages Nietzsche speaks in that fashion, in order to make himself provisionally understood; but when he makes will's goal power instead of happiness, pleasure, or the unhinging of the will, he changes not only the goal of will but the essential definition of will itself. In the strict sense of the Nietzschean conception of will, power can never be pre-established as will's goal, as though power were something that could first be posited outside the will. Because will is resolute openness toward itself, as mastery out beyond itself, because will is a willing beyond itself, it is the strength that is able to bring itself to power.
The expression "to power" therefore never means some sort of appendage to will. Rather, it comprises an elucidation of the essence of will itself. Only when we have clarified Nietzsche's concept of will in these respects can we understand those designations Nietzsche often chooses in order to exhibit the complicated nature of what that simple word "will" says to him. He calls will-therefore will to power-an "affect. " He even says, "My theory would be that will to power is the primitive form of affect, that all other affects are but its configura- tions" (WM1 688). * Nietzsche calls will a "passion" as well, or a "feeling. " If we understand such descriptions from the point of view of our common psychology-something that always seems to happen-then we might easily be tempted to say that Nietzsche abandons the essence of will to the "emotional," or that he rescues it from the rationalistic misinterpretations perpetrated by Idealism.
Here we must ask two things. First, what does Nietzsche mean when
*Walter Kaufmann notes that the phrase "My theory would be" stems from the editors, not from Nietzsche himself. See his edition of The Will to Power, p. 366, n. 73.
Will as Will to Power 43
he emphasizes the character of will as affect, passion, and feeling? Second, when we believe we have found that the idealistic conception of will has nothing to do with Nietzsche's, how are we understanding "Idealism"?
8. Will as Affect, Passion, and Feeling
In the passage last cited Nietzsche says that all affects are "configura- tions" of will to power. If we ask what will to power is, Nietzsche answers that it is the original affect. Affects are forms of will; will is affect. That is called a circular definition. Common sense feels itself superior when it discovers such "errors of logic" even in a philosopher. Affect is will and will is affect. Now, we already know-at least roughly -that the question of will to power involves the question concerning the Being of beings; Being itself can no longer be determined by any given beings, since it is what determines them. Therefore, if any desig- nation of Being is brought forward at all, and if it is supposed to say the same as Being, yet not in a merely empty way, then the determina- tion brought to bear must of necessity be drawn from beings-and the circle is complete. Nevertheless, the matter is not all that simple. In the case at hand Nietzsche says with good grounds that will to power is the original form of affect; he does not say that it is simply one affect, although we often find such turns of phrase in his hastily composed argumentative presentations.
To what extent is will to power the original form of affect, i. e. , that which constitutes the Being of an affect in general? What is an affect? To this, Nietzsche provides no clear and precise answer. Just as little does he answer the questions as to what a passion or a feeling may be. The answer ("configurations" of will power) does not immediately conduct us any farther. Rather, it assigns us the task of divining what it is in what we know as affect, passion, and feeling that signifies the essence of will to power. In that way we could derive particular char- acteristics which are suitable for making clearer and richer the previous
Wl11 as Affect, Passion, and Feeling 45
attempts to define the essential concept of will. This work we must do ourselves. Yet the questions (what are affect, passion, and feeling? ) remain unanswered. Nietzsche himself often equates the three; he follows the usual ways of representing them, ways still accepted today. With these three words, each an arbitrary substitute for the others, we depict the so-called irrational side of psychic life. For customary repre- sentational thought that may suffice, but not for trite knowledge, and certainly not if our task is to determine by such knowledge the Being of beings. Nor is it enough to revamp the current "psychological" explanations of affects, passions, and feelings. We must above all see that here it is not a matter for psychology, nor even for a psychology undergirded by physiology and biology. It is a matter of the basic modes that constitute Dasein, a matter of the ways man confronts the Da, the openness and concealment of beings, in which he stands.
We cannot deny that the things physiology grapples with-particu- lar states of the body, changes in internal secretions, muscle flexions, occurrences in the nervous system-are also proper to affects, passions, and feelings. But we have to ask whether all these bodily states and the body itself are grasped in a metaphysically adequate way, so that one may without further ado borrow material from physiology and biology, as Nietzsche, to his own detriment, so often did. The one fundamental point to realize here is that no result of any science can ever be applied immediately to philosophy.
