Notes on: Nietzsche, F. (1887- 8).
The Will to Power. Unknown
Trans.
Online:https://archive.org/details/TheWillToPower-Nietzsche
Dave Harris
[Same old rants, but this time in note form.
See my notes on Genealogy
for a more extensive precis. I have picked
out only what seems to be different or new. I
think the crux of it for Deleuze anyway is found
right at the end (glorious to get there)]:
And
do you know what "the world" is to me?
Shall I show it to you in my
mirror? This world: a
monster of energy, without beginning,
without end;
a firm, iron
magnitude of force that does not grow
bigger or smaller,
that does not expend
itself but only transforms itself; as a
whole, of
unalterable size, a
household without expenses or losses,
but likewise
without increase or
income; enclosed by "nothingness" as by
a boundary;
not something blurry
or wasted, not something endlessly
extended, but
set in a definite
space as a definite force, and not a
sphere that might
be "empty" here or
there, but rather as force throughout,
as a play of
forces and waves of
forces, at the same time one and many,
increasing
here and at the same
time decreasing there; a sea of forces
flowing and
rushing together,
eternally changing, eternally flooding
back [NB] , with
tremendous years of
recurrence, with an ebb and a flood [NB
again] of its forms;
out of the simplest
forms striving toward the most complex,
out of the
stillest, most rigid,
coldest forms toward the hottest, most
turbulent,
most
self-contradictory, and then again
returning home to the simple [third NB
--
nothing very unusual about the eternal
return then --it even looks a bit
cyclical or
dialectical?] out of this abundance, out of
the play of contradictions back to the
joy of
concord, still
affirming itself in this uniformity of
its courses and
its years, blessing
itself as that which must return
eternally, as a
becoming that knows
no satiety, no disgust, no weariness:
this, my
Dionysian world of
the eternally self-creating, the
eternally self destroying [dialectic
again?],
this mystery world of
the twofold voluptuous delight, my
"beyond good and
evil," without goal, unless the joy of
the circle [NB x4] is
itself a goal;
without will, unless a ring [fifth NB]
feels good will toward
itself--do you want a
name for this world? A solution for all
its
riddles? A light for
you, too, you best-concealed, strongest,
most
intrepid, most
midnightly men?-- This world is the will
to power--and
nothing besides! And
you yourselves are also this will to
power--and
nothing besides!]
Preface
Old Gypsy Nietzsche predicts catastrophe in the
future and proclaims himself as the first perfect
nihilist.
Book one. European Nihilism
Nihilism has not been produced by catastrophe or
social change, but as a consequence of Christian
morality and reason [I should say immediately that
I think Weber has done much better here on
charting how rational theology, attempts to pin
down the truth of the Bible, led to an inevitable
secularisation as more and more doubts about the
authenticity of the Bible became apparent].
When Christians finally renounce their faith,
they're only left with deep cynicism about
everything, or a Buddhist indifference to the
world [and again I think Lyotard
or Sloterdijk are
better on skepticism and cynicism]..
Christianity has collapsed despite the efforts of
philosophers such as Hegel to prop it up with
promises of something eternal or spiritual.
The signs of the crisis include an entirely amoral
science and moral and social relativism, and even
art has declined into romanticism or
sentimentality.
However, a proper critique of Christianity is
required to overcome any residual elements
[philosophers are still needed even if they are
fighting only old battles that no one cares about
anymore]. Christianity once had a positive
side, in providing people with meaning and some
moral dignity, but its rational search for
truthfulness ended by undermining its own central
values. In particular, the social origins of
Christian belief have become so obvious that they
have lost all credibility, and this includes
belief in an after life, which clearly only meets
the psychological needs of believers. It has
failed to overcome pessimism which has led to
nihilism. This has gone through certain
stages of development: first, the promise that man
was the centre of the universe has been
demolished; second that life gets its meaning by
being part of some sacred whole, is obviously just
a comfort, linked to some need for domination, or
subjected to some external standard of
utility. The result is a pessimistic
disbelief in anything that might give life meaning
or purpose, nothing to aim at, no higher
goals.
The whole story shows that Christian categories,
and Christian notions of truth and reason are
completely inadequate and have to be
replaced. Nihilism gets generalised to
include every claim that there is something
outside of immediate life, including things in
themselves. Christianity itself provides an
impulse towards it in the idea that god's purpose
is unknowable, and this is the only way in which
idealism of any kind can be preserved [Weber had
another possibility, that belief could survive as
a private and personal matter, a part of your
identity]. Philosophers have been only too
ready to acknowledge the sort of argument in the
form of monism for example, or in postulating some
ideal world against which the real world could be
judged, and have never squarely faced the
difficulties [NB one of the philosophers who can
be criticised like this is Spinoza].
Attempts to found some moralism without
Christianity are equally flawed: the error lies in
thinking that there is some external
authority. Disappointment with this
authority will inevitably lead to nihilism.
Rational alternatives include utilitarianism, the
happiness of the greatest number, which means
sticking with the herd.
The human will alone seems incapable of imposing
any goal or purpose. In some ways, active
nihilism can be a positive force, leading to the
destruction of the old idols. It can also be
a passive force, allowing weakness and
indifference to triumph, and leading to
relativism, or to seeking various kinds of
intoxicating comforts. Active nihilism must
resist logic in its destructive impulses,
releasing the strong to do what must be done,
beyond any moral judgment. Nietzsche himself
has had to struggle to become an active nihilist.
We need more of these active nihilists in the form
of great leaders like Napoleon: romantic heroes
will not do. [Napoleon is admired lower down
as an enemy of civilisation and as offering the
only cure for modernity - militarism --'Napoleon, by
awakening again the man, the soldier, and the
great fight for power-conceiving Europe as a
political unit']. Catering to the demands
of the herd will only lead to complete
vulgarization of culture with an intolerance
towards any exception. Socialism preaches a
false equality of everyone. John Stuart Mill
is 'a flathead' [misprint for fathead?], and so
are other reformers for thinking they can engineer
the end of all evil. The exceptional are
discouraged. Weak forms of orientation like
pity spread instead of rigorous analysis and
decisive action.
It is no good trying to compromise with nihilism,
by seeking diversions in intoxication, debauchery,
or petty fanaticism. Nostalgia for the old
days, desperate attempts to seek some divine plan
in the past or hope for the future are all
distractions. We have to restore the value
of nature. We have to revalue our
values. We have to winkle out Christianity
from all our institutions. We have to reject
attempts by the press and others to convince us
that current times still display our spirit: the
'gruesome ugliness' of English Christianity is
more representative. We are not thoughtful
enough to develop some new orientation to life
like Buddhism.
As we have developed our knowledge of the world,
so the less worth it seems to have for us [classic
disenchantment]. This is a healthy impulse,
but it should lead to new values, as long as we
undo the slander against higher more noble
men. That slander has led to our present
decline, so that natural instincts for courage and
decisiveness have been rejected. Mediocrity
has triumphed, producing even more rejection and
disillusion. A general anesthesia and
acceptance is what results.
Everything is evaluated at present in terms of
whether it produces suffering or pleasure, with no
ultimate meaning. Healthy men reject such
trifles and say yes to life, even if it involves
suffering. One absurd consequence of modern
evaluations is that philosophy would become
redundant, since only the feeling of pleasure
would be relevant to statement of values [and we
certainly cannot have that!]: 'To have any right
to be, the character of existence would have to
give the philosopher pleasure'[marvelous
combination of ludicrous claims for philosophy as
the voice of being. Also the source of
Deleuze's anti social lonely mission?]
Scholasticism is also a source of nihilism.
Values are detached from both nature and action,
opposites are preferred instead of ranks, and
ranking itself is condemned: opposites are easier
for plebs to understand. Nature is
repudiated, but a socially constructed alternative
is disappointing. We are only left with the
sort of values that can be turned into judgments
of what exists. Eventually, any one
disagreeing will perish, and more domination will
ensue and begin to impose new values [not the good
old natural ones though?]. This is the
modern tragic age.
Pessimism is discussed itself as a kind of option
to be set against optimism, but it is really a
symptom of nihilism, which is itself only 'the
expression of physiological decadence'.
Decadence has simply accumulated to dominate every
day life. Socialist reformers aiming at removing
evil are naive, because modern life itself is
riddled with it, and reform would actually mean
condemning life itself [in the only form in which
it still asserts itself?]. Evil, and vice
and disease, are necessary byproducts of any
life. Mere social improvements are not going
to work. Decadence is a natural
consequence. The real point is to defend the
few who have resisted it, who have avoided
contagion [which clearly links to his educational policy]—this
is a 'basic biological question'. The
decadent are the addicts, the sick and the
criminal, the libertines but also the
'celibate-sterile', the anarchists, the
pessimists, the doubters and the underminers
[could be the Nazis again]. Attempted
reforms and cures will only add to the problem
because they are 'physiologically naught'.
The usual type of good and bad men still remain
within decadent culture as false oppositions.
