Unphilosophical Philosophy: Nietzsche’s Will to Power as Overcoming of Truth and Revaluation of Time by Ady Stefan Calin A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Political Science Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario © 2013 Ady Stefan Calin Library and Archives Bibliotheque et Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du 1+1 Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-94666-4 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-94666-4 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distrbute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non­ support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. 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Canada ABSTRACT This essay deals primarily with Nietzsche’s ‘theory of knowledge,’ and seeks to adequately display his proposition that concepts are always the expression of individual embodied values, thus appraising them as metaphors created for the purpose of communication by a certain kind of life seeking to impose and promote itself as a particular perspective and limited amount of force. It presents Nietzsche as ‘the thinker of values’ par excellence and argues that rather than seeking Truth, he aimed to expose it as a ruling standard of valuation that is set to expire with modernity, revealing the radical ‘value for life’ that he calls ‘will to power’ as the decisive supreme value. It also defends the position that the cornerstone of this envisioned revaluation of values is ‘eternal recurrence,’ as his new vision of time which redeems the past, granting creative ‘free spirits’ the freedom to establish new values in the future. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to extend my gratitude to Professor Travis Smith at Concordia University for sparking my interest in political theory and for his friendly support over the years, as well as to Professor Horst Hutter for initiating me to the work of Friedrich Nietzsche and to his own teaching and magnificent interpretation of it. I also wish to mention my great appreciation for Professor Tom Darby at Carleton University for having such great confidence in me and supervising this project, as well as for his major contribution to my instruction in political philosophy and scholarship. I am also thankful for the very competent colleagues I have frequented over the time of my short academic career, for their providing me with food for thought through sessions of great discussion. Finally, I give very special thanks to my mother without whom I certainly could have not done this. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS KEY TO REFERENCES iv INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 1 Concerning Writing ..........................................................................................................8 Philosophy as Hunt for Truth ........................................................................................ 20 The Attack on Truth ....................................................................................................... 28 Science as a Path to Truth ..............................................................................................38 CHAPTER 2 The Will to Power ...........................................................................................................51 Devaluation & Revaluation ............................................................................................64 Will to Nothingness........................................................................................................76 Free Will & Modem Efficiency .................................................................................... 93 CHAPTER 3 The Life-Affirming Concept........................................................................................109 Philosophy & the Life of the Convalescent .............................................................. 127 Conclusion .....................................................................................................................138 BIBLIOGRAPHY 149 KEY TO REFERENCES FOR NIETZSCHE’S WORKS* - The Anti-Christ AC - Beyond Good & Evil BGE - The Birth of Tragedy BT - Daybreak (Dawn of Day) DD - Ecce Homo EH - On the Genealogy of Morality GM - The Gay Science GS - The Philosopher (in Philosophy and Truth) P - Schopenhauer as Educator (in Untimely Meditations) SE - Twilight of the Idols TI - On Truth & Lie in the Extra-Moral Sense (in Philosophy and Truth) TL - Thus Spoke Zarathustra TSZ - The Will to Power WP * Works by other authors are cited using abbreviated references in footnotes. A full bibliography is provided as appendix. INTRODUCTION Why are there beings at all instead of nothing? That is the question which Martin Heidegger poses as the fundamental one at the very beginning of his ‘Introduction to Metaphysics’.1 Heidegger, like many who write after 1900, was inspired by a great mind of the 19th century: Friedrich Nietzsche. The desire to satisfy our craving for an answer to this question has spurred some of mankind’s most profound thinking. People of all sorts have proposed a variety of explanations as to how and why it appears to us that there is something rather than nothing; we’ve referred to them by many names and titles including sages, sophists, philosophers, scientists, savants, experts, priests, prophets or even poets and artists. Nietzsche, as one who preaches that psychology ought to be our guide in philosophical and political matters2, was quite explicit in his efforts to distinguish himself from others who sought to provide or discover the true answer to the question which arguably stands at the core of man’s interrogations about humanity and the world. He denounces the dogmatism of previous thinkers and calls out all philosophies as merely personal confessions which are always created out of some conscious or unconscious ambition to gain power in some form or another.3 But one should restrain from hasty superficial interpretations which would have this be the sign of a shallow Nietzsche charging his predecessors with fraud, and accusing them of willingly and freely choosing to deceive us so that they may gain security, notoriety, or financial benefit. He sees in this a deeper need and striving which he believes extends to all of 1 Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics, p. 1 2 BGE 23, p.31-32 3 BGE 5 & 6, p.12-14 1 mankind; every human being is on an endless quest for meaning, as he seeks to minimize or eliminate senseless suffering.4 I believe this insight opens the door to an alternative way of looking at all philosophy, including Nietzsche’s, which is meant to be a prelude to a philosophy o f the future, as his book ‘Beyond Good & Evil’ is subtitled. Instead of a customary approach with regards to philosophical writing seen as the account of an individual’s mind striving to reason its way towards definitive answers, one ought to see in this an attempt to philosophize by thinking outside of true and false dialectics. Even the central elements of Nietzsche’s teaching, namely his “doctrines” of will to power and eternal recurrence, are mostly expressed as suggestions or suppositions, and often begin with “what if’.51 propose that Nietzsche’s work is not meant to provide us with the Truth, and consequently expose any prior philosophy as false, but rather that it is designed to seek out a specific kind of reader existing in a particular historical period and illuminate for them the possibility of thinking and living without the “True or False” criterion, which in the end always incarcerates thinking as being either dogmatic or deceptive. These future disciples as envisioned by Nietzsche are to set the stage for the revaluation of values that he apprehends. My main argument is that this reappraisal of values is the task of the ‘philosopher of the future’, whose role is to fill the void present after the self-induced implosion of Truth, by establishing ‘will to power’ as the new highest value and standard for valuation. I intend to present an informed comprehensive proposition