How are we to conceive of the essence of affect, passion, and feeling, indeed in such a way that in each case it will be fruitful for an interpre- tation of the essence of will in Nietzsche's sense? Here we can conduct our examination only as far as illumination of Nietzsche's characteriza- tion of will to power requires.
Anger, for instance, is an affect. In contrast, by "hate" we mean something quite different. Hate is not simply another affect, it is not an affect at all. It is a passion. But we call both of them "feelings. " W e speak of the feeling of hatred and of an angry feeling. W e cannot plan or decide to be angry. Anger comes over us, seizes us, "affects" us. Such a seizure is sudden and turbulent. Our being is moved by a kind of excitement, something stirs us up, lifts us beyond ourselves, but in
46 THE WILL TO POWER AS ART
such a way that, seized by our excitement, we are no longer masters of ourselves. We say, "He acted on impulse," that is to say, under the influence of an affect. Popular speech proves to be keensighted when it says of someone w'ho is stirred up and acts in an excited manner, "He isn't altogether himself. " When we are seized by excitement, our being "altogether there" vanishes; it is transformed into a kind of "falling apart. " We say, "He's beside himself with joy. "
Nietzsche is obviously thinking of that essential moment in the affect when he tries to characterize will in its terms. Such being lifted beyond ourselves in anger, the seizure of our whole being, so that we are not our own master, such a "not" does not at all mean to deny that in anger we are carried beyond ourselves; such "not being master" in the affect, in anger, distinguishes the affect from mastery in the sense of will, for in the affect our being master of ourselves is transformed into a manner of being beyond ourselves where something is lost. Whatever is contrary we call "counter. " We call anger a counter-will
that subsists beyond us, in such a way that in anger we do not remain together with ourselves as we do when willing, but, as it were, lose ourselves. Here will is a counter-will. Nietzsche turns the state of affairs around: the formal essence of the affect is will, but now will is visualized merely as a state of excitement, of being beyond oneself.
Because Nietzsche says that to will is to will out beyond oneself, he can say that, in view of such being beyond oneself in the affect, will to power is the original form of affect. Yet he clearly wants to add the other moment of the affect for the sake of the essential characterization of will, that moment of seizure in the affect by which something comes over us. That too, and precisely that, in a manifold and Protean sense of course, is proper to the will. That we can be beyond or outside ourselves in this or that way, and that we are in fact constantly so, is possible only because will itself-seen in relation to the essence of man-is seizure pure and simple.
Will itself cannot be willed. We can never resolve to have a will, in the sense that we would arrogate to ourselves a will; for such resolute- ness is itself a willing. When we say, "He wants to have his will carried out in this or that matter," it means as much as, he really wants to stand
Will as Affect, Passion, and Feeling 47
firm in his willing, to get hold of himself in his entire being, to be master over his being. But that very possibility indicates that we are always within the scope of will, even when we are unwilling. That genuine willing which surges forward in resoluteness, that "yes," is what instigates the seizure of our entire being, of the very essence within us.
Nietzsche designates will as passion just as often as affect. W e should not automatically conclude that he identifies affect and passion, even if he does not arrive at an explicit and comprehensive clarification of the essential distinction and connection between these two.
We may surmise that Nietzsche knows the difference between affect and pas- sion. Around the year 1882 he says regarding his times, "Our age is an agitated one, and precisely for that reason, not an age of passion; it heats itself up continuously, because it feels that it is not warm- basically it is freezing. I do not believe in the greatness of all these 'great events' of which you speak" (XII, 343). "The age of the greatest events will, in spite of all that, be the age of the most meager effects if men are made of rubber and are all too elastic. " "In our time it is merely by means of an echo that events acquire their 'greatness'-the echo of the newspapers" (XII, 344).
