Spring 2000 Cyberseminar in Objectivist Studies
Nietzsche and Objectivism

Unit Two: February 21 - March 19

Jason Walker's Comment on
Shawn Klein's Review Essay
"Nietzsche's Metaphysics and Epistemology"
In The Will to Power, Geneology of Morals and Beyond Good and Evil

To: TOC Cyberseminar <cybersem@objectivistcenter.org>

Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2000 11:00 AM

Subject: Cyberseminar: Part 2 JW Commentary on SK Review Essay

[Moderator's note: this is a delayed contribution to the Part 2 discussion]

From: Jason Walker

Commentary on Shawn Klein:

I apologize for the lateness of this commentary.

First, I too would like to congratulate Shawn on the quality of his review
of Nietzsche's metaphysics. For someone who's had so little exposure to
Nietzsche in the past, Shawn has constructed a remarkably insightful, fresh
review essay.

One area that has great promise for further exploration is the connection
Shawn makes between Kantian metaphysics and Nietzsche's. It was a
connection I had never noticed before, and re-reading our assigned reading
on Nietzsche, I can definitely see it. Just as Kant appropriated many of
the ideas of Hume in order to attack him, it seems that Nietzsche took on
much of Kant, at least in the way of premises.

Will to Power

I do think a small clarification is needed with Shawn's description of
Nietzsche's concept of the "Will to Power."

Shawn writes: "The other major part of Nietzsche's epistemology is the will
to power. Most of the work is done by this idea. The will to power is
basically the force within humans that drives us to survive and live. We
survive and live by forcing other people and 'reality' to succumb to our
power."

I think this description is not entirely accurate. More often than not,
when Nietzsche talks about "power" as in the will to power, I think we as
Objectivists might better understand him to be referring to what we call
"efficacy" rather than power in the political sense, or over reality. If
this is to be power over any human being, it would be power over oneself.

Lester Hunt, in his _Nietzsche and the Origin of Virtue_, argues that
although there are times when Nietzsche is literal when he discusses power,
"[Nietzsche] suggests, ..., that the will to power is more like a desire to
exercise one's powers, as for instance one's powers of speech" (Hunt 72).

And second, more specific to the will to power vis a vis epistemology, Shawn
describes Nietzsche's theory as advocating that "Strength comes in actively
creating the 'reality' of one's world." I think there's a larger sense in
which Nietzsche's thought is actually opposed to this. One of the key
foundations of his thought centers on the "this-worldly" as opposed to what
he considered the imaginary world created under slave morality, the world of
Heaven, or the Platonic world of forms, to name two examples. If strength
came from creating a new reality, Nietzsche would've championed their cause
rather than the cause of the "anti-Christs." I tend to interpret Nietzsche
as a "realist" although a very thoroughly cynical one. When he talks about
creating reality, I think he refers more to a sense of building _on_ the
reality of a current situation. One might create the reality of being
finanicially well off by working for it and having the drive, ambition, and
will to power to accomplish it. The present reality may be that the
would-be millionaire is poor; but the will to power provides the stimulus to
rise above that reality to create something better, so that the present
reality is challenged and eventually altered.

At least, I think Nietzsche's philosophy is broad enough to allow for this
interpretation. His philosophy is also broad enough for others, and
certainly he is not as consistent as I would like, but I think this
interpretation makes the most sense as a viable position, especially from an
Objectivist perspective.

- Jason Walker,
University of Texas at Austin


*****************************************************
Spring 2000 Cyberseminar in Objectivist Studies

All Cyberseminar posts are working papers with copyright
reserved to the author. They may not be published or adapted
without permission, but may be circulated for purposes of
scholarly discussion.

*****************************************************