Saturday, July 27, 2013

Will to Power, Morality, Examplification

In 'Of the Bestowing Virtue', in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the image of the Will to Power is "gold", which "always bestows itself".  Now, the process of perpetual bestowal seems paradoxical, if not impossible, since it involves giving without subtraction.  However, there is a familiar experience that is constituted by that pattern--what has been called here 'Examplification', i. e. setting an example.  Now, to set an example is to establish a paradigm for some specific conduct, which, when generalized, is the act of creating a Moral doctrine.  Thus, the introduction of the Will to Power and the study of Morality are not two independent features of Nietzsche's later oeuvre--they are different facets of one and the same project, intersecting in the process of Examplification.

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