Natur, Wille zur Macht und was über sie hinausweist

Abstract

Can and Should Human Beings Be Translated ‘Back Into Nature’? Nietzsche sets himself a “strange and insane task,” viz. “to translate the human being back into nature.” He claims that we are in dire need of arranging our lives more appropriate to nature into which we belong. Nietzsche considers it crucial to recognise the will to power as the one principle that guides all living things and thus also us humans. He traces this principle in the seemingly most spiritual human achievements. In some late texts, however, Nietzsche experiments with the idea of an attitude towards life that subverts the will to power. He illustrates it by introducing the “psychological type” of Jesus of Nazareth. According to Nietzsche’s Antichrist, his life is based on “love without exceptions or rejections, without distance.” I argue that neither the conception of the will to power nor the idea of amor fati is suited for translating human beings back into nature. Also, it is questionable whether we should even wish for any such translation.