Will to Power

Perhaps the most significant innovation of Nietzsche's doctrine of Will to Power is its challenge to the dogma, especially Schopenhauer's version, that the fundamental vitalistic conatus seeks persistence in living. His doctrine also specifically rejects Schopenhauer's Platonization of the Will to Live principle, holding, instead, that Will to Power consists entirely in its singular concrete occurrences. However, it also inherits Schopenhauer's questionable, as has been previously argued here, personification of the principle as a 'Will', even in the most impersonal instance. Consequently, Nietzsche's focus is more on the terminal, 'Power' phase of the process, i. e. that it seeks to discharge its strength in the face of resistance, and less on the character of its initial, 'Will', phase, which, therefore, remains vague in his treatment. In contrast, Will, as defined here, is the effort to execute a command that, in essence, constitutes a variation of established conditions. Hence, the very occurrence of Will, from the outset, is an exercise of strength with respect to its antecedents, i. e. is at even its initial phase already an expression of Power. In other words, while Nietzsche's analysis seems to characterize the middle phase of Will to Power as its having emerged, but as having not yet exercised its strength, in Will, as conceived here, by that stage, a more fundamental exercise of Power has already occurred.