This video is the third part in my series
on Nietzsche, and today we are going to get
deep.
Deep into his metaphysics.
What I am going to present to you here is
based on my thesis, and as far as I am aware,
no one has ever suggested this interpretation
before.
And I think that the fact that Nietzsche's
metaphysics remain so overlooked is the main
reason why so many people get him wrong, and
argue that he is contradicting himself.
My thesis was written in Hebrew, but I am
currently reworking it into a book in the
English language.
I intend to publish my book online, and I
will let you know when I do.
I am warning you that this is going to be
a heavily philosophical video, which might
be hard for some viewers to comprehend.
But it is an essential part of the series,
because it provides the metaphysical basis
for many concepts and themes that we will
deal with in the future episodes, themes like
the eternal recurrence, self-surpassing, the
relationship between body and soul, and the
question of free will.
However, if you can't deal with the philosophy
here, don't worry: it is not necessary for
the understanding of the next parts.
If you are into philosophy, on the other hand,
this episode will greatly help you put it
all together.
Now, the first thing you should be wondering
is: what do you mean by "Nietzsche's metaphysics"?
How can he even have metaphysics?
Didn't he claim that the universe is chaos,
and that the human mind is incapable of comprehending
it?
The answer is yes, but let me remind you of
what we discussed in the previous video, and
we will see how it necessarily leads Nietzsche
to create a metaphysical system.
Our previous video dealt with the question
of creation, and focused on the book Thus
Spake Zarathustra.
We first discussed Zarathustra's idea of the
three metamorphoses of the spirit.
The first stage is what he called the camel
stage, in which you learn everything that
came before, all the spiritual paths that
have already been taken.
After you've loaded your spirit with this
treasure comes the second stage, the lion
stage, in which you refute all those different
worldviews, show why they are wrong.
Since Nietzsche doesn't believe that Man can
create a worldview that represents the objective
truth, every existing worldview can be refuted.
Once you have forged your spirit through the
camel and lion stages, you are ready for the
final metamorphosis, the child stage, in which
you create your own original worldview.
Again, this worldview doesn't represent the
truth, so it is measured by how happy is makes
you.
Later, we saw Zarathustra talking about the
way of the creating one, and he described
it as a perpetual inner struggle.
It is a process of self-surpassing, where
one part of the self sacrifices other parts
in order to change and create a stronger self,
a self that in turn will also have to sacrifice
parts of itself in order to surpass itself
yet again.
This process is what makes Zarathustra happy,
and he concludes from it that the force that
is driving him, and every other living being,
is what he calls the Will to Power.
The Will to Power is the will to surpass yourself,
to be bigger and stronger than you currently
are.
Now, as we said, in order to surpass yourself
you need to create a new worldview, a worldview
that you live by, a worldview that will demand
of you to be stronger than what your previous
worldview demanded.
And, to have a complete worldview, it must
of course contain metaphysics.
Now, since he hypothesized that the Will to
Power is his driving force, Zarathustra creates
his new worldview around the Will to Power.
This worldview already contains a rudimentary
form of metaphysics, but Zarathustra focuses
mainly on ethics.
The book portrays his attempt to create these
ethics and live by them, and the drama that
unfolds as a result will be discussed in our
next chapter.
In Nietzsche's next book, Beyond Good and
Evil, which was published in 1886, he continues
to develop his ethics.
But it also contains this aphorism:
Supposing that nothing else is "given" as
real but our world of desires and passions,
that we cannot sink or rise to any other "reality"
but just that of our impulses—for thinking
is only a relation of these impulses to one
another:—are we not permitted to make the
attempt and to ask the question whether this
which is "given" does not SUFFICE, by means
of our counterparts, for the understanding
even of the so-called mechanical (or "material")
world?
(36)
Nietzsche points out that the only thing that
our consciousness perceives in an unmediated
way is our emotions.
Everything else comes to us through the mediation
of the senses.
So our emotions are the only thing that we
can be certain of, and therefore, something
we can use as a building block to create our
metaphysics around.
In that, Nietzsche follows in the footsteps
of Schopenhauer.
But unlike Schopenhauer, he doesn't try to
claim that these metaphysics will represent
the truth.