Usually Nietzsche employs the word "passion" interchangeably with "affect. " But if anger and hate, for example, or joy and love, not only are different as one affect is from another, but are distinct as affects and passions respectively, then here too we need a more exact defini- tion. Hate too cannot be produced by a decision; it too seems to overtake us-in a way similar to that when we are seized by anger. Nevertheless, the manner in which it comes over us is essentially differ- ent. Hate can explode suddenly in an action or exclamation, but only because it has already overtaken us, only because it has been growing within us for a long time, and, as we say, has been nurtured in us. But something can be nurtured only if it is already there and is alive. In contrast, we do not say and never believe that anger is nurtured. Because hate lurks much more deeply in the origins of our being it has a cohesive power; like love, hate brings an original cohesion and perdur- ance to our essential being. But anger, which seizes us, can also release
48 THE WILL TO POWER AS ART
us again-it "blows over," as we say. Hate does not "blow over. " Once it germinates it grows and solidifies, eating its way inward and consum- ing our very being. But the permanent cohesion that comes to human existence through hate does not close it off and blind it. Rather, it grants vision and premeditation. The angry man loses the power of reflection. He who hates intensifies reflection and rumination to the point of "hardboiled" malice. Hate is never blind; it is perspicuous. Only anger is blind. Love is never blind: it is perspicuous. Only infatua- tion is blind, fickle, and susceptible-an affect, not a passion. To passion belongs a reaching out and opening up of oneself. Such reach- ing out occurs even in hate, since the hated one is pursued everywhere relentlessly. But such reaching out in passion does not simply lift us up and away beyond ourselves. It gathers our essential being to its proper ground, it exposes our ground for the first time in so gathering, so that the passion is that through which and in which we take hold of our- selves and achieve lucid mastery over the beings around us and within us.
Passion understood in this way casts light on what Nietzsche calls will to power. Will as mastery of oneself is never encapsulation of the ego from its surroundings. Will is, in our terms, resolute openness, in which he who wills stations himself abroad among beings in order to keep them firmly within his field of action. * Now the characteristic traits are not seizure and agitation, but the lucid grip which simultaneously gathers that passionate being.
Affect: the seizure that blindly agitates us. Passion: the lucidly gath- ering grip on beings. We talk and understand only extrinsically when we say that anger flares and then dissipates, lasting but a short time,
*Perhaps a word is needed concerning the traditional translation of Entschlossenheit, "resoluteness. " Heidegger now hyphenates the German word to emphasize that Ent- schlossenheit, far from being a sealing-off or closing-up of the will in decision, means unclosedness, hence a "resolute openness. " The word thus retains its essential ties to Erschlossenheit, the disclosure of Being in Dasein. On Entschlossenheit see Martin Heidegger, Sein undZeit, 12th ed. (Tiibingen: M. Niemeyer, 1972), esp. p. 297; "Yom Wesen der Wahrheit," in Wegmarken (Frankfurt/Main: V. Klostermann, 1967), p. 90; and Celassenheit (Pfullingen: C. Neske, 1959), p. 59. Cf. Martin Heidegger: Basic
Writings, ed. D. F. Krell (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), p. 133 n.
Will as Affect, Passion, and Feeling 49
while hate lasts longer. No, hate and love not only last longer, they bring perdurance and permanence for the first time to our existence. An affect, in contrast, cannot do that. Because passion restores our essential being, because it loosens and liberates in its very grounds, and because passion at the same time reaches out into the expanse of beings, for these reasons passion-and we mean great passion-possesses ex- travagance and resourcefulness, not only the ability but the necessity to submit, without bothering about what its extravagance entails. It displays that self-composed superiority characteristic of great will.
Passion has nothing to do with sheer desire. It is not a matter of the nerves, of ebullition and dissipation. All of that, no matter how excited its gestures, Nietzsche reckons as attrition of the will. Will is what it is only as willing out beyond itself, willing more. Great will shares with great passion that serenity of unhurried animation that is slow to answer and react, not out of insecurity and ponderousness, but out of the broadly expansive security and inner buoyancy of what is superior.