[Getting into his ranting stride now]. All
social questions relate to decadence, and can be
seen as types of sickness. Apparently
remedial forces such as Christianity or social
progress will only accelerate cultural
exhaustion. Emerging personality types
include the irritable, the depersonalised and the
altruistic. The real cause of it all is
religiosity, although this is sometimes seen as an
effect. It is no surprise that people seek
escapes from consciousness and feeling. It
is necessary for the strong not to react
immediately, but to detach themselves at first in
a spirit of adiophora [which, I gather
means seeing things not as immediately moral
issues, as in Stoicism]. The weak often
react immediately and in a way which weakens them
further. Although it can look contradictory,
purposeful inaction is often a better option, and
to that extent, hermits and solitaries are on the
right lines in avoiding anything that would
require immediate reaction. A strong will
imposes a coordination on action rather than
impulsiveness.
It would be possible to compare all the values of
organized religions and philosophies against the
central characteristics of sickliness - lack of
strength, resignation. Actually, health and
sickness are not opposed states, and sickness is
really the lack of harmony and exaggeration of
particular traits. However, sickliness and
weakness can be hereditary. Weakness becomes
a self fulfilling project, welcoming meekness and
submission, the rejection of life and of
nature. We must interpret it first. It
is a mistake to equate the calmness of the strong
with weakness from exhaustion, although some
religious procedures, in particular the ascetic
ones, confuse the two. The exhausted cause
further damage, and are 'parasites of life'.
They can sometimes engage in frenetic or fanatical
activity, and their admirers fail to see the
weakness beneath. Nevertheless, they are
often rated as particularly wise or insightful,
and can even be deified. (49)
[OK much of this returns -- eternally it seems to
me -- spelled out in terms of critiques of science
and even sociology as scholastic, using the
categories of the decadent society, failing to
realize the need for a healthy physiology etc. I
have picked out in particular the bits that seem
to contradict Deleuze's reading of Nietzsche as a
harmless abstract philosopher -- but that still
leaves lots of stuff!]
Some oddities include: 'What a blessing a Jew is
among Germans!' [because Germans are lazy
alcoholic and dull. The French, meanwhile,
are played with the erotic vices]. These
vices are the threats to social order, so there
are no real societies or communities. And 'All of
education to date, helpless, untenable, without
center of gravity, stained by the contradiction of
values'( Section 52). And here is another
dangerous proto NAZI bit: 'There is no solidarity
in a society in which there are sterile,
unproductive, and destructive elements--which,
incidentally? will have descendants even more
degenerate than they are themselves.' 'Our entire
sociology simply does not know any other instinct
than that of the herd' (S53) . 'Life is a
consequence of war, society itself a means to
war'.'To cross as a matter of principle selection
in the species and its purification of
refuse--that has so far been called virtue par
excellence. One should respect fatality--that
fatality that says to the weak: perish!'
'Let us think this thought in its most terrible
form [as plebs do] : existence as it is,without
meaning or aim, yet recurring inevitably without
any finale of nothingness: "the eternal
recurrence." This is the most extreme form of
nihilism: the nothing (the "meaningless"),
eternally!' But '"everything perfect,
divine, eternal" also compels a faith in
the"eternal recurrence."'[the context here is to
reject the nihilistic view that there are no
meanings or goals in human existence, expressed
rather oddly in the context of rejecting
pantheism. It is a way of rejecting
Christian goals, while maintaining faith in the
process of spiritual renewal?]. We can agree
with Spinoza that everything that exists must be
there for some reason, that everything has
its own logic, but we have to turn this into a
morality not just a logical affirmation.
'Morality consequently taught men to hate and
despise most profoundly what is the basic
character trait of those who rule: their will to
power'. However it is possible to argue that
'even in this will to morality this very "will to
power" were hidden, and even this hatred and
contempt were still a will to power.', But that
would then imply some equality between rulers and
ruled, and would deprive the oppressed of the
comforts they can find in religion and other
egalitarian trends. [On the most abstract level,
it might be true that] 'There is nothing to life
that has value, except the degree of
power-assuming that life itself is the will to
power', but we should also see 'Nihilism as
a symptom that the underprivileged have no comfort
left'. Spiritual comforts are required even
in the most advanced civilizations, actually
rather more than in conditions of deep poverty and
powerlessness. Some sort of advanced
thinking or theoretical input is also required for
the doctrine of eternal return to emerge, as with
Buddhism: 'The doctrine of the eternal recurrence
would have scholarly presuppositions (as did the
Buddha's doctrine; e. g., the concept of
causality, etc.)', but for the underprivileged,
the eternal return is a form of curse.
Underprivilege is really a kind of adverse
physiology, sickness. Youth can suffer from
this kind of physiological decadence, or from
excessive experimentation [almost certainly
another biographical bit?]
[The immanent ]social crisis can be useful in
forming alliances between people and in particular
in letting natural leaders emerge, and these will
not be moderates but 'human beings who are sure of
their power and represent the attained strength of
humanity with conscious pride.' The social crisis
includes a certain nomadism and collapse of
internal boundaries [almost an anomie theory here,
including the emphasis on moral complexity], and
'large-scale associations found in all herd
animals --"community spirit," "Fatherland,"
everything in which the individual does not
count)'. Other factors include 'The fact of
credit, of worldwide trade, of the means of
transportation--here a tremendous mild trust in
man finds expression',and 'the emancipation of
science from moral and religious purposes: a very
good sign that, however, is usually
misunderstood'. As with 'Indian Buddhism', we find
'The reduction of problems to questions of
pleasure and displeasure [but happily also] The
war glory that provokes a counterstroke'.
'The tensing of a will over long temporal
distances, the selection of the states and
valuations that allow one to dispose of future
centuries --precisely this is antimodern in the
highest degree: the breaking up of landed
property...newspapers (in place of daily prayers),
railway, telegraph.'(S69) 'a. In the natural
sciences ("meaninglessness"); causalism,
mechanism. "Lawfulness" an entr'acte, a residue.
2b. Ditto in politics: one lacks the faith in
one's right, innocence; mendaciousness rules and
serving the moment.c. Ditto in economics: the
abolition of slavery [sic!!] The lack of a
redeeming class, one that justifies-advent of
anarchism. "Education"? d. Ditto in history:
fatalism, Darwinism; the final attempts to read
reason and divinity into it fail. Sentimentality
in face of the past; one could not endure a
biography!-- (Here, too, phenomenalism: character
as a mask; there are no facts.) e. Ditto in art:
romanticism and its counterstroke (aversion
against romantic ideals and lies). The latter,
moral as a sense of greater truthfulness, but
pessimistic. Pure "artists" (indifferent toward
content). (Father-confessor psychology and puritan
psychology, two forms of psychological
romanticism: but even its counterproposal, the
attempt to adopt a purely artistic attitude toward
man--even there the opposite valuation is not yet
ventured!)'
However, there are no sociological facts based on
social context because inner force and 'instinct'
is everything. '"Modernity" [can then be grasped
]in the perspective of the metaphor of nourishment
and digestion'.
(S74) 'Overwork, curiosity and sympathy--our
modern vices.'
(S75) 'But nothing looks more wretched than when a
shoemaker or schoolmaster gives us to understand
with a suffering mien that he was really born for
something better.'
(S77) 'Nothing to date has nauseated me more than
the parasites of the spirit [in the context of
despising all intermediaries and interpreters]
...in the main voraclous, dirty, dirtying,
creeping in, nestling, thievish, scurvy--and as
innocent as all little sinners and 2microbes. They
live off the fact that other people have spirit
and squander it' . He despises novelists and
romantics like Walter Scott, and 'Being
"scientific." Virtuosos (Jews)'.
(S79) 'The showy words are: tolerance (for "the
incapacity for Yes and No"); la largeur de
sympathie ( = one-third indifference, one-third
curiosity, one-third pathological irritability);
"objectivity" (lack of personality, lack of will,
incapacity for "love"); "freedom" versus rules
(romanticism); "truth" versus forgery and lies
(naturalism); being "scientific" (the "document
hurnain": in other words, the novel of colportage
and addition in place of composition); "passion"
meaning disorder and immoderation; "depth" meaning
confusion, the profuse chaos of symbols'.
(S81) 'One knows the kind of human being who has
fallen in love with the motto, tout comprendre
c'est tout pardonner. It is the weak, it is above
all the disappointed: if there is something to be
forgiven in all, perhaps 2there is also something
to be despised in all. It is the philosophy of
disappointment that wraps itself so humanely in
pity and looks sweet'
(S85) 'The unworthy attempt has been made to see
Wagner and Schopenhauer as types of mental
illness: one would gain an incomparably more
essential insight by making more precise
scientifically [sic] the type of decadence both
represent'.
(S86) [Ibsen] 'speaks of "equal
rights"--that is, as long as one has not yet
gained superiority one wants to prevent one's
competitors from growing in power.'
(S88) Protestantism, that spiritually unclean and
boring form of decadence in which Christianity has
been able so far to preserve itself in the
mediocre north
(S89) Can one even imagine a spiritually staler,
lazier, more comfortably relaxed form of the
Christian faith than that of the average
Protestant in Germany?
(S90) Man represents no progress over the animal:
the civilized tenderfoot is an abortion compared
to the Arab and Corsican; the Chinese is a more
successful type, namely more durable, than the
European.
(S94) The French Revolution as the continuation of
Christianity. Rousseau is the seducer: he again
unfetters woman who is henceforth represented in
an ever more interesting manner--as suffering.
