Nietzsche and the Will to Power"

the will to power metaphysics is

considered one of the main branches of

philosophy and deals with questions

concerning the nature of reality

philosophers have been interested in

this field for thousands of years and

countless metaphysical systems have been

put forth since the time of the ancient

Greeks however over the past several

centuries one metaphysical system has

attained a position of dominance

especially within the domain of science

that being the doctrine of of

materialism a central tenant of

materialism as the name implies is that

reality is ultimately material or in

other words the universe is composed

entirely of matter and it is the

interaction of basic material units

which accounts for all phenomena be it

Consciousness the birth of stars or the

emergence of

life for the materialist these basic

units of matter are devoid of Life a

view which for many may seem quite

reasonable and even common sensical but

it is also a view which leads to a

seemingly unsolvable problem that being

if the basic units of the universe are

devoid of life and experience then how

do these units come together to produce

living organisms who are able to

experience the world around them to put

it simply how does life emerge from

various combinations of dead or in other

words inanimate material

elements the inability of scientific

material ISM to offer a plausible answer

to this question has led some to

question the presuppositions of

materialism as we will see in this

lecture Frederick nche was one thinker

Who challenged the doctrine of

materialism and we will examine his

views on materialism as well as

discussing the views of another famous

Challenger of the materialist Doctrine

the great 20th century mathematician and

philosopher Alfred North

Whitehead the first philosophers of

Western Civilization the presocratic who

lived in the 6th and fifth centuries BC

did not have trouble accounting for the

emergence of life in the universe in

fact to them the question never arose at

all the presocratic of ancient Greece

thought the universe was composed of a

substance which was alive Divine and

endowed with intelligence there was no

question as to how life arose in the

universe for the very fabric of reality

to the presocratic was alive itself

however the last of the presocratic

democratus strayed from this vision of

the universe and proposed that the

Universe consists solely of atoms and

void atoms are not imbued with life and

spontaneity but instead are inanimate

particles that float in the infinite

void such a Doctrine called adamism saw

its influence wax and Wayne over the

centuries but nearly 2,000 years after

the death of democratus adamism Saw a

major Revival in the 17th century among

thinkers of the Scientific Revolution

such as Galileo galile Pierre gendi and

Isaac

Newton the influence of atomism can be

seen in the development of classical or

Newtonian physics the rise of modern

atomic theory and more generally in the

central role the atom has played as the

basic element of nature for the doctrine

of scientific

materialism undeniably some fascinating

and profound scientific theories have

been put forth within the Paradigm of

materialism but as the years passed it

became more and more obvious that such a

Doctrine did not seem capable of

accounting for one of the most

remarkable things in the universe that

being

Life One opponent of materialism during

the early 20th century was Alfred North

Whitehead who is famous for among other

things collaborating with Bertrand

Russell his former student on the work

prinkipia Mathematica

Whitehead thought the acceptance of the

17th century scientific cosmology at

face value that being materialism

hampered the development of a

metaphysical system that could

adequately account for the existence of

life inheriting and modifying what was

originally democratus idea that the

basic elements of the universe are

senseless valueless and purposeless

materialism has yet been able to explain

how these elements combine to give rise

to living organisms that are purposeful

and experience the world around them

white had thought scientific materialism

in positing the basic elements of the

universe to be senseless valueless and

purposeless material entities had fallen

victim to what he called the fallacy of

misplaced

concreteness he defined such a fallacy

as the error of mistaking the abstract

for the concrete which can alternately

be stated as the erroneous assumption

that one's abstract Concepts describe

reality as it actually

exists to try and make this difficult

idea clear we are going to take a slight

detour to make sure the terms used in

this fallacy are clearly

understood first of all a concept is

simply an idea of something such as a

computer a tree or an

atom One Way some have suggested we form

Concepts is through the process of

abstraction so for example to form the

concept of a chair means not thinking of

the particular details of a specific

chair but only of what is required for a

chair to be a chair a certain color size

or weight is not a requirement for

something to be a chair so we abstract

away these characteristics to get to

those characteristics which are

essential for a chair to be a chair such

as it being an object which we can sit

on in contrast to a concept formed by

abstraction a concrete is the thing that

actually exists out there in reality not