It is merely a hypothesis, a creation of his
own mind.
The ethics of self-surpassing demand that
he creates metaphysics for himself, demands
that he imposes his Will to Power on reality
by creating a worldview that explains the
known facts.
So that is what he is doing here.
In the end, it is not only permitted to make
this attempt, it is commanded by the conscience
of LOGICAL METHOD.
Not to assume several kinds of causality,
so long as the attempt to get along with a
single one has not been pushed to its furthest
extent.
Nietzsche applies Occam's razor.
Let's try to provide the simplest explanation
for how the universe works.
If we do so, says Nietzsche…
…we MUST make the attempt to posit hypothetically
the causality of the will as the only causality.
"Will" can naturally only operate on "will"—and
not on "matter" (not on "nerves," for instance):
in short, the hypothesis must be hazarded,
whether will does not operate on will wherever
"effects" are recognized—and whether all
mechanical action, inasmuch as a power operates
therein, is not just the power of will, the
effect of will.
Nietzsche proposes a monistic worldview.
We have evidence that our emotions exist,
and we feel that we are moved by our will.
Let's then hypothesize that the entire universe
is also moved by will.
Instead of believing that the universe is
made of matter, as the scientists do, we shall
create metaphysics in which the universe is
made of will.
Granted, finally, that we succeeded in explaining
our entire instinctive life as the development
and ramification of one fundamental form of
will—namely, the Will to Power, as my thesis
puts it… one would thus have acquired the
right to define ALL active force unequivocally
as WILL TO POWER.
The world seen from within, the world defined
and designated according to its "intelligible
character"—it would simply be "Will to Power,"
and nothing else.
In Thus Spake Zarathustra, Nietzsche posited
the idea that every living being is driven
by Will to Power, and that all our emotions
and thoughts are merely different manifestations
of this Will to Power.
Here, he wants to expand this hypothesis even
further.
Let's imagine that everything is Will to Power.
Not just the living beings, but the so called
inanimate world as well.
In short, he wants to create a monistic worldview,
in which the Will to Power is the foundation
that makes up the universe, and everything
in this universe is a manifestation of Will
to Power.
Let's try to unpack this.
So while a materialist worldview is one that
regards every entity in the universe as made
of matter, Nietzsche's worldview says that
there is no such thing as matter, and instead
regards every entity in the universe as made
of Will to Power.
What does that mean?
Well, look at your right arm, and lift it.
You experience two sensations at this moment.
First, you see your arm rising.
Second, you feel your arm rising.
In a materialist worldview, we will say that
this arm is made of atoms of matter, but your
perception cannot see atoms, so what it sees
instead is an arm-shaped figure made of flesh,
hair etc.
While what you feel is the result of your
brain transmitting a command to the hand,
signaling your will that it should be lifted,
and your arm transmitting back to the brain
that it has carried out the command.
Now, imagine that instead of atoms of matter,
what you are seeing is actually just the will.
That sensation that you are feeling is also
what you are seeing, and your perception gives
it the appearance of an arm.
With this idea in mind, along with all his
other radical ideas, Nietzsche set out to
write what was supposed to be his magnum opus,
a book that was to be called The Transvaluation
of All Values.
But his disease eventually struck him down,
and he didn't get to finish it.
In the beginning of 1889 he collapsed, and
spent the rest of his days in a mental institute,
completely insane.
He did manage to write quite a bit of it,
though, and what he wrote was compiled by
his sister and close friend, and published
under the title The Will to Power.
From what we have in this book, it is possible
to extract a pretty clear and complete picture
of the metaphysics that he was developing.
I am now going to delineate these metaphysics,
and I will point to the aphorisms I am relying
on to get each of the ideas.
So let's begin describing Nietzsche's universe.
His worldview portrays the universe as made
of one thing alone, and that is Will to Power.
The Will to Power is not matter, and is not
spirit.
Matter is traditionally defined as something
that has expansion, i.e. that takes up space,
and has no self-drive.
It does not move unless acted upon by outside
forces, and its movement obeys mechanistic
laws.
Spirit is traditionally defined as having
self-drive, moving itself according to its
own will, but no expansion in space.
Nietzsche's universe has neither matter nor
spirit.