Then the slaves and Mrs. Beecher- Stowe. Then the
poor and the workers. Then the vice addicts and
the sick--all this is moved into the
foreground...Next come the curse on voluptuousness
(Baudelaire and Schopenhauer); the most decided
conviction that the lust to rule is the greatest
vice; the perfect certainty that morality and
disinterestedness are identical concepts and that
the "happiness of all" is a goal worth striving
for (i. e., the kingdom of heaven of Christ).
[Lots more on Rousseau in S100]
(S95) The eighteenth century is dominated by
woman, given to enthusiasm, full of esprit,
shallow, but with a spirit in the service of what
is desirable, of the heart, libertine in the
enjoyment of what is most spiritual, and
undermines all authorities; intoxicated, cheerful,
clear, humane, false before itself, much canaille
au fond, sociable.
(S108--9) [On German politics] That this
"German as he is not yet" deserves something
better than today's German "Bildung"; that all who
are "in the process of becoming" must be furious
when they perceive some satisfaction in this area,
an impertinent "retiring on one's laurels" or
"selfcongratulation": that is my second
proposition on which I also have not yet changed
my mind...Principle: There is an element of decay
in everything that characterizes modern man: but
close beside this sickness stand signs of an
untested force and powerfulness of the soul. The
same reasons that produce the increasing smallness
of man drive the stronger and rarer individuals up
to greatness.'
(S111) The problem of the nineteenth century.
Whether its strong and weak sides belong together?
Whether it is all of one piece? Whether the
diverseness of its ideals and their mutual
inconsistency are due to a higher aim: as
something higher.---For it could be the
precondition of greatness to grow to such an
extent in violent tension. Dissatisfaction,
nihilism could be a good sign.
(S116) On the other hand, the chandala [literally
'stones', maybe idols?] of former times is at the
top: foremost, those who blaspheme God, the
immoralists, the nomads of every type, the
artists, Jews, musicians--at bottom, all
disreputable classes of men'
(S119) We desire strong sensations as all coarser
ages and social strata do.-- This should be
distinguished from the needs of those with weak
nerves and the decadents: they have a need for
pepper, even for cruelty- 2All of us seek states
in which bourgeois morality no longer has any say,
and priestly morality even less
(S120) More natural is our position in politicis:
we see problems of power, of one quantum of power
against another. We do not believe in any right
that is not supported by the power of enforcement:
we feel all rights to be conquests.
(S124) Progress toward "naturalness": in all
political questions, also in the relations of
parties, even of commercial, workers', and
employers' parties, questions of power are at
stake--"what one can do," and only after that what
one ought to do.
(S125) Therefore socialism is on the whole a
hopeless and sour affair; and nothing offers a
more amusing spectacle than the contrast between
the poisonous and desperate faces cut by today's
socialists--and to what wretched and pinched
feelings their style bears witness!--and the
harmless lambs' happiness of their hopes and
desiderata....To have and to want to have
more--growth, in one word--that is life itself. In
the doctrine of socialism there is hidden, rather
badly, a "will to negate life"; the human beings
or races that think up such a doctrine must be
bungled.
(S126) The most favorable inhibitions and remedies
of modernity:
1. universal military service with real wars in
which the time for joking is past;
2. national bigotry (simplifies, concentrates);
3. improved nutrition (meat);
4. increasing cleanliness and healthfulness of
domiciles;
5. hegemony of physiology over theology, moralism,
economics, and politics;
6. military severity in the demand for and
handling of one's"obligations" (one does not
praise any more-).
(S127) I am glad about the military development of
Europe; also of the internal states of anarchy:
the time of repose and Chinese ossification, which
Galiani predicted for this century, is over.
Personal manly virtu of the body, is regaining
value, estimation becomes more physical, nutrition
meatier. Beautiful men are again becoming
possible. Pallid hypocrisy (with mandarins at the
top, as Comte dreamed) is over. The barbarian in
each of us is affirmed; also the wild beast.
Precisely for that reason philosophers have a
future.--Kant is a scarecrow, some day! [and
militarization is possible because the herd
instinct makes modern recruits highly trainable]
(S129) Spiritual enlightenment is an infallible
means for making men unsure,weaker in will, so
they are more in need of company and support--in
short, for developing the herd animal in man.
(S132) Position toward peoples. Our preferences;
we pay attention to the results of
interbreeding...We feel contemptuous of every kind
of culture that is compatible with reading, not to
speak of writing for, newspapers...Preparation for
becoming the legislators of the future, the
masters of the earth, at least our children. Basic
concern with marriages.
(S134) Moral valuations as a history of lies and
the art of slander in the service of a will to
power (the herd will that rebels against the human
beings who are stronger).
Book two Critique of Highest Values
Hitherto
142. We find a species of man, the priestly, which
feels itself to be the norm, the high point and
the supreme expression of the type man: this
species derives the concept "improvement" from
itself. It believes in its own superiority, it
wills itself to be superior in fact: the origin of
the holy lie is the will to power--'. '"He who
wills the end must will the means"' [so cold
calculation is also required to develop
power]...We possess the classic model in
specifically Aryan forms: we may therefore hold
the best-endowed and most reflective species of
man responsible for the most fundamental lie that
has ever been told-- That lie has been copied
almost everywhere: Aryan influence has corrupted
all the world--'
143.'what is called Semitic is merely
priestly--and in the racially purest Aryan
law-book, in Manu [early Brahmin holy book] , this
kind of "Semitism," i. e., the spirit of the
priest, is worse than anywhere
else'..Mohammedanism in turn learned from
Christianity: the employment of the "beyond" as an
instrument of punishment..
145 What an affirmative Semitic religion, the
product of the ruling class, looks like: the
law-book of Mohammed, the older parts of the Old
Testament. (Mohammedanism, as a religion for men,
is deeply contemptuous of the sentimentality and
mendaciousness of Christianity--which it feels to
be a woman's religion.)...What a negative Semitic
religion, the product of an oppressed class, looks
like: the New Testament
151. Religions are destroyed by belief in
morality. The Christian moral God is not tenable:
hence "atheism"
190. After the church had let itself be deprived
of the entire Christian way of life and had quite
specifically sanctioned life under the state, that
form of life that Jesus had combatted and
condemned, it had to find the meaning of
Christianity in something else: in faith in
unbelievable things, in the ceremonial of prayers,
worship, feasts, etc. The concept "sin,"
"forgiveness," "reward"--all quite unimportant and
virtually excluded from primitive
Christianity--now comes into the foreground.
339. For every soul there was only one perfecting;
only one ideal; only one way to redemption--
Extremest form of equality of rights, tied to an
optical magnification of one's own importance to
the point of insanity-- Nothing but insanely
important souls, revolving about themselves with a
frightful fear--...fundamentally, one upholds the
perspective of personalization as well as equality
of rights before the ideal
352. The concept of power, whether of a god or of
a man, always includes both the ability to help
and the ability to harm. Thus it is with the
Arabs; thus with the Hebrews. Thus with all strong
races. It is a fateful step when one separates the
power for the one from the power for the other
into a dualism-- In this way, morality becomes the
poisoner of life--...
377. Every instinct that struggles for mastery but
finds itself under a yoke requires for itself, as
strengthening and as support for its selfesteem,
all the beautiful names and recognized values: so,
as a rule, it ventures forth under the name of the
"master" it is combatting...the falsity does not
become conscious.[but some priests are openly
manipulative and hypocritical about this, even
more than are women]
380. Systematic falsification of history; so that
it may provide the proof of moral
valuation:...Systematic falsification of great
human beings, the great creators, the great
epochs...one desires that faith should be the
distinguishing mark of the great: but slackness,
skepticism, "immorality," the right to throw off a
faith, belong to greatness (Caesar, also Homer,
Aristophanes, Leonardo, Goethe). One always
suppresses the main thing, their "freedom of will"
382 [contradicting Schopenhauer] The moral man is
a lower species than the immoral, a weaker
species; indeed--he is a type in regard to
morality, but not a type in himself; a copy, a
good copy at best--the measure of his value lies
outside him. I assess a man by the quantum of
power and abundance of his will....Shopkeeper's
philosophy of Mr. Spencer; complete absence of an
ideal, except that of the mediocre
man....Fundamental instinctive principle of all
philosophers and historians and psychologists:
everything of value in man, art, history, science,
religion, technology must be proved to be of moral
value.
383. [early attempts to deny sexuality includes]
"if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.: In the
particular case in which that dangerous "innocent
from the country," the founder of Christianity,
recommended this practice to his disciples, the
case of sexual excitation, the consequence is,
unfortunately, not only the loss of an organ but
the emasculation of a man's character--
386 [Instead of valuing the moral man] From a
superior viewpoint one desires the contrary: the
ever-increasing dominion of evil, the growing
emancipation of man from the narrow and
fear-ridden bonds of morality, the increase of
force, in order to press the mightiest natural
powers--the affects--into service.
387. The whole conception of an order of rank
among the passions[is inverted] : as if the right
and normal thing were for one to be guided by
reason--with the passions as abnormal, dangerous,
semi-animal, and, moreover, so far as their aim is
concerned, nothing other than desires for
pleasure-- [leads to misjudging the foundational
role of passion,especially in
asceticism]...it is strong and godlike selfhood
from which these affects grow, just as surely as
did the desire to become master, encroachment, the
inner certainty of having a right to everything.
398.that there is no worse confusion than the
confusion of breeding with taming: which is what
has been done-- Breeding, as I understand it, is a
means of storing up the tremendous forces of
mankind so that the generations can build upon the
work of their forefathers--not only outwardly, but
inwardly, organically growing out of them and
becoming something stronger--...the goal of
breeding, even in the case of a single individual,
can only be the stronger man (--the man without
breeding is weak, extravagant, unstable.
410. I noticed rather that no epistemological
skepticism or dogmatism had ever arisen free from
ulterior motives--that it acquires a value of the
second rank as soon as one has considered what it
was that compelled the adoption of this point of
view.
413. Ulterior moral motives have hitherto most
obstructed the course of philosophy.
423.Theory and practice.-- Fateful distinction, as
if there were an actual drive for knowledge that,
without regard to questions of usefulness and
harm, went blindly for the truth; and then,
separate from this, the whole world of practical
interests-- I tried to show, on the other hand,
what instincts have been active behind all these
pure theoreticians--how they have all, under the
spell of their instincts, gone fatalistically for
something that was "truth" for them...The
so-called drive for knowledge can be traced back
to a drive to appropriate and conquer....the
appearance of moral scruples (in other words: the
becoming-conscious of the values by which one
acts) betrays a certain sickliness...The deeply
instinctive are shy of logicizing duties:...that
which really drives the moralist is not the moral
instincts but the instincts of decadence
translated into the formulas of morality.
428 [Most philosophers have avoided the main
issue], for to take pleasure in power was
considered immoral...In the entire evolution of
morality, truth never appears: all the conceptual
elements employed are fictions; all the
psychologica accepted are falsifications; all the
forms of logic dragged into this realm of lies are
sophistries.
430. The great rationality of all education in
morality has always been that one tried to attain
to the certainty of an instinct: so that neither
good intentions nor good means had to enter
consciousness as such [and Socrates becomes a
leading light in the foolish attempt to
rationalise here] The great concepts "good" and
"just" are severed from the presuppositions to
which they belong and, as liberated "ideas,"
become objects of dialectic.
440. When morality--that is to say subtlety,
caution, bravery, equity--has been as it were
stored up through the practice of a whole
succession of generations, then the total force of
this accumulated virtue radiates even into that
sphere where integrity is most seldom found, into
the spiritual sphere. In all becoming-conscious
there is expressed a discomfiture of the organism;
it has to try something new, nothing is
sufficiently adapted for it, there is toil,
tension, strain--all this constitutes
becoming-conscious.Genius resides in instinct;
goodness likewise. One acts perfectly only when
one acts instinctively.
462 [His goals are]. Fundamental innovations: In
place of "moral values," purely naturalistic
values. Naturalization of morality. In place of
"sociology," a theory of the forms of domination.
In place of "society," the culture complex, as my
chief interest (as a whole or in its parts). In
place of "epistemology," a perspective theory of
affects (to which belongs a hierarchy of the
affects; the affects transfigured; their superior
order, their "spirituality"). In place of
"metaphysics," and religion, the theory of eternal
recurrence (this as a means of breeding and
selection) [so this is a notion of eternal return
as dynamic social reproduction of privilege
-- through 'breeding'] .
Book Three Principles of a New Evaluation
[the main source for a lot of Deleuzian insight]
466. It is not the victory of science that
distinguishes our nineteenth century, but the
victory of scientific method over science. [N
approves of this as dispelling religion, and
likes:]
469. above all, the disposition that takes
problems seriously, regardless of the personal
consequences-- [and]
470. Profound aversion to reposing once and for
all in any one total view of the world.
Fascination of the opposing point of view: refusal
to be deprived of the stimulus of the enigmatic
[which involves denouncing notions of divine
necessary reason etc]
475. Critique of modern philosophy: erroneous
starting point, as if there existed "facts of
consciousness"--and no phenomenalism in
introspection.
477. I maintain the phenomenality of the inner
world, too: everything of which we become
conscious is arranged, simplified, schematized,
interpreted through and through--the actual
process of inner "perception," the causal
connection between thoughts, feelings, desires,
between subject and object, are absolutely hidden
from us--and are perhaps purely imaginary. The
"apparent inner world" is governed by just the
same forms and procedures as the "outer" world. We
never encounter "facts": pleasure and displeasure
are subsequent and derivative intellectual
phenomena-- "Causality" eludes us; to suppose a
direct causal link beween thoughts, as logic
does--that is the consequence of the crudest and
clumsiest observation. Between two thoughts all
kinds of affects play their game: but their
motions are too fast, therefore we fail to
recognize them, we deny them-- "Thinking," as
epistemologists conceive it, simply does not
occur: it is a quite arbitrary fiction, arrived at
by selecting one element from the process and
eliminating all the rest, an artificial
arrangement for the purpose of intelligibility--
478. Upon reflection, however, we should concede
that everything would have taken the same course,
according to exactly the same sequence of causes
and effects, if these states of "pleasure and
displeasure" had been absent, and that one is
simply deceiving oneself if one thinks they cause
anything at all: they are epiphenomena with a
quite different object than to evoke reactions;
they are themselves effects within the instituted
process of reaction.
479. The fragment of outer world of which we are
conscious is born after an effect from outside has
impressed itself upon us, and is subsequently
projected as its "cause"...The whole of "inner
experience" rests upon the fact that a cause for
an excitement of the nerve centers is sought and
imagined --and that only a cause thus discovered
enters consciousness: this cause in no way
corresponds to the real cause--it is a groping on
the basis of previous "inner experiences," i. e.,
of memory. But memory also maintains the habit of
the old interpretations
480 [then even more clear biologism or naturalism]
There is no question of "subject and object," but
of a particular species of animal that can prosper
only through a certain relative rightness; above
all, regularity of its perceptions (so that it can
accumulate experience)-- Knowledge works as a tool
of power. Hence it is plain that it increases with
every increase of power...The utility of
preservation --not some abstract-theoretical need
not to be deceived--stands as the motive behind
the development of the organs of knowledge--they
develop in such a way that their observations
suffice for our preservation. In other words: the
measure of the desire for knowledge depends upon
the measure to which the will to power grows in a
species: a species grasps a certain amount of
reality in order to become master of it, in order
to press it into service.[could be Bentham really
-- implies some inner thermometer to measure
survivability]
481. Against positivism, which halts at
phenomena--"There are only facts"--I would say:
No, facts is precisely what there is not, only
interpretations..."Everything is subjective," you
say; but even this is interpretation. The
"subject" is not something given, it is something
added and invented and projected behind what there
is. [The world] has no meaning behind it, but
countless meanings.--"Perspectivism." [of
different races or classes no doubt ,to be solved
by competition to impose their will to power?
484. "There is thinking: therefore there is
something that thinks": this is the upshot of all
Descartes' argumentation. But that means positing
as "true à priori" our belief in the concept of
substance-- that when there is thought there has
to be something "that thinks" is simply a
formulation of our grammatical custom that adds a
doer to every deed.
485. Critique of "reality": where does the "more
or less real," the gradation of being in which we
believe, lead to?-- The degree to which we feel
life and power (logic and coherence of experience)
gives us our measure of "being", "reality", not
appearance..."The subject" is the fiction that
many similar states in us are the effect of one
substratum: but it is we who first created the
"similarity" of these states; our adjusting them
and making them similar is the fact, not their
similarity.
488. Psychological derivation of our belief in
reason.--The concept "reality", "being", is taken
from our feeling of the "subject"....our habit of
regarding all our deeds as consequences of our
will.
489. Everything that enters consciousness as
"unity" is already tremendously complex: we always
have only a semblance of Unity. [Deleuze must like
this stuff -- multiplicity].
490. [weird multiple self stuff] The assumption of
one single subject is perhaps unnecessary; perhaps
it is just as permissible to assume a multiplicity
of subjects, whose interaction and struggle is the
basis of our thought and our consciousness in
general? A kind of aristocracy of "cells" in which
dominion resides? To be sure, an aristocracy of
equals, used to ruling jointly and understanding
how to command?...My hypotheses: The subject as
multiplicity. [So this only applies to the
subject? As does this] The only force that exists
is of the same kind as that of the will: a
commanding of other subjects, which thereupon
change.
492. The body and physiology [NB -- a simple
biological body] the starting point:
why?--We gain the correct idea of the nature of
our subject-unity, namely as regents at the head
of a communality (not as "souls" or "life
forces"), also of the dependence of these regents
upon the ruled and of an order of rank and
division of labor as the conditions that make
possible the whole and its parts. [So the body is
seen as something political, with various bits
obeying and escaping dominion and] we try, if you
like, to see whether the inferior parts themselves
cannot enter into communication with us.[whether
our physiology affects our thinking? As in
'Biology of the Drive to Knowledge' and]
495. It is improbable that our "knowledge" should
extend further than is strictly necessary for the
preservation of life. Morphology shows us how the
senses and the nerves, as well as the brain,
develop in proportion to the difficulty of finding
nourishment....the "sense for truth" will have to
legitimize itself before another tribunal:-- as a
means of the preservation of man, as will to
power. Likewise our love of the beautiful: it also
is our shaping will. The two senses stand
side-by-side; the sense for the real is the means
of acquiring the power to shape things according
to our wish. The joy in shaping and reshaping--a
primeval joy! We can comprehend only a world that
we ourselves have made.
496. The way of knowing and of knowledge is itself
already part of the conditions of existence: so
that the conclusion that there could be no other
kind of intellect (for us) than that which
preserves us is precipitate...Our apparatus for
acquiring knowledge is not designed for
[intellectual,philosophical] "knowledge."
497 [Such knowledge is in vain...] The most
strongly believed a priori "truths" are for me
provisional assumptions; e. g., the law of
causality, a very well acquired habit of belief,
so much a part of us that not to believe in it
would destroy the race. But are they for that
reason truths? What a conclusion! As if the
preservation of man were a proof of truth!
501. All thought, judgment, perception, considered
as comparison, has as its precondition a "positing
of equality," and earlier still a "making equal."
The process of making equal is the same as the
process of incorporation of appropriated material
in the amoeba.[This follows an earlier argument
that when we think we make new things the same
as old experience] .
502. One must revise one's ideas about memory:
here lies the chief temptation to assume a "soul,"
[or unique personality] which, outside time,
reproduces, recognizes, etc.[Instead...]
503. The entire apparatus of knowledge is an
apparatus for abstraction and
simplification--directed not at knowledge but at
taking possession of things: "end" and "means" are
as remote from its essential nature as are
"concepts." [not music to Deleuze's ears I would
have thought] .
505. Consciousness is present only to the extent
that consciousness is useful [for survival].
506. The tiny amount of emotion to which the
"word" gives rise, as we contemplate similar
images for which one word exists--this weak
emotion is the common element, the basis of the
concept. That weak sensations are regarded as
alike, sensed as being the same, is the
fundamental fact. Thus confusion of two sensations
that are close neighbors, as we take note of these
sensations; but who is taking note? [good question
-- how come this is only perceptible by
Nietzsche?] Believing is the primal beginning even
in every sense impression: a kind of affirmation
the first intellectual activity!
507. [Thus] "The real and the apparent world"--I
have traced this antithesis back to value
relations. We have projected the conditions of our
preservation as predicates of being in general.
Because we have to be stable in our beliefs if we
are to prosper, we have made the "real" world a
world not of change and becoming, but one of
being.[Odd bit this. I am still not sure if N
believes in the 'reality' of the biological
underpinnings? Or in his account of their reality?
Can paradox be avoided? N somehow speaks for
biology?]
509. The earthly kingdom of desires out of which
logic grew: the herd instinct in the background.
510. On the origin of logic. The fundamental
inclination to posit as equal,to see things as
equal, is modified, held in check, by
consideration of usefulness and harmfulness, by
considerations of success: it adapts itself to a
milder degree in which it can be satisfied without
at the same time denying and endangering life.
This whole process corresponds exactly to that
external, mechanical process (which is its symbol)
by which protoplasm makes what it appropriates
equal to itself and fits it into its own forms and
files.[So the 'semeiology' of Nietzsche is really
biological mechanism?]
512. Logic is bound to the condition: assume there
are identical cases. In fact, to make possible
logical thinking and inferences, this condition
must first be treated fictitiously as fulfilled.
That is: the will to logical truth can be carried
through only after a fundamental falsification of
all events is assumed.
513. It is the powerful who made the names of
things into law, and among the powerful it is the
greatest artists in abstraction who created the
categories.
514.[Gets a bit Berger and Luckmann-ish here]:
Exactly the same thing could have happened with
the categories of reason: they could have
prevailed, after much groping and fumbling,
through their relative utility--There came a point
when one collected them together, raised them to
consciousness as a whole--and when one commanded
them, i. e., when they had the effect of a
command--From then on, they counted as à priori,
as beyond experience, as irrefutable
515. No preexisting "idea" was here at work, but
the utilitarian fact that only when we see things
coarsely and made equal do they become calculable
and usable to us...The categories are "truths"'
only in the sense that they are conditions of life
for us...The subjective compulsion not to
contradict here is a biological compulsion: the
instinct for the utility of inferring as we do
infer is part of us, we almost are this
instinct--But what naivete to extract from this a
proof that we are therewith in possession of a
"truth in itself"!--Not being able to contradict
is proof of an incapacity, not of "truth."
516 [Challenging the law of non-contradiction
again] are the axioms of logic adequate to reality
or are they a means and measure for us to create
reality, the concept "reality," for
ourselves.?--To affirm the former one would, as
already said, have to have a previous knowledge of
being ...The conceptual ban on contradiction
proceeds from the belief that we are able to form
concepts, that the concept not only designates the
essence of a thing but comprehends it--In fact,
logic (like geometry and arithmetic) applies only
to fictitious entities that we have created.
517. The fictitious world of subject, substance,
"reason" etc., is needed--: there is in us a power
to order, simplify, falsify, artificially
distinguish. "Truth" is the will to be master over
the multiplicity of sensations:--to classify
phenomena into definite categories. In this we
start from a belief in the "in-itself" of things
(we take phenomena as real).[Could be Adorno on
the connections between cognitive and real
domination -- but no class dimension for
Nietzsche, just some natural human tendency to
reify?]...Knowledge [of this kind] and becoming
exclude one another.
518. If our "ego" is for us the sole being, after
the model of which we fashion and understand all
being: very well! Then there would be very much
room to doubt whether what we have here is not a
perspective illusion--an apparent unity that
encloses everything like a horizon. The evidence
of the body reveals a tremendous multiplicity [So
body and multiplicity are put in the context of
denying solipsism]
520. Continual transition forbids us to speak of
"individuals," etc; the "number" of beings is
itself in flux....A world in a state of becoming
could not, in a strict sense, be "comprehended" or
"known"; only to the extent that the
"comprehending" and "knowing" intellect encounters
a coarse, already-created world, fabricated out of
mere appearances but become firm to the extent
that this kind of appearance has preserved life.
521. [On biological classifications] The form
counts as something enduring and therefore more
valuable; but the form has merely been invented by
us; and however often "the same form is attained,"
it does not mean that it is the same form--what
appears is always something new [so this is a plus
for Deleuze's view of eternal return?] and
it is only we, who are always comparing, who
include the new, to the extent that it is similar
to the old, in the unity of the "form."...One
should not understand this compulsion to construct
concepts, species, forms, purposes, laws ("a world
of identical cases") as if they enabled us to fix
the real world; but as a compulsion to arrange a
world for ourselves in which our existence is made
possible:--we thereby create a world which is
calculable, simplified, comprehensible, etc., for
us....before logic itself entered our
consciousness, we did nothing but introduce
its postulates into events: now we discover them
in events--we can no longer do otherwise--and
imagine that this compulsion guarantees something
connected with "truth."
524. Usually, one takes consciousness itself as
the general sensorium and supreme court;
nonetheless, it is only a means of communication:
it is evolved through social intercourse and with
a view to the interests of social
intercourse--"Intercourse" here understood to
include the influences of the outer world and the
reactions they compel on our side; also our effect
upon the outer world. It is not the directing
agent, but an organ of the directing agent.
528. [D would like thyis too] Principal error of
psychologists: they regard the indistinct idea as
a lower kind of idea than the distinct: but that
which removes itself from our consciousness and
for that reason becomes obscure can on that
account be perfectly clear in itself. Becoming
obscure is a matter of perspective of
consciousness.
[530 has a detailed critique of Kant]
531. If I say "lightning flashes," I have posited
the flash once as an activity and a second time as
a subject, and thus added to the event a being
that is not one with the event but is rather
fixed, "is" and does not "become."--To regard an
event as an "effecting," and this as being, that
is the double error, or interpretation, of which
we are guilty.
532. Essential: to start from the body and employ
it as guide. It is the much richer phenomenon,
which allows of clearer observation. Belief in the
body is better established than belief in the
spirit [because] Probably an inner event
corresponds to each organic function.
533. Thus it is the highest degrees of performance
that awaken belief in the "truth," that is to say
reality, of the object. The feeling of strength,
of struggle, of resistance convinces us that there
is something that is here being resisted. [so]
534. The criterion of truth resides in the
enhancement of the feeling of power.
535.[Another bit D would like] "Truth": this,
according to my way of thinking, does not
necessarily denote the antithesis of error, but in
the most fundamental cases only the posture of
various errors in relation to one another. Perhaps
one is older, more profound than another, even
ineradicable, in so far as an organic entity of
our species could not live without it; while other
errors do not tyrannize over us in this way as
conditions of life, but on the contrary when
compared with such "tyrants" can be set aside and
"refuted."
538 [It follows from the above that] The doctrine
of being, of things, of all sorts of fixed unities
is a hundred times easier than the doctrine of
becoming,
543. Simple, transparent, not in contradiction
with himself, durable, remaining always the same,
without wrinkle, volt, concealment, form: a man of
this kind conceives a world of being as "God" in
his own image. For truthfulness to be possible,
the whole sphere of man must be very clean, small
and, respectable; advantage in every sense must be
with the truthful man [and it clearly isn't]
549. "Subject", "object", "attribute"--these
distinctions are fabricated and are now imposed as
a schematism upon all the apparent facts. The
fundamental false observation is that I believe it
is I who does something, suffer something, "have"
something, "have" a quality.
550. is intention the cause of an event? Or is
that also illusion? Is it not the event itself?