Instead of "affect" and "passion" we also say "feeling," if not "sensa- tion. " Or, where affects and passions are distinguished, the two are conjoined in the genus "feeling. " Today if we apply the term "feeling" to a passion, it is understood as a kind of reduction. For we believe that a passion is not a mere feeling. Nevertheless, the simple fact that we refrain from calling passions feelings does not prove that we possess a more highly developed concept of the essence of passion; it may only be a sign that we have employed too paltry a concept of the essence of feeling. So it is in fact. But it may seem that here we are merely inquiring into word meanings and their appropriate applications. Yet the matter that is here in question is, first, whether what we have now indicated as being the essence of affect and of passion exhibits an original, essential connection between these two, and second, whether this original connection can truly be understood if only we grasp the essence of what we call "feeling. "
Nietzsche himself does not shy from conceiving willing simply as feeling: "Willing: a compelling feeling, quite pleasant! It is the epi- phenomenon of all discharge ofenergy" (XIII, 159). To will-a feeling of pleasure? "Pleasure is only a symptom of the feeling of power
50 THE WILL TO POWER AS ART
attained, a consciousness of difference ( - i t [a living creature] does not strive for pleasure: rather, pleasure enters on the scene when it achieves what it is striving for: pleasure accompanies, it does not motivate-)" (WM, 688). Is will accordingly but an "epiphenomenon" of energy discharge, an accompanying feeling of pleasure? How does that jibe with what was said about the essence of will in general, and in particular with respect to the comparison with affect and passion? There will appeared as what properly sustains and dominates, being synonymous with mastery itself. Is it now to be reduced to a feeling of pleasure that merely accompanies something else?
From such passages we see clearly how unconcerned Nietzsche is about a unified, solidly grounded presentation of his teaching. We realize that he is only getting under way, that he is resolutely open. His task is not a matter of indifference to him; neither is it of only supple- mental interest. He knows, as only a creator can, that what from the outside looks like a summary presentation is actually the configuration of the real issue, where things collide against one another in such a way that they expose their proper essence. Nevertheless, Nietzsche remains under way, and the immediate casting of what he wants to say always forces itself upon him. In such a position he speaks directly the lan- guage of his times and of the contemporary "science. " When he does so he does not shy from conscious exaggeration and one-sided formula- tions of his thoughts, believing that in this way he can most clearly set in relief what in his vision and in his inquiry is different from the run-of-the-mill. Yet when he proceeds in such a manner he is always able to keep his eye on the whole; he can make do, as it were, with one-sidedness. The results are fatal when others, his readers, latch onto such statements in a superficial way and, depending on what Nietzsche
just then is offering them, either declare it his sole opinion on the matter or, on the grounds of any given particular utterances, all too facilely refute him.
If it is true that will to power constitutes the basic character of all beings, and if Nietzsche now defines will as an accompanying feeling of pleasure, these two conceptions of will are not automatically compat- ible. Nor will one ascribe to Nietzsche the view that Being simply
Will as Affect, Passion, and Feeling 51
accompanies something else as a feeling of pleasure-that "something else" being yet another entity whose Being would have to be deter- mined. The only way out is to assume that the definition of will as an accompanying feeling of pleasure, which is at first so foreign to what was presented earlier, is neither the essential definition of will nor one such definition among others. It is much more the case that it refers to something altogether proper to the full essence of will. But if this is the case, and if in our earlier remarks we have sketched an outline of the essential structure of will, then the definition just mentioned must somehow fit into the general pattern we have presented.
"Willing: a compelling feeling, quite pleasant! " A feeling is the way we find ourselves in relationship to beings, and thereby at the same time to ourselves. It is the way we find ourselves particularly attuned to beings which we are not and to the being we ourselves are. In feeling, a state opens up, and stays open, in which we stand related to things, to ourselves, and to the people around us, always simultaneously. Feel- ing is the very state, open to itself, in which our Dasein hovers. Man is not a rational creature who also wills, and in addition to thinking and willing is equipped with feelings, whether these make him admirable or despicable; rather, the state of feeling is original, although in such a way that thinking and willing belong together with it. Now the only
important matter that remains for us to see is that feeling has the character of opening up and keeping open, and therefore also, depend- ing on the kind of feeling it is, the character of closing off.
