Nietzsche’s Philosophy: Will to Power, Eternal Return, Übermensch
Nietzsche’s Affirmative Philosophy
The ‘death of God’ signifies the triumph of passive nihilism but also marks the starting point for active nihilism, leading towards a philosophy that affirms life (‘says YES’). This death entails the loss of old values and faith.
The Will to Power
For Nietzsche, life is the will to power – a fundamental drive to become more, to expand, and assert itself. Interpreting this through the metaphor of life as a work of art, as presented in The Birth of Tragedy, we can conclude that this will involves creation. Through Zarathustra, Nietzsche states that life is driven to constantly overcome itself. This inherent drive explains Nietzsche’s interest in moral values; the will to power becomes the force for creating new values and destroying traditional ones. This concept reaches a cosmic dimension, summarizing his vitalist cosmology in opposition to mechanistic views. He also introduces the second major theme of his thought: the eternal return.
The Eternal Return
The core idea is repetition: the cycle runs endlessly, with no final state. It carries materialistic connotations and has a clear temporal implication: only the present moment exists as reality. The past is gone, the future does not yet exist, so humanity must be faithful to the present, faithful to the earth. But Nietzsche goes further. The eternal return becomes a value – it is the ultimate way to affirm life, the expression of a will to power liberated from the burden of the past and fear of the future. It is the proper place and time for the will to power. Nietzsche highlights two aspects: the innocence and lack of inherent meaning in change – it is simply change, without moral or metaphysical judgment. This guarantees that there is only one reality – the present – and no progression towards another world. For humanity and society to embrace this idea, a transmutation of values is necessary.
The Transmutation of Values
This concept is central to his life-affirming philosophy. According to Nietzsche, humanity has historically valued everything opposed to life, reflecting a morality born from a sick and decadent spirit. The objective, therefore, is to reverse these values, to re-evaluate and reaffirm life. This he termed the transmutation or revaluation of all values. He applies this perspective to traditional values and morality. He calls himself an immoralist, seeking to recover a primitive innocence, a state beyond good and evil.
The Übermensch (Superman)
This is not simply a new type of human, but a new moral ideal. Nietzsche doesn’t describe a specific future human. The Übermensch is the one who fully embraces the eternal return, becoming like the ‘first man’ – possessing an innocence perhaps found among the Presocratics. He describes this emergence through three metamorphoses of the spirit:
- The Camel: Kneels to carry the heavy weight of duty (‘Thou shalt’).
- The Lion: Fights the dragon of ‘Thou shalt’ to win freedom and say ‘I will’.
- The Child: Represents innocence, a new beginning, capable of creating new values (‘Yes’).
The Übermensch, therefore, embodies the innocence and creative power of the child. He exists beyond traditional good and evil, represents the fresh start of the eternal return, possesses the power to create values, and lives faithfully to the earth. In essence, the Übermensch embodies Nietzsche’s entire affirmative message.
The Death of God and the Übermensch
The appearance of the Übermensch requires the ‘death of God’, as Nietzsche saw traditional divinity as the antithesis of life and a denial of human innocence. The death of God signifies the decline of Christian values and metaphysics. This ‘death’ is the necessary condition for the emergence of the Übermensch and the transmutation of values.