551. Critique of the concept "cause".- We have
absolutely no experience of a cause;
psychologically considered, we derive the entire
concept from the subjective conviction that we are
causes, namely, that the arm moves-- But that is
an error. We separate ourselves, the doers, from
the deed, and we make use of this pattern
everywhere--we seek a doer for every event. What
is it we have done? We have misunderstood the
feeling of strength, tension, resistance, a
muscular feeling that is already the beginning of
the act, as the cause, or we have taken the will
to do this or that for a cause because the action
follows upon it--cause...A necessary sequence of
states does not imply a causal relationship
between them (--that would mean making their
effective capacity leap from 1 to 2, to 3, to 4,
to 5). There are neither causes nor effects....The
calculability of an event does not reside in the
fact that a rule is adhered to, or that a
necessity is obeyed, or that a law of causality
has been projected by us into every event: it
resides in the [necessarily subjective] recurrence
of "identical cases"....There is no such thing as
a sense of causality, as Kant thinks. One is
surprised, one is disturbed, one desires something
familiar to hold on to--As soon as we are shown
something old in the new' we are calmed. The
supposed instinct for causality is only fear of
the unfamiliar and the attempt to discover
something familiar in it--a search, not for
causes, but for the familiar [all this presumably
before science started to deal with mathematical
notions of or evidence for causes between
imperceptible events etc].
552. [human examples again] "Mechanical necessity"
is not a fact: it is we who first interpreted it
into events. We have interpreted the formulatable
character of events as the consequence of a
necessity that rules over events. But from the
fact that I do a certain thing, it by no means
follows that I am compelled to do it. Compulsion
in things certainly cannot be demonstrated...It is
only after the model of the subject that we have
invented the
reality of things and projected them into the
medley of sensations. If we no longer believe in
the effective subject, then belief also disappears
in effective things, in reciprocation, cause and
effect between those phenomena that we call
things...Duration, identity with itself, being are
inherent neither in that which is called subject
nor in that which is called object: they are
complexes of events apparently durable in
comparison with other complexes...Will to truth is
a making firm, a making true and durable, an
abolition of the false character of things, a
reinterpretation of it into beings. "Truth" is
therefore not something there, that might be found
or discovered--but something that must be created
and that gives a name to a process, or rather to a
will to overcome that has in itself no end...As
soon as we imagine someone who is responsible for
our being thus and thus, etc. (God, nature), and
therefore attribute to him the intention that we
should exist and be happy or wretched, we corrupt
for ourselves the innocence of becoming....as soon
as dominion is established over a lesser power and
the latter operates as a function of the greater
power, an order of rank, of organization is bound
to produce the appearance of an order of means and
ends.
555. as soon as dominion is established over a
lesser power and the latter operates as a function
of the greater power, an order of rank, of
organization is bound to produce the appearance of
an order of means and ends. ...The question "what
is that?" is an imposition of meaning from some
other viewpoint.
556. "Essence," the "essential nature," is
something perspective and already presupposes a
multiplicity.[as in multiple intentions?] At
the bottom of it there always lies "what is that
for me?" (for us, for all that lives, etc.)...The
question "what is that?" is an imposition of
meaning from some other viewpoint. "Essence," the
"essential nature," is something perspective and
already presupposes a multiplicity. At the bottom
of it there always lies "what is that for me?"
(for us, for all that lives, etc.)...the
interpretation itself is a form of the will to
power, it exists (but not as a "being,' but as a
process, a becoming) as an affect.{Again, all
human examples of becoming etc --not forces in and
of themselves or nonhuman processes, bu the
results of human interventions?]...[We should see
things,including subjects,as] a simplification
with the object of defining the force which
posits, invents, thinks, as distinct from all
individual positing,
inventing, thinking as such. Thus a capacity as
distinct from all that is
individual--fundamentally, action collectively
considered with respect to all anticipated actions
(action and the probability of similar actions).
558. If I remove all the relationships, all the
"properties," all the "activities" of a thing, the
thing does not remain over.
560. That things possess a constitution in
themselves quite apart from interpretation and
subjectivity, is a quite idle
hypothesis...Conversely, the apparent objective
character of things: could it not be merely a
difference of degree within the subjective
561. All unity is unity only as organization and
co-operation--just as a human community is a
unity--as opposed to an atomistic anarchy, as a
pattern of domination that signifies a unity but
is not a unity
562. "The thing affects a subject"? Root of the
idea of substance in language, not in beings
outside us! [sounds like Winch now] ...The
explanation of an event can be sought firstly:
through mental images of the event that precede it
(aims); secondly: through mental images that
succeed it (the mathematicalphysical explanation).
563. Our "knowing" limits itself to establishing
quantities; but we cannot help feeling these
differences in quantity as qualities...Our senses
have a definite quantum as a mean within which
they function; i. e., we sense bigness and
smallness in relation to the conditions of our
existence.If we sharpened or blunted our senses
tenfold, we should perish; i. e., with regard to
making possible our existence we sense even
relations between magnitudes as qualities.
564. Might all quantities not be signs of
qualities?...the desire for an increase in quantum
grows from a quale; in a purely quantitative world
everything would be dead, stiff, motionless.-- The
reduction of all qualities to quantities is
nonsense: what appears is that the one accompanies
the other, an analogy--
565. we cannot help feeling that mere quantitative
differences are something fundamentally distinct
from quantity, namely that they are qualities
which can no longer be reduced to one another. But
everything for which the word "knowledge" makes
any sense refers to the domain of reckoning.
weighing, measuring, to the domain of
quantity;...Qualities are an idiosyncrasy peculiar
to man; to demand that our human interpretations
and values should be
universal and perhaps constitutive values is one
of the hereditary madnesses of human pride.
567. Every center of force adopts a perspective
toward the entire remainder, i. e., its own
particular valuation, mode of action, and mode of
resistance. The "apparent world," therefore, is
reduced to a specific mode of action on the world,
emanating from a center....But there is no
"other," no "true," no essential being--for this
would be the expression of a world without action
and reaction
568. Appearance is an arranged and simplified
world, at which our practical instincts have been
at work; it is perfectly true for us...it is
essentially a world of relationships; under
certain conditions it has a differing aspect from
every point; its being is essentially different
from every point; it presses upon every point,
every point resists it--and the sum of these is in
every case quite incongruent. [You can see how
Sartre developed out of this]...The measure of
power determines what being possesses the other
measure of power; in what form, force, constraint
it acts or resists
569. the antithesis of this phenomenal world is
not "the true world," but the formless
unformulable world of the chaos of
sensations--another kind of phenomenal world, a
kind "unknowable" for us [so a conclusion which
seems to deliver him entirely to phenomenology?]
hypothesis that only subjects exist--that "object"
is only a kind of effect produced by a subject
upon a subject a modus of the subject.
572. Plato measured the degree of reality by the
degree of value and said: The more "Idea", the
more being. He reversed the concept "reality" and
said: "What you take for real is an error, and the
nearer we approach the 'Idea', the nearer we
approach 'truth'. "--Is this understood? It was
the greatest of rebaptisms; and because it has
been adopted by Christianity we do not recognize
how astonishing it is.
574. It is in the nature of thinking that it
thinks of and invents the unconditioned as an
adjunct to the conditioned; just as it thought of
and invented the "ego" as an adjunct to the
multiplicity of its processes; it measures the
world according to magnitudes posited by
itself--such fundamental fictions as "the
unconditional","ends and
means'',"things","substances", logical laws,
numbers and forms.
576. That which has been feared the most, the
cause of the most powerful suffering (lust to
rule, sex, etc.), has been treated by men with the
greatest amount of hostility and eliminated from
the "true" world. Thus they have eliminated the
affects one by one...In the same way, they have
hated the irrational, the arbitrary, the
accidental (as the causes of immeasurable physical
suffering.
579. Psychology of metaphysics.--This world is
apparent: consequently there is a true
world;--this world is conditional: consequently
there is an unconditioned world;--this world is
full of contradiction: consequently there is a
world free of contradiction;-- this world is a
world of becoming: consequently there is a world
of being:--all false conclusions...If, however,
the conditioned world is causally conditioned by
the unconditioned world, then freedom to err and
incur guilt must also be conditioned by it: and
again one asks, what for?--The world of
appearance, becoming, contradiction, suffering, is
therefore willed: what for?...But the origin of
these antitheses need not necessarily go back to a
supernatural source of reason: it is sufficient to
oppose to it the real genesis of the concepts.
This derives from the practical sphere, the sphere
of utility...Brave and creative men never consider
pleasure and pain as ultimate values--they are
epiphenomena: one must desire both if one is to
achieve anything.
580. In a world of becoming, "reality" is always
only a simplification for practical ends, or a
deception through the coarseness of organs, or a
variation in the tempo of becoming.