The Will to Power is the foundation of the
universe, and it is something that has self-drive
and expansion in space.
So the Will to Power is the foundation that
makes up the universe.
Apart from it there is nothing, not even empty
space.
There is an old debate in philosophy on whether
space is an independent thing, and the foundation
dwells in it, or whether all there is is the
foundation.
Nietzsche's metaphysics posit the Will to
Power as the only thing, and its expansion
is what forms space.
There are only bodies of Will to Power, and
there is no empty space between them.
We see empty space between bodies only because
our perception can't perceive bodies before
they reach a certain size.
So, the universe is made of bodies of Will
to Power.
The next question we should be asking is:
can these bodies divide eternally.
An old debate is philosophy is whether you
can always cut a body in half, or whether
you eventually reach bodies that are indivisible,
or as they are called in Greek, a-tom.
Well, Nietzsche states that there are no atoms,
but in some places he talks about atoms of
energy.
How do we settle this apparent contradiction?
I think that when he uses the word "atom"
in the second case, what he means is a body
of Will to Power that is not composite, that
is made of just one force and is not a composition
of several forces.
However, this body can still be split into
smaller bodies, so it is not an atom in the
traditional sense.
Now, what does he mean by "atom of energy".
Well, a body of Will to Power is a body of
energy, of force.
In the traditional materialist worldview,
the universe is made of bodies of matter,
which are moved only by outside forces.
In Nietzsche's worldview, each body is force,
and is moving itself.
Everything in the universe is in constant
movement, an eternal power struggle.
But remember, it's more than just a force.
It is a will.
Every one of these bodies wants something,
or, to put it more precisely, is itself a
wanting.
What does it want?
It wants to expand, to become bigger and more
powerful.
The more powerful a body becomes, the happier
it is.
How does a body become bigger?
By combining with other bodies.
A body of Will to Power is constantly trying
to overcome and annex the bodies that are
around it.
When two bodies clash, the more powerful one
will sometimes absorb the weaker one, and
become bigger and more powerful as a result.
When this happens, the body becomes happier.
However, size is not the only thing that determines
the level of happiness.
Happiness also depends on how the different
bodies, which the composite body is made of,
interact with each other.
If they are arranged in a way that they mostly
work against each other, the overall power
of the body is diminished, and it is less
happy.
The more the inner bodies, the inner forces,
work harmoniously with each other, the more
the composite body is powerful and happy.
Now, at the moment, we are still on the atomic
level, discussing how particles act and interact.
But note that we already have the basis to
understand the concept of self-surpassing.
Humans are composite bodies of Will to Power,
and their level of happiness is dependent
on how harmoniously their inner forces are
interacting.
Self-surpassing occurs when you adopt a new
worldview, and subsequently a new way of life,
which causes a realignment of your inner forces,
making them work more harmoniously.
You have then surpassed your former self,
and created a more powerful and happy self.
Note that a body of Will to Power is a body
that feels.
Since it is made of will, a craving of power,
the amount by which this craving is satisfied
results in the level of happiness that the
body feels.
It feels other things, too, such as the power
of the bodies it encounters.
The body reacts in a certain way to the power
it encounters, and if that reaction is good,
it will survive the encounter.
If it remains the same body, then it will
react in the same way whenever it encounters
bodies with similar power.
And even if it combines with other bodies
and becomes bigger, this pattern of reaction
will remain, and so we have a primitive form
of thinking.
So thinking, it Nietzsche's worldview, is
something that precedes living organisms.
Every composite body thinks and feels, even
if it is not organic.
Nietzsche states that there is no causality
in this picture of the universe that he envisions.
But I think that he is not being precise here.
What he means is that the action of a body
is not being caused by the forces that are
applied on it from the outside, but the body
is self-driven.
However, the way the body acts is still determined
by the outside forces it encounters, and therefore
it is not accurate to say that there is no
causality.
In Aristotelian terms, we would say that there
is no efficient cause, but there is material
cause.
So there is actually causality in Nietzsche's
metaphysics, just not the type of causality
that the materialists talk of, and what we
usually perceive as causality.
So a body of Will to Power is always surrounded
by other bodies of Will to Power, and they
apply force on each other and are trying to
absorb each other.