But if will is willing out beyond itself, the "out beyond" does not imply that will simply wanders away from itself; rather, will gathers itself together in willing. That the one who wills, wills himself into his will, means that such willing itself, and in unity with it he who wills and what is willed, become manifest in the willing. In the essence of will, in resolute openness, will discloses itself to itself, not merely by means of some further act appended to it, some sort of observation of the willing process and reflection on it; on the contrary, it is will itself that has the character of opening up and keeping open. No self-obser- vation or self-analysis which we might undertake, no matter how pene- trating, brings to light our self, and how it is with our self. In contrast,
52 THE WILL TO POWER AS ART
in willing and, correspondingly, in not willing, we bring ourselves to light; it is a light kindled only by willing. Willing always brings the self to itself; it thereby finds itself out beyond itself. It maintains itself within the thrust away from one thing toward something else. Will therefore has the character of feeling, of keeping open our very state of being, a state that in the case of will-being out beyond itself-is a pulsion. Will can thus be grasped as a "compelling feeling. " It is not only a feeling of something that prods us, but is itself a prodding, indeed of a sort that is "quite pleasant. " What opens up in the will- willing itself as resolute openness-is agreeable to the one for whom it is so opened, the one who wills. In willing we come toward ourselves, as the ones we properly are. Only in will do we capture ourselves in our most proper essential being. He who wills is, as such, one who wills out beyond himself; in willing we know ourselves as out beyond ourselves; we sense a mastery over . . . , somehow achieved; a thrill of pleasure announces to us the power attained, a power that enhances itself. For that reason Nietzsche speaks of a "consciousness of difference. "
If feeling and will are grasped here as "consciousness" or "knowl- edge," it is to exhibit most clearly that moment of the opening up of something in will itself. But such opening is not an observing; it is feeling. This suggests that willing is itself a kind of state, that it is open in and to itself. Willing is feeling (state of attunement). Now since the will possesses that manifold character of willing out beyond itself, as we have suggested, and since all this becomes manifest as a whole, we can conclude that a multiplicity of feelings haunts our willing. Thus in Beyond Good and Evil (VII, 28-29) Nietzsche says:
. . . in every willing there is in the first place a multiplicity of feelings, namely, the feeling of the state away from which, the feeling of the state toward which, the feeling of this very "away" and "toward"; then there is also an accompanying feeling in the musculature that comes into play by force of habit as soon as we "will," even if we do not set "arms and legs" in motion.
That Nietzsche designates will now as affect, now as passion, now as feeling should suggest that he sees something more unified, more
Will as Affect, Passion, and Feeling 53
original, and even 1pore fertile behind that single rude word, "will. " If he calls will an affect, it is not a mere equation, but a designation of will with regard to what distinguishes the affect as such. The same is true for the concepts of passion and feeling. W e have to go even further and reverse the state of affairs. What we otherwise recognize as affect, passion, and feeling, Nietzsche recognizes in its essential roots as will to power. Thus he grasps "joy" (normally an affect) as a "feeling- stronger," as a feeling of being out beyond oneself and of being capable of being so (WM, 917):
To feel stronger-or, to express it differently, joy-always presupposes comparison (but not necessarily with others; rather, with oneself, within a state of growth, and without first knowing to what extent one is com- paring-). .
This is a reference to that "consciousness of difference" which is not knowledge in the sense of mere representation and cognition.
Joy does not simply presuppose an unwitting comparison. It is rather something that brings us to ourselves, not by way of knowledge but by way of feeling, by way of an away-beyond-us. Comparison is not pre- supposed. Rather, the disparity implied in being out beyond ourselves is first opened up and given form by joy.
If we examine all this from the outside rather than the inside, if we judge it by the standards of customary theories of knowledge and consciousness, whether idealistic or realistic, we proceed to declare that Nietzsche's concept of will is an emotional one, conceived in terms of our emotional lives, our feelings, and that it is therefore ultimately a biological notion. All well and good. But such explanations pigeonhole Nietzsche in that representational docket which he would like to es- cape. That is also true of the interpretation that tries to distinguish Nietzsche's "emotional" concept of will from the "idealistic" one.
9. The Idealistic Interpretation of Nietzsche's Doctrine of Will
We have now arrived at the second of the questions posed above [p. 43], which asks: if we believe we have found that the idealistic concept of will has nothing to do with Nietzsche's, how are we understanding
"Idealism"?
Generally we can call "idealistic" that mode of observation which
looks to ideas. Here "idea" means as much as representation. To rep- resent means to envisage in the widest sense: idein. To what extent can an elucidation of the essence of will see in will a trait of representa- tion?