583. I observe with astonishment that science has
today resigned itself to the apparent world...[but
generally in philosophy, the notion of an apparent
world also implies a real world -- a fundamental
mistake] Prejudice of prejudices! Firstly, it
would be possible that the true constitution of
things was so hostile to the presuppositions of
life, so opposed to them, that we needed
appearance in order to be able to live-- After
all, this is the case in so many situations; e.
g., in marriage....It is of cardinal importance
that one should abolish the true world. It is the
great inspirer of doubt and devaluator in respect
of the world we are: it has been our most
dangerous attempt yet to assassinate life. War on
all presuppositions on the basis of which one has
invented a true world. Among these is the
presupposition that moral values are thesupreme
values....The "will to truth" would then have to
be investigated psychologically:
it is not a moral force, but a form of the will to
power. This would have to be proved by showing
that it employs every immoral means....The
"criterion of truth" was in fact merely the
biological utility of such a system of systematic
falsification; and since a species of animals
knows of nothing more important than its own
preservation, one might indeed be permitted to
speak here of "truth." The naivete was to take an
anthropocentric idiosyncrasy as the measure of
things, as the rule for determining "real" and
"unreal"...one believed one possessed a criterion
of reality in the forms of reason--while in fact
one possessed them in order to become master of
reality, in order to misunderstand reality in a
shrewd manner--...now the world became false, and
precisely on account of the properties that
constitute its reality: change, becoming,
multiplicity, opposition, contradiction, war...The
expression "that should not be," "that should not
have been," is farcical-- If one thinks out the
consequences, one would ruin the source of life if
one wanted to abolish whatever was in some respect
harmful or destructive. Physiology teaches us
better!...We see at work before us a dreadful tool
of decadence that props itself up by the holiest
names and attitudes.
585. Why is it that he [man] derives suffering
from change, deception, contradiction? and why not
rather his happiness?-- Contempt, hatred for all
that perishes, changes, varies-- whence comes this
valuation of that which remains constant?
Obviously, the will to truth is here merely the
desire for a world of the constant....A nihilist
is a man who judges of the world as it is that it
ought not to be, and of the world as it ought to
be that it does not exist. According
to this view, our existence (action, suffering,
willing, feeling) has no meaning.
586 [long recap of the argument so far -- true and
other worlds as necessary consequences of the
rejection of this world] General insight: it is
the instinct of life-weariness, and not that of
life, which has created the "other world."
Consequence: philosophy, religion, and morality
are symptoms of decadence.
588. The question of values is more fundamental
than the question of certainty: the latter becomes
serious only by presupposing that the value
question has already been answered
590. Our values are interpreted into things. Is
there then any meaning in the in-itself? ! Is
meaning not necessarily relative meaning and
perspective? All meaning is will to power (all
relative meaning resolves itself into it)
594. Science--this has been hitherto a way of
putting an end to the complete confusion in which
things exist, by hypotheses that "explain"
everything--so it has come from the intellect's
dislike of chaos.--This same dislike seizes me
when I consider myself: I should like to form an
image of the inner world too, by means of some
schema, and thus triumph over intellectual
confusion. Morality has been a simplification of
this kind
595. Our presuppositions: no God: no purpose:
finite force. Let us guard against thinking out
and prescribing the mode of thought necessary to
lesser men!!
596. No "moral education" of the human race: but
an enforced schooling in [scientific] errors is
needed, because "truth" disgusts and makes one
sick of life--unless man is already irrevocably
launched upon his path and has taken his honest
insight upon himself with a tragic pride.
600. No limit to the ways in which the world can
be interpreted; every interpretation a symptom of
growth or of decline.
604. "Interpretation," the introduction of meaning
not "explanation" (in most cases a new
interpretation over an old interpretation that has
become incomprehensible, that is now itself only a
sign). There are no facts, everything is in flux,
incomprehensible, elusive; what is relatively most
enduring is--our opinions
605. The ascertaining of "truth" and "untruth,"
the ascertaining of facts in general, is
fundamentally different from creative positing,
from forming, shaping, overcoming, willing, such
as is of the essence of philosophy.
608. [Shades of Lyotard again] The development of
science resolves the "familiar" more and more into
the unfamiliar..."Wisdom" as the attempt to get
beyond perspective valuations (i. e., beyond the
"will to power"): a principle hostile to life and
decadent, a symptom as among the Indians, etc., of
the weakening of the power of appropriation.
612. To win back for the man of knowledge the
right to great affects! after self-effacement and
the cult of "objectivity" have created a false
order of rank in this sphere, too [as opposed to
the 'objectivity' proposed by Schopenhauer].
617. To impose upon becoming the character of
being--that is the supreme will to power...That
everything recurs is the closest approximation of
a world of becoming to a world of being:--high
point of the meditation....Becoming as invention,
willing, self-denial, overcoming of oneself: no
subject but an action, a positing, creative, no
"causes and effects."...Instead of "cause and
effect" the mutual struggle of that which becomes,
often with the absorption of one's opponent [looks
a bit Hegelian]
[and then a remark that Zarathustra is a parody of
conventional values,a point re-emphasised in
Kauffman's commentary in Gay Science]
Book Four Discipline and Breeding
858. What determines your rank is the quantum of
power you are: the rest is cowardice.[and what
determines the quantum of power, matey?]
862. A doctrine is needed powerful enough to work
as a breeding agent: strengthening the strong,
paralyzing and destructive for the worldweary. The
annihilation of the decaying races...Dominion over
the earth as a means of producing a higher type.--
The annihilation of the tartuffery called
"morality"...The annihilation of suffrage
universel; i. e., the system through which the
lowest natures prescribe themselves as laws for
the higher.-- The annihilation of mediocrity and
its acceptance...to strive for fullness of nature
through the pairing of opposites: race mixture to
this end [? abolishing it?] ...a free
subordination to a ruling idea that has its time
871. that which men of power and will are able to
demand of themselves also provides a measure of
that which they may permit themselves. Such
natures are the antithesis of the vicious and
unbridled: although they may on occasion do things
that would convict a lesser man of vice and
immoderation...Here the concept of the "equal
value of men before God" is extraordinarily
harmful...Confusion went so far that one branded
the very virtuosi of life (whose autonomy offered
the sharpest antithesis to the vicious and
unbridled) with the most opprobrious names. Even
now one believes one must disapprove of a Cesare
Borgia...Has it been noticed that in heaven all
interesting men are missing?-- Just a hint to the
girls as to where they can best find their
salvation.
893. Hatred of mediocrity is [seen as]
unworthy of a philosopher: it is almost a question
mark against his "right to philosophy." Precisely
because he is an exception he has to take the rule
under his protection, he has to keep the mediocre
in good heart
898. Until now, "education" has had in view the
needs of society: not the possible needs of the
future, but the needs of the society of the
day...The increasing dwarfing of man is precisely
the driving force that brings to mind the breeding
of a stronger race--a race that would be excessive
precisely where the dwarfed species was weak and
growing weaker (in will, responsibility,
self-assurance, ability to posit goals for
oneself)...[and later]: one should observe our
scholars from close up: they think only
reactively; i. e., they have to read before they
can think. [As for pedagogy] One would make a fit
little boy stare if one asked him: "Would you like
to become virtuous?"-- but he will open his eyes
wide if asked: "Would you like to become stronger
than your friends?"
The homogenizing of European man is the great
process that cannot be obstructed: one should even
hasten it...As soon as it is established, this
homogenizing species requires a justification: it
lies in serving a higher sovereign species that
stands upon the former and can raise itself to its
task only by doing this. Not merely a master race
whose sole task is to rule, but a race with its
own sphere of life, with an excess of strength for
beauty, bravery, culture, manners to the highest
peak of the spirit; an affirming race that may
grant itself every great luxury--strong enough to
have no need of the tyranny of the
virtue-imperative, rich enough to have no need of
thrift and pedantry, beyond good and evil; a
hothouse for strange and choice plants.
899. now there are coming new barbarians cynics
{experimenters} conquerors union of spiritual
superiority with well-being and an excess of
strength
900. another type of barbarian, who comes from the
heights: a species of conquering and ruling
natures in search of material to mold. Prometheus
was this kind of barbarian
910. To those human beings who are of any concern
to me I wish suffering, desolation, sickness,
ill-treatment, indignities--I wish that they
should not remain unfamiliar with profound
self-contempt, the torture of self-mistrust,
the wretchedness of the vanquished: I have
no pity for them, because I wish them the only
thing that can prove today whether one is worth
anything or not--that one endures.
916. [Among other decadent institutions enshrining
asceticism are] Our absurd pedagogic world, before
which the "useful civil servant" hovers as a
model, thinks it can get by with "instruction,"
with brain drill; it has not the slightest idea
that something else is needed first--education of
will power; one devises tests for everything
except for the main thing: whether one can will,
whether one may promise; the young man finishes
school without a single question, without any
curiosity even, concerning this supreme
value-problem of his nature. [However, fasting is
OK]: occasionally to stop reading, listening to
music, being pleasant; one must have fast days for
one's virtues, too. [There is also] death-- One
must convert the stupid physiological fact into a
moral necessity. So to live that one can also will
at the right time to die!
941. They [the majority] want to have themselves
formed--that is the meaning of their cultural
activity! But the strong, the mighty want to form
and no longer to have anything foreign about them!
[And here is a good one for outdoor
adventurers...] Thus men also plunge into wild
nature, not to find themselves but to lose and
forget themselves in it. "To be outside oneself"
as the desire of all the weak and the
self-discontented.
942. There is only nobility of birth, only
nobility of blood [but this does not refer to
existing noble families] ...When one speaks of
"aristocrats of the spirit," reasons are usually
not lacking for concealing something; as is well
known, it is a favorite term among ambitious Jews.
For spirit alone does not make noble; rather,
there must be something to ennoble the spirit.--
What then is required? Blood.