How does the body act?
Is it just random?
No, the Will to Power can act only according
to its own nature, and will always act in
the same way in a similar situation.
And since the entire universe is made only
of Will to Power, it means that there is only
one way in which the universe can change at
any given moment.
It sounds like determinism, but Nietzsche
insists that his worldview is not deterministic.
Why?
Again, it is mostly semantics.
First, it is not determinism because there
isn't an endpoint that the universe is advancing
toward.
Secondly, it is not determinism because the
way the universe is now is not caused by the
way it was a moment ago.
Rather, it acts upon itself.
The universe is in a constant process of becoming,
in which it creates itself anew in every given
moment.
But, again, there is only one way in which
it can act upon itself at every given moment,
and I think that most of us will call that
a deterministic view.
Now, since the amount of Will to Power is
finite, and time is infinite, it means that
at some point, the universe is bound to go
back to the exact state of things that it
is in right now.
And when it does, since it is deterministic,
it will continue from there in the exact same
way that it does now, until it once again
returns to the same point, and so forth to
eternity.
Time, in Nietzsche's metaphysics, is eternal
recurrence.
It is a loop, which will continue to go on
forever.
This moment, in which you are watching my
video and listening to my voice, is a moment
that you will relive again and again, forever
and ever.
If this thought is upsetting to you, well,
this is something that you have to overcome
through self-surpassing, and in the next part
we will see how Nietzsche overcomes it and
turns it into a happy thought.
But consider this, something which Nietzsche
doesn't mention: in the gargantuan amount
of time it will take for the universe to go
back to the current state of affairs, it can
go through many similar variations.
So in most of the times that you have watched
this video before, things were slightly different,
and continued in a different way.
In other words, you had, and will have, many
different lives, as well as this same exact
life.
So you can say that Nietzsche's universe is
deterministic, but it is still chaotic.
It does not obey any laws.
However, there are places in the universe
is which a balance of power is achieved, creating
an equilibrium that is maintained for a while.
In such cases, the movement in this part of
the universe becomes periodic, and we get
what seem like stable laws of nature.
In this situation, organic life can be formed.
Nietzsche doesn't sufficiently explain how
organic bodies are formed.
Basically, an organic body is a body where
periodic patterns emerge and determine its
growth and procreation.
On the protoplasmic level, the body satisfies
its Will to Power by devouring other bodies,
and when its power can no longer contain the
amount it absorbed, it splits into two bodies.
These patterns are then preserved in the more
composite organic bodies, and become mechanisms
of feeding and procreating that are part of
a more elaborate system.
Nietzsche rejects Darwin's explanation of
evolution.
The influence of the environment on evolution,
he hypothesizes, is not that significant.
Evolution is driven by Will to Power, by the
power struggle within the organism.
This leads to inner changes, which, if they
make the organism more powerful, survive and
pass on to the next generations.
We have already seen that perception and thought
exist even in bodies that are not organic,
and survive if they prove to be useful.
So, while the philosophers of Enlightenment
believed that our perception and thought can
understand the universe and decipher its laws,
Nietzsche rejects such notions.
Our senses and our cognitive abilities are
merely tools that have evolved, and have proven
themselves to be useful.
We should use them because they are good for
our survival and happiness, but we should
not make the mistake of thinking that they
perceive reality as it is.
Now, let's talk about free will.
Do we have free will?
Not in the traditional sense, since the universe
is deterministic.
But, says Nietzsche, this doesn't mean that
our will is not free.
We think that it means non-freedom because
we are thinking of the subject in materialist
terms.
In materialism, our thought is formed by our
brain cells.
In other words, it is formed by something
made of matter, which obeys mechanistic laws.
We perceive this material reality as something
that is different from the mind, different
from the self, and thus we feel that the self
is driven by something that is different from
it.
But if we realize that we are made of Will
to Power, a self-driving foundation, we realize
that there is no dichotomy of matter and spirit,
and the self is in the driving seat.
Most of our thinking does indeed occur on
the unconscious level, before we become aware
of it, but our conscious thought takes part
in the process as well.
We can think and act only in one way, but
that is not because we are bound by external
laws.
It's because we can think and act only according
to our nature.
