The Will to Power (manuscript)

Under the title The Will to Power compilations have been released from posthumous records of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche since 1901 diverse, partly considerably distinctive. In the German language area is usually one of Elisabeth Förster - Nietzsche and Heinrich Köselitz ( " Peter Gast " ) meant first published in 1906 writing that also included in Nietzsche editions and has been touted as a systematic " masterpiece " of Nietzsche.

Survey

It is understood that Nietzsche indeed at times wanted to write a work under this title and a variety of - sometimes contradictory - plans to made ​​, but ultimately refrained from doing. His records on this up, especially in the works of Twilight of the Idols and The Antichrist or remained scattered in the estate.

All Compilations (see the overview given below ) are considered unsustainable and distorting (as well as put together by Alfred Baeumler and still displaced band The innocence of becoming ). They are selective, often do not follow the traditional plans Nietzsche, contain Entzifferungsfehler, sharing Nietzsche excerpts quoted as aphorisms Nietzsche and contain changes and additions by the editors.

Still have and they will continue to be distributed and used. Recently, various compilations have been reissued in France, Italy and Germany, although now the Critical editions of Nietzsche Colli and Montinari are recognized as the only genuine editions of Nietzsche. Especially in the English language - an English translation of the Colli - Montinari edition has been missing - The will to power is still and mostly used uncritically as a discount edition of Nietzsche. The corresponding publishers - in Germany, especially the Alfred Kröner Verlag and the Insel Verlag - be harshly criticized for the re-issues from the Nietzsche research.

The compilations have also deployed philosophical effect. Thus, the Nietzsche reception of Gilles Deleuze, for example, been eating in a prominent place a Entzifferungsfehler: In Nietzsche's notebook " The winning concept is 'force' [ ... ] still needs to be supplemented: there must he an inner world will be awarded, which I refer to as, will to power. '" In the compilations of the archive it says instead of " an inner world " but " an inner will ," and Deleuze commented on this sentence he " s of the text les plus importants [ u] " Nietzsche calls on this topic, almost word for word. Elsewhere, Deleuze takes from the compilations the words " power", where the notebook " force " is - just where Deleuze wants to differentiate between these terms.

More recently, there are voices that demand a new critical edition of the work as a historical document.

See also: Nietzsche Archive

Nietzsche abandoned plans

Nietzsche began after the printing of the last part of Thus Spoke Zarathustra in 1885 to plan a larger, systematic work, for which he usually provided for the title The Will to Power from 1886. He also in his published works Beyond Good and Evil (1886, see picture), On the Genealogy of Morals (1887 ) and The Case of Wagner ( spring of 1888 ) points out. In his notebooks from that time there is a variety of different plans and designs for such a " masterpiece ", usually in four volumes.

Especially from fall 1887 to spring 1888, Nietzsche variety of records made ​​at the moment. He was the preliminary results but dissatisfied and first worked on the printing of The Case of Wagner afterwards. In August, he complained in a letter, to be no progress with his work. A final draft of the will to power, he wrote on August 26, 1888. Then he changed within a few days his plans: He put together what he had already written to terms, and wanted to publish this " separation" from his philosophy - from this was the Twilight of the Idols.

However, he withdrew from it in turn four chapters with the titles we Hyperboreans, for us - against us, concept of decadence religion and Buddhism and Christianity. Now he was planning another pamphlet entitled revaluation of all values ​​in four books. The chapters should be mentioned for the first book, entitled The Antichrist adds. This book wrote Nietzsche completed by the end of September. Show more posthumous plans that in the second and third book after Christianity " philosophy " and " morality " should be criticized, while Nietzsche in the fourth book of wanted to run his own teaching.

Even this plan was Nietzsche but on the end of November. He told the Antichrist to the whole " re-evaluation ", the finished book was given the title The Antichrist. Revaluation of all values ​​. Finally, he also pointed out this subtitle and replaced him with a curse on Christianity.

Elisabeth Förster - Nietzsche claimed after the death of Franz Overbeck in 1905, her brother had written at least a second and third book of the four-volume revaluation, but by Overbeck's guilt many manuscripts were lost. These claims are unanimously rejected by today's Nietzsche research. Quite the contrary is proven, that Förster-Nietzsche and the Nietzsche Archive in support of this assertion withheld documents and made false or misleading information.

The different editions

There are at least five different compilations that have been released under the title The Will to Power.

The edited by Karl Schlechta works in three volumes (1954 et seq ) included under the title " From the estate of the eighties " the same material as ² World Cup, but without intertitles and in supposedly chronological order. In fact, the order is not chronological, and there are Entzifferungsfehler, changes, accretions, etc. have been taken. The Schlechta output has in today's opinion, although the merit of the legend of the existence of inflicting damage " main prose work", but is not itself useful as an output of the estate. In addition Schlechta has the philological question of the existence of the plant mixed with a criticism of the philosophical ideas " will to power ", which has complicated the discussion.

Examples of errors

" In concordance KGW one does! attention to particularly serious Entzifferungsfehler, omissions etc. in the earlier editions. This character was not accepted, because hardly a single record in the earlier editions has been accurately reproduced [ ... ] "

• Martin Heidegger quoted in his lectures and writings often the supposed aphorism 617 of ² World Cup while attached great importance to the heading " recapitulation ". This he interpreted so that Nietzsche had his entire philosophy is summarized in a few sentences. In Heidegger's interpretation of the end of Western metaphysics this " recapitulation " represents. In fact, the heading " recapitulation " an inclusion of Heinrich Köselitz, as had already been noted in the apparatus of the edition of 1911.

• Alfred Baeumler has " ' masterful characteristics of three centuries " Nietzsche praised in the supposed aphorism 95 of ² World Cup. However, Nietzsche's versions are paraphrases and excerpts from Ferdinand Brunetières 1887 published Etudes critiques sur l' histoire font de la littérature française.

• The " Aphorisms " 102, 103, 105, 106, 129, 131, 132, 141, 147, 164 and 393 of ¹ World Cup as well as 166, 169, 179, 191, 193, 194, 207, 224, 335, 718, 723, 748 and 759 of ² WM are more or less direct quotes or paraphrases of Leo Tolstoy Ma religion (Paris 1885). In Nietzsche's notebooks, the source is indicated, and the excerpts are roughly in an order that follows Tolstoy. The source was concealed from the Nietzsche Archive, brought the records in a completely changed arrangement.

• A longer text entitled "The European nihilism ", organized by Nietzsche in 16 sections and dated, has been printed as an aphorism 10 still in WM ¹ (without the date ). In ² World Cup, he was in the " Aphorisms " 4, 5, 114 and 55 dismembered - in that order.

• Nietzsche himself rubricated in a notebook of its 374 records and ordered 300 of them to four books, which corresponded almost exactly to the plan, the ² WM used ( there are many other such plans in Nietzsche's estate ). Montinari writes: