Nietzsche on Reality as Will to Power: Toward an "Organization–Struggle" Model
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The goal of this article is to shed light on Nietzsche's notion of reality through a critical examination of the notions "will to power," "struggle," and "organization." In the first section, I discuss the ontological status of the will to power. I then elaborate this notion on the basis of the (relation among the) concepts "organization" (section 2), "form" (section 3), and struggle (section 4). Although I discuss the concept of form in a separate section, I argue later that organization and form are too interrelated to be conceived as distinct elements. In section 5, I test the "organization–struggle" model that I have developed by applying it to the problem of decadence. I then conclude with a short discussion of the results of this study and also of some problems it raises.
1. The Ontological Status of the Will to Power
From the beginning of the second half of the 1880s Nietzsche proclaimed explicitly that all reality is will to power: "The world viewed from inside, [. . .] it would be simply 'will to power' and nothing else—" (BGE 36; cf. Z II: "Self-Overcoming"; BGE 13). His homogenizing of reality as will to power implies that all reality has the same character. Reality has only one intrinsic quality: the will to power. At the same time, the will to power is the only principle of interpretation (Deutungsprinzip) for reality.
Attributing to reality as few qualities as possible is, according to Nietzsche, dictated by the principle of economy, the "morals of the method" itself: "The hypothesis that explains the temporal world with the lowest expenditure of presuppositions and means" has primacy (KSA 7:23[30]). Principles are unproven maxims, that is, presuppositions accepted as foundations: axioms. The fewer axioms, the better. As long as one causal or teleological principle is sufficient to understand reality, one should not adopt more (see BGE 13, 36).
This does not preclude that the will to power could be understood as a teleological principle or as a substantial cause. Furthermore, one could think that the homogenization of reality involves a negation of diversity and richness. In addition, Nietzsche calls his notion of the will to power repeatedly a hypothesis. How should we understand all this? [End Page 25]
We can begin with some elaboration of Nietzsche's notion of "power." "Power" in "will to power" is a peculiar concept. It is characterized, and this is a crucial point, by intrinsic relationality: power is only power in relation to another power. Nietzsche says: "A power quantum is characterized by its effect and its resistant" (KSA 13:14[79]; cf. KSA 12:2[159], 12:9[151]). The concept "power" would be meaningless if a power were detached from an opposite power. That power is inherently relational implies further that it is characterized by a relation without relata that precede it or that can exist independent of it. Nietzsche's principle of the will to power implies that relation is not an additional element of things but, rather, something that constitutes in a fundamental way what a thing is. In other words, there are no first things, which then have relations with each other; rather, things are what they are by virtue of their relations.
Furthermore, Nietzsche's concept of power implies that reality is dynamic in the strongest meaning of the word. Power, in Nietzsche's view, entails a directedness or causation without there being something (durable), a fixed cause, that can be separated from that directedness or causation; power is in its essence "something" that does not coincide with itself. It is an always-being-on-the-way. Additionally, this structure implies that power must be understood as a necessary striving for more power (see KSA 13:14[82]). Power is a necessary striving to expand itself. Power is only power insofar as it can maintain itself against other powers and strives to predominate over them.
There is in Nietzsche's worldview nothing that has existence and meaning outside the "game" of power relations. Because of this, there is no withdrawal from this "game." Even rejecting the claim that reality is...