But, you might say, my thought at this moment
is still dependent on my thought at the previous
moment.
This is true, but remember that time is a
circle, which means that your thought at the
previous moment is also dependent on what
you are thinking right now.
If you think the idea of eternal recurrence
to its end, you will realize that time itself
just dissolves, and all you are left with
is your existence in the now, a now in which
you are taking an active part in the creation
of the universe.
The question is, where is your mind at at
the moment?
Is it being driven by outside stimulations,
or are you thinking an original thought?
If you are thinking for yourself, then you
are free.
What we did right now is an example of self-surpassing.
If your old self believed that it was a spirit
trapped in a deterministic world of matter,
you might have felt alienated and miserable
because of it.
If you then adopted Nietzsche's metaphysics,
and it made you feel that you are actually
a free agent driving your existence, you overcame
that alienation, and the misery that accompanied
it.
Your old self was replaced with a new, happier
self.
This is what self-surpassing is about.
So, we understand how the human organism has
evolved.
Humans have a superior mind to that of other
animals, but at first, the human mind was
just a thin crust, and had very rudimentary
functions.
It was there so that the body could figure
out how to satisfy its cravings.
The different cravings, like hunger, lust,
dominance etc., are all developments of the
Will to Power, and the mind is there to help
the human animal achieve them.
But since humans are a social animal, part
of a herd, the herd imposes laws on the individual,
which restrain his cravings for the good of
the collective.
Now, with the mind containing both the will
to do something and the prohibition of it,
its forces were turned against one another,
and an inner world started to develop, an
inner world that grew deeper and deeper with
the advancement of civilization.
As we mentioned, the human mind, with all
its cognitive processes and instruments of
perceiving reality, is wholly the result of
evolution.
It does not grasp reality as it is, but it
does grasp it in a way that proved to be the
best for survival on the crust of planet Earth.
One of the tools it developed is logic, and
logic evolved to perceive reality as containing
things that are constant.
That is, it doesn't see reality for what it
is, which is an ever-changing chaotic stream,
but perceives stability in the bodies that
constitute it.
It grasps objects that have identities, made
of a set of characters that define them and
remain constant over time.
Moreover, it also began to perceive itself
as a constant thing, and so the idea of the
subject, or the soul, emerged.
And so the mind, which is merely part of the
body, started to perceive itself as a distinct
entity which is trapped in the body, a subject
within an object.
In this situation, humans started to feel
alienated to the ever-changing world around
them.
They felt themselves to be a stable being,
and surmised that only something stable is
real.
They felt the need to maintain this stability,
and yet, they were in a world where everything
perishes.
The conclusion that was drawn, in both Greece
and India, was that the soul is an eternal
being that comes from a divine world where
everything is constant and eternal, but fell
into a world of becoming, where everything
changes and perishes.
And so, Man started to feel alienated to his
world, alienated to his own body, and wishing
to liberate himself from it and return to
his original place, where he will live in
eternal bliss.
A similar development happened in the field
of morality.
At first, morality was meant to serve the
Will to Power, but then a reversal occurred,
and morality became repressive.
But we shall discuss this in a future episode.
The upshot of these developments was that
the body became reviled.
The cravings of the body were now seen as
something that is coming from a place that
is outside of the soul, outside of the self.
For the soul to be free, mused the western
thinkers, it must rule over the body and subjugate
it.
But, in reality, the so-called soul is actually
part of the body, so repressing the body only
weakened the soul.
The forces of the self were turned against
each other, and so the overall power has been
diminished, and Man became miserable.
Western culture has interpreted this misery
as a sign that the soul is not yet in full
control, and the body became more and more
repressed, leading to greater and greater
misery.
And so we reached the Modern Age, in which
even atheist thinkers believe that human life
is miserable in essence, and look for ways
to escape it.
How do we overcome this situation, according
to Nietzsche?
Why, by self-surpassing, of course.
We need to reverse all the values that have
been built upon these misconceptions of the
relationship between body and soul, and create
new metaphysics and ethics that affirm the
body, affirm life, and allow the Will to Power
to be manifested in the maximal way.
In this video, we described the metaphysics
which Nietzsche created to underlie his ethics.
The next two episodes will be dedicated to
the ethics.
