Bret Davis (2007:11) – vontade de poder

Há um certo caráter de retroação da vontade de poder; é, finalmente, uma vontade própria, mesmo que esteja sempre a querer para além de si própria. Mas há também um movimento constante para o querer, uma insaciabilidade: "Todo o querer é um querer-ser-mais [ein Mehr-sein  -wollen  ]. O poder só é poder na medida em que, e enquanto, permanecer um querer-ser-mais-poder" (N1 72/60). Assim, embora a vontade seja poder, a expressão "vontade de poder" não é simplesmente redundante. A vontade de poder é a vontade de poder: "Na vontade, enquanto vontade de ser mais, na vontade enquanto vontade de poder, está essencialmente implícito o aumento e a potenciação [die Steigerung, die Erhöhung]" (ibid,). A vontade é o insaciável, sempre em expansão, mas sempre essencialmente para mais do mesmo, "vontade de vontade". Mais tarde, Heidegger desenvolve estes pensamentos de uma forma cada vez mais crítica.

Heidegger’s own pointed critique of this dual character of the will is clearly articulated in his later lectures and writings on Nietzsche  . But before looking there, let us first note another important element of Heidegger’s understanding of the will that is already apparent in his early lectures on Nietzsche: the will is ultimately “the will to will.” The will is essentially a matter of “commanding” or “mastery,” of reaching out beyond oneself — to what? To power. What then is power? Power is “nothing else than the essence of will. Hence will to power is will to will, which is to say, willing is a self-willing” (N1 46/37), “Willing itself is mastery over [something], which reaches out beyond itself; will is intrinsically power. And power is willing that is constant in itself. Will is power; power is will” (52/41).

There is a certain doubling-back character of the will to power; it is finally a self-willing even as it always wills out beyond itself. But there is also a constant movement to willing, an insatiability, “Every willing is a willing-to-be-more [ein Mehr-sein-wollen]. Power itself only is inasmuch as, and as long as, it remains a willing-to-be-more-power” (72/60). Thus, even though will is power, the phrase “will to power” is not   simply redundant. The will to power is the will to power, “In the will, as a willing-to-be-more, in the will as the will to power, enhancement and heightening [die Steigerung, die Erhöhung] are essentially implied” (ibid,). The will is the insatiable, ever expanding, yet always essentially to more of the same, “will to will.” Heidegger later develops these thoughts in an increasingly critical fashion. In 1943 he writes the following concerning the essential character of the will.

To will is to will-to-be-master [Wollen ist Herr-sein-wollen]… . The will is not a desiring, and not a mere striving after something, but rather, willing is in itself a commanding… . What the will wills it does not merely strive after as something it does not yet have. What the will wills it has already. For the will wills its will. Its will is what it has willed. The will wills itself. It mounts beyond [übersteigt ] itself. Accordingly, the will as will wills out beyond itself and must at the same time in that way bring itself behind and beneath itself. Therefore Nietzsche can say: “To will at all is the same thing as to will to become stronger, to will to grow… ,” (The Will to Power, section 675, 1887-88), (GA5  :234/77-78)

The will to power must not rest for a moment in its quest for more power, for even “a mere pause in power-enhancement… is already the beginning [12] of the decline of power” (234-35/78). And yet, on the other hand  , the movement of power-enhancement needs the moment of “power-preservation” as well. “The making secure of a particular level of power is the necessary condition for the heightening of power” (236-37/80). The will to power involves both moments of increasing and securing, securing and increasing, which mutually enable one other.

The will to power must, above all, posit conditions for power-preservation [Machterhaltung] and power-enhancement [Machtsteigerung]. To the will belongs the positing of these conditions that belong intrinsically together. (237/80)