Willing is a kind of desiring and striving. The Greeks call it orexis. In the Middle Ages and in modern times it is called appetitus and inclinatio. Hunger, for example, is sheer compulsion and striving, a compulsion toward food for the sake of nourishment. In the case of animals the compulsion itself as such does not have explicitly in view what it is being compelled toward; animals do not represent food as such and do not strive for it as nourishment. Such striving does not know what it will have, since it does not will at all; yet it goes after what is striven for, though never going after it as such. But will, as striving, is not blind compulsion. What is desired and striven for is represented as such along with the compulsion; it too is taken up into view and co-apprehended.
To bring something forward and to contemplate it is called in Greek noein. What is striven for, orekton, in the willing is at the same time
The Idealistic Interpretation 55
something represented, noeton. But that does not at all mean that willing is actually representation of such a kind that a striving tags along after what is represented. The reverse is the case. We shall offer as unequivocal proof a passage from Aristotle's treatise Peri psyches, "On the Soul. "
When we translate the Greek psyche as "soul" we dare not think of it in the sense of "life experiences," nor may we think of what we know in the consciousness of our ego cogito, nor finally may we think of the "unconscious. " For Aristotle psyche means the principle of living creatures as such, whatever it is that makes living things to be alive, what pervades their very essence. The treatise just mentioned discusses the essence of life and the hierarchy of living creatures.
The treatise contains no psychology, and no biology either. It is a metaphysics of living creatures, among which man too belongs. What lives m9ves itself by itself. Movement here means not only change of place but every mode of behavior and self-alteration. Man is the highest form of living creature. The basic type of self-movement for him is action, praxis. So the question arises: what is the determining ground, the arche, of action, i. e. , of proceeding in a considered fashion and establishing something? What is determinative here, the represented as such or what is sought? Is the representing-striving determined by representation or desire? To ask it another way: is will a representing, and is it therefore determined by ideas, or not? If what is taught is that will is in essence a representing, then such a doctrine of will is "idealis- tic. "
What does Aristotle teach concerning will? The tenth chapter of Book III deals with orexis, desiring. Here Aristotle says (433a 15 ff. ):
Kai he orexis heneka tou pasa · hou gar he orexis, haute arche tou praktikou nou · to d' eschaton arche tes praxeos. Hoste eulogos dyo tauta phainetai t~ kinounta, orexis kai dianoia praktike · to orekton gar kinei, kai dia touto he dianoia kinei, hoti arche autes esti to orekton.
And every desire has that on account of which it is desire [what the desire aims at]; it is that on the basis of which the considering intellect as such
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determines itself; the terminal point is that by which the action is deter- mined. Therefore these two, desiring and the considering intellect, show themselves with good grounds to be what moves; for what is desired in the desiring moves, and the intellect, representation, moves only because it represents to itself what is desired in the desiring.
Aristotle's conception of the will becomes definitive for all Western thought; it is still today the common conception. In the Middle Ages voluntas is interpreted as appetitus intellectualis, i. e. , orexis dianoetike, the desiring which is proper to intellectual representation. For Leibniz agere, doing, is perceptio and appetitus in one; perceptio is idea, representation. For Kant the will is that faculty of desire which works according to concepts, which is to say, in such a way that what is willed, as something represented in general, is itself determinative of action. Although representation sets in relief the will as a faculty of desire over against sheer blind striving, it does not serve as the proper moving and willing force in will. Only a conception of will that would ascribe to representation or the idea such an unjustified preeminence could be classified as idealistic in the strict sense. Indeed we do find such concep- tions. In the Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas inclines toward such an interpretation of the will, although even with him the question is not decided so unequivocally. Viewed as a whole, the great thinkers have never assigned to representation the highest rank in their conceptions of the will.
If by an "idealistic interpretation of the will" we understand every conception that in any way emphasizes representation, thought, knowl- edge, and concept as essential components of will, then Aristotle's interpretation of will is undoubtedly idealistic. So in the same way are those of Leibniz and Kant; but then so too is that of Nietzsche. Proof for this assertion is quite easy to come by: we need only read a bit farther into that passage where Nietzsche says that will consists of a multiplicity of feelings.
Therefore, just as we must acknowledge feeling, and indeed many types of feelings, as ingredients of the will, so must we also in the second place
The Idealistic Interpretation 57
acknowledge thinking: in every act of the will there is a commandeering thought; - a n d one should not think that he can sever this thought from the "willing," as though will would be what were left over! (VII, 29).