the idea of it we have formed in our

minds but rather the thing in all its

Glory with the terms clear we can see

what Whitehead is suggesting as we noted

earlier scientific materialists assume

that the universe is composed of

material Elements which are senseless

valueless and purposeless or in other

words wholly inanimate materialists

assume that their concept of the basic

elements is an accurate depiction of the

concrete basic elements or other words

the elements which actually exist in

reality Whitehead however thought this

interpretation was seriously lacking in

forming their concept of the basic

elements of the universe Whitehead

believed that scientific materialists

were abstracting away fundamental and

essential characteristics of reality

characteristics he thought were

essential to explaining the emergence of

life in other words it is because

materialists have falsely assumed that

their concept of the basic elements of

the universe actually depict the

elements as they exist in reality that

they have fallen victim to the fallacy

of misplaced

concreteness now this does not mean that

by committing such a fallacy the

materialist Doctrine and its

abstractions are worthless rather it

points to important limitations of such

a paradigm the assumption that the

universe is composed of Senseless

valueless and purposeless material

entities works perfectly fine if one has

the goal of of calculating the

trajectory of billiard balls or of how

much fuel is needed to travel to the

Moon but in trying to explain an account

for the emergence and existence of Life

the doctrine of materialism seems to

lead to a dead

end because of materialism's inability

to account for the existence of Life

whad called for the development of a new

metaphysical vision of the

universe the field is now open for the

introduction of some new doctrine of

organism which may take the place of the

materialism with which since the 17th

century science has saddled philosophy

such a displacement of scientific

materialism if it ever takes place

cannot fail to have important

consequences in every field of

thought in order to create such a

metaphysical system White had thought it

was necessary to utilize a source of

knowledge that is intimately accessible

and familiar to us one which scientific

materialists completely ignored that

being our own

experience n who died approximately 25

years before Whitehead's call for the

development of a new metaphysical system

in fact developed an alternative that

being his doctrine of the will to

power similar to Whitehead n thought

that in order to formulate an adequate

metaphysical explanation of the universe

it was necessary to start from that

which is most accessible to us our own

experience it was in fact by turning his

gaze inwards and analyzing his own

experience that n came to conceive the

world as Will To Power as he wrote in

Beyond Good and Evil supposing that

nothing else is given as real but our

world of desires and passions that we

cannot sink or rise to any other reality

but just that of our impulses for

thinking is only a relation of these

impulses to one another are we not

permitted to make the attempt to ask the

question whether this which is given

does not suffice for understanding even

the so-called mechanical or Material

World n wanted to understand the

ultimate constitution of Reality by

analyzing his own impulses desires and

passions as he believed that we could

learn something about reality by looking

into and analyzing

ourselves Whitehead too advocated a

similar method he claimed that we seem

to be ourselves elements of this world

in the same sense as are other things

that we perceive perceive since we are

elements in the universe which share the

same Essence as the things we perceive

we can learn something about these

things by looking into and analyzing

ourselves in utilizing their bold and

somewhat similar methods nche and

Whitehead came to the idea that the

basic elements of the universe have a

primitive form of experience a view

which in philosophy is now termed

panexperientialism

it is important not to interpret this

idea as saying that the elements have

Consciousness or even that they perceive

the world around them rather such a view

merely postulates that they have an

experiential aspect or what n called A

Primitive and rudimentary inner

will the Victorious concept Force he

said referring to the materialist view

of the universe still needs to be

completed an inner will must be ascribed

to it which I designate Will To Power

I.E as an insatiable desire to manifest

power n thus put forth an alternative

view of nature which unlike materialism

did not create a seemingly unbridgeable

void between the living and non-living

as for n far from being inanimate

senseless and purposeless reality was

composed entirely of elements which have

an inner will or in other words which

are in a sense

alive to conclude this lecture it is

important to note that one of the

central characteristics of n was his

skepticism and anti-dogmatic even with

respect to his own ideas and theories he

viewed them as perspectives and

interpretations and not as ultimate and

absolute truths in Beyond Good and Evil

after speaking of his doctrine of the

will to power he wrote granted this is

only an interpretation too and you will

be eager enough to make this objection

well then so much the better