958. I write for a species of man that does not
yet exist: for the "masters of the earth...In
Plato's Theages it is written: "Each one of us
would like to be master over all men, if possible,
and best of all God." This attitude must exist
again. Englishmen, Americans, and Russians.
966. The highest man would have the greatest
multiplicity of drives, in the relatively greatest
strength that can be endured. Indeed, where the
plant "man" shows himself strongest one finds
instincts that conflict powerfully (e. g., in
Shakespeare), but are controlled.
981. Not to allow oneself to be misled by blue
eyes or heaving bosoms [too late matey] :greatness
of soul has nothing romantic about it. And
unfortunately nothing at all amiable.
1003. [The hero] divines the remedies for partial
injuries; he has illnesses as great stimulants of
his life [hmm --anyone in mind here?]
1007. To revalue values--what would that mean? All
the spontaneous--new,future, stronger--movements
must be there; but they still appear under false
names and valuations and have not yet become
conscious of themselves. A courageous
becoming-conscious and affirmation of what has
been achieved--a liberation from the slovenly
routine of old valuations that dishonor us in the
best and strongest things we have achieved.
1017 . Neither has one dared to grasp that an
increase in the terribleness of man is an
accompaniment of every increase in culture; in
this, one is still subject to the Christian ideal
and takes its side against paganism, also against
the Renaissance concept of virtù...Napoleon:
insight that the higher and the terrible man
necessarily belong together. The "man" reinstated;
the woman again accorded her due tribute of
contempt and fear. "Totality" as health and
highest activity; the straight line, the grand
style in action rediscovered; the most powerful
instinct, that of life itself, the lust to rule,
affirmed
1026. Such men as Napoleon must come again and
again and confirm the belief in the autocracy of
the individual: but he himself was corrupted by
the means he had to employ and lost noblesse of
character
1038. Is it necessary to elaborate that a god
prefers to stay beyond everything bourgeois and
rational? and, between ourselves, also beyond good
and evil?
1054 [soon after a subheading -- The Eternal
Recurrence] The greatest of struggles: for
this a new weapon is needed. The hammer: to
provoke a fearful decision, to confront Europe
with the consequences: whether its will "wills"
destruction. Prevention of reduction to
mediocrity. Rather destruction!
1055 a mighty pressure and hammer with which he
[the philosopher]breaks and removes degenerate and
decaying races to make way for a new order of
life.
1056. the idea that gives many the right to erase
themselves-- the great cultivating idea.
1057. The eternal recurrence. A prophecy [there
follows a series of headings for a planned
book,apparently, including ]3. Probable
consequences of its being believed (it makes
everything break open). a) Means of enduring it;
b) Means of disposing it. 4. Its place in history
as a mid-point. Period of greatest danger.
Foundation of an oligarchy above peoples and their
interests: education to a universally human
politics. Counterpart of Jesuitism.
1058. The two great philosophical points of view
(devised by Germans): a) that of becoming, of
development. b) that according to the value of
existence (but the wretched form of German
pessimism must first be overcome!)--both
brought together by me in a decisive way.
Everything becomes and recurs eternally--escape is
impossible!-- Supposing we could judge value, what
follows? The idea of recurrence as a selective
principle, in the service of strength (and
barbarism!!).
1059. 1. The idea [of the eternal recurrence]: the
presuppositions that would have to be true if it
were true. Its consequences. 2. As the hardest
idea: its probable effect if it were not
prevented, i. e., if all values were not revalued.
3. Means of enduring it: the revaluation of all
values. No longer joy in certainty but
uncertainty; no longer "cause and effect" but the
continually creative; no longer will to
preservation but to power; no longer the humble
expression, "everything is merely subjective," but
"it is also our work!-- Let us be proud of it!"
1060. To endure the idea of the recurrence one
needs: freedom from morality [so he won't feel
guilty next time] ; new means against the fact of
pain (pain conceived as a tool, as the father of
pleasure; there is no cumulative consciousness of
displeasure); the enjoyment of all kinds of
uncertainty, experimentalism, as a counterweight
to this extreme fatalism; abolition of the concept
of necessity; abolition of the [normal conceptions
of?] "will"; abolition of
"knowledge-in-itself." Greatest elevation of the
consciousness of strength in man, as he creates
the overman.
1061. The two most extreme modes of thought--the
mechanistic and the Platonic--are reconciled in
the eternal recurrence: both as ideals.
1062. [Given the lapse of time, the world would
have reached its final state by now if it were not
still becoming] If it were in any way
capable of a pausing and becoming fixed, of
"being," then all becoming would long since have
come to an end, along with all thinking, all
"spirit." The fact of "spirit" as a form of
becoming proves that the world has no goal, no
final state, and is incapable of being [really
weak tautological arguments in my view- -and the
latter refers to human notions of becoming
again.Not Deleuzian at all!]...This notion--that
the world intentionally avoids a goal and even
knows artifices for keeping itself from entering
into a circular course--must occur to all those
who would like to force on the world the ability
for eternal novelty, i. e., on a finite, definite,
unchangeable force of constant size, such as the
world is, the miraculous power of infinite novelty
in its forms and states....The world, even if it
is no longer a god, is still supposed to be
capable of the divine power of creation, the power
of infinite transformations; it is supposed to
consciously prevent itself from returning to any
of its old forms. it is supposed to possess not
only the intention but the means of every one of
its movements at every moment so as to escape
goals, final states, repetitions--and whatever
else may follow from such an unforgivably insane
way of thinking and desiring. It is still the old
religious way of thinking and desiring, a kind of
longing to believe that in some way the world is
after all like the old beloved, infinite,
boundlessly creative God--that in some way "the
old God still lives"-- that longing of Spinoza
which was expressed in the words "deus sive
natura" [God or nature.] (he even felt "natura
sive deus"). {So THIS notion cannot be the basis
for the eternal return?]...the world, as force,
may not be thought of as unlimited, for it cannot
be so thought of; we forbid ourselves the concept
of an infinite force as incompatible with the
concept "force." Thus--the world also lacks the
capacity for eternal novelty.
1063. [So] The law of the conservation of energy
demands eternal recurrence [so it is OK to rely on
science here then? Isn't this just a superficial
law based on appearances?] [and what do we make of
this...]
1064. That a state of equilibrium is never reached
proves that it is not possible. But in an
indefinite space it would have to have been
reached. Likewise in a spherical space. The shape
of space must be the cause of eternal movement,
and ultimately of all "imperfection". [all
tautological and self-referring,claiming to be
'science' still?] ...[Matey sees the problem] the
necessity of change has only been posited once
more conceptually.[so let us appeal to common
sense...]
1065 everything seems far too valuable to be so
fleeting: I seek an eternity for everything: ought
one to pour the most precious salves and wines
into the sea?-- My consolation[sic] is that
everything that has been is eternal: the sea will
cast it up again [Reads like Moby Dick
here -- and elsewhere!].
1066. The world exists; it is not something that
becomes, not something that passes away. Or
rather: it becomes, it passes away, but it has
never begun to become and never ceased from
passing away--it maintains itself in both.-- It
lives on itself: its excrements are its food...The
last attempt to conceive a world that had a
beginning has lately been made several times with
the aid of logical procedures--generally, as one
may divine, with an ulterior theological
motive.{The some waffle to demolish straw men
arguments for a finite world,specifically
Duhring's] Nothing can prevent me from reckoning
backward from this moment and saying "I shall
never reach the end"; just as I can reckon forward
from the same moment into the infinite. Only if I
made the mistake--I shall guard against it--of
equating this correct concept of a regressus in
infinitum with an utterly unrealizable concept of
a finite progressus up to this present, only if I
suppose that the direction (forward or backward)
is logically a matter of difference, would I
take the head--this moment--for the tail...If the
world could in any way become rigid, dry, dead,
nothing, or if it could reach a state of
equilibrium, or if it had any kind of goal that
involved duration, immutability, the
once-and-for-all (in short, speaking
metaphysically: if becoming could resolve itself
into being or into nothingness), then this state
must have been reached: from which it
follows--...If, e. g.,the mechanistic theory
cannot avoid the consequence, drawn for it by
William Thomson [{his brackets} First Baron Kelvin
(1824-1907), British physicist and mathematician
who introduced the Kelvin or Absolute Scale of
temperature.], of leading to a final state, then
the mechanistic theory stands refuted [pathetic
argument from authority,personal and scientific]
...If the world may be thought of as a certain
definite quantity of force and as a certain
definite number of centers of force--and every
other representation remains indefinite and
therefore useless--it follows that, in the great
dice game of existence, it must pass through a
calculable number of combinations. In infinite
time, every possible combination would at some
time or another be realized; more: it would be
realized an infinite number of times. And since
between every combination and its next recurrence
all other possible combinations would have to take
place, and each of these combinations conditions
the entire sequence of combinations in the same
series, a circular movement of absolutely
identical series is thus demonstrated: the world
as a circular movement that has already repeated
itself infinitely often and plays its game in
infinitum. This conception is not simply a
mechanistic conception; for if it were that, it
would not condition an infinite recurrence of
identical cases, but a final state. Because the
world has not reached this, mechanistic theory
must be considered an imperfect and merely
provisional hypothesis.[Still not the deleuzian
notion --but statistical repetition, like
monkeys pounding keyboards.The last bit is really
baffling or tautological]
[Ends with the quote at the start]
Jeez
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