Responding to Dr. Gericke's analysis of Nietzsche, there are two key components that need to be considered: Will to Power, and Eternal Return of the Same:
(1) Regarding the Eternal Return, Nietzsche writes:
(1) "Whoever thou mayest be, beloved stranger, whom I meet here for the first time, avail thyself of this happy hour and of the stillness around us, and above us, and let me tell thee something of the thought which has suddenly risen before me like a star which would fain shed down its rays upon thee and every one, as befits the nature of light. - Fellow man! Your whole life, like a sandglass, will always be reversed and will ever run out again, - a long minute of time will elapse until all those conditions out of which you were evolved return in the wheel of the cosmic process. And then you will find every pain and every pleasure, every friend and every enemy, every hope and every error, every blade of grass and every ray of sunshine once more, and the whole fabric of things which make up your life. This ring in which you are but a grain will glitter afresh forever. And in every one of these cycles of human life there will be one hour where, for the first time one man, and then many, will perceive the mighty thought of the eternal recurrence of all things:- and for mankind this is always the hour of Noon".
(2) What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more' ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.' [The Gay Science, §341]
(3) My formula for human greatness is amor fati: that one wants to have nothing different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely to bear the necessary, still less to conceal it—all idealism is mendaciousness before the necessary—but to love it.
Nietzsche's thought of The Eternal Return of the Same is the Tragic insight into the Being of Beings. Every being we comport ourselves toward is just another being, something that will distract us for a while, but ultimately fall out of view, like a warn out recording of a favorite song. Ecclesiastes says:
“The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes)
In Nietzsche's unpublished notes (later published by his sister as "The Will to Power"), Nietzsche seemed to view the Will to Power as (metaphysical) general force underlying all reality, not just human behavior—thus making it more directly analogous to Schopenhauer's will to live. For example, Nietzsche claims the "world is the will to power—and nothing besides!"
Power is being thought of the sense of will to control, to characterize, to limit the ἄπειρον, a Greek word meaning "(that which is) unlimited," "boundless", "infinite", or "indefinite" from ἀ- a-, "without" and πεῖραρ peirar, "end, limit", "boundary", the Ionic Greek form of πέρας peras, "end, limit, boundary".
Nietzsche means the essence of beings is uncovered in relation to the multitude of ways we comport ourselves to the Being of beings (in the non / perhaps never exhaustive list Gericke provided in the post). To recapitulate:
-"The answer to the question ‘What is that?’ is a process of fixing a meaning from a different standpoint. The 'essence', the 'essential factor', is something which is seen as a whole only in perspective, and which presupposes a basis which is multifarious (Nietzsche 1968:556)."
Gericke points out:
-What it is to possess a property essentially is a matter of debate. That is putting it mildly. Included here are (very crudely summarized) Socrates (essence as common properties), Plato (essence as archetype), Aristotle (essence as genus), Porphyry (essence as species), Boethius (essence vs. existence), Avicenna (essence as quiddity/whatness), Abelard (essence as semantic feature), Scotus (essence as haecceity/thisness), Descartes (essence as principle attribute), Locke (essence as sortal), Leibniz (essence as sufficient reason), Kant (essence vs. appearances), Hegel (essence in/as appearances), Nietzsche (only (non) appearances), Wittgenstein (essence as grammar), Husserl (essence as given), Heidegger (essence as being), Sartre (existence before essence), Popper (essence as definitional fallacy), Quine (essence as accidents), Putnam (essence as stereotype), Kripke (essence as necessary properties), Derrida (“essence” vs. identity/difference), Deleuze (“essence” vs. difference/multiplicity)
Privileging one of these interpretations of / perspectives on the essence of beings over another (and in fact over those we haven't discovered yet) is an act of the Will to Power: Controlling and Limiting the apeiron.
Responding to Dr. Gericke's analysis of Nietzsche, there are two key components that need to be considered: Will to Power, and Eternal Return of the Same:
(1) Regarding the Eternal Return, Nietzsche writes:
(1) "Whoever thou mayest be, beloved stranger, whom I meet here for the first time, avail thyself of this happy hour and of the stillness around us, and above us, and let me tell thee something of the thought which has suddenly risen before me like a star which would fain shed down its rays upon thee and every one, as befits the nature of light. - Fellow man! Your whole life, like a sandglass, will always be reversed and will ever run out again, - a long minute of time will elapse until all those conditions out of which you were evolved return in the wheel of the cosmic process. And then you will find every pain and every pleasure, every friend and every enemy, every hope and every error, every blade of grass and every ray of sunshine once more, and the whole fabric of things which make up your life. This ring in which you are but a grain will glitter afresh forever. And in every one of these cycles of human life there will be one hour where, for the first time one man, and then many, will perceive the mighty thought of the eternal recurrence of all things:- and for mankind this is always the hour of Noon".
(2) What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more' ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.' [The Gay Science, §341]
(3) My formula for human greatness is amor fati: that one wants to have nothing different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely to bear the necessary, still less to conceal it—all idealism is mendaciousness before the necessary—but to love it.
Nietzsche's thought of The Eternal Return of the Same is the Tragic insight into the Being of Beings. Every being we comport ourselves toward is just another being, something that will distract us for a while, but ultimately fall out of view, like a warn out recording of a favorite song. Ecclesiastes says:
“The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes)
see my post here: http://palpatinesway.blogspot.com/2018/10/heidegger-and-tragic-interpre…
(2) Regarding Will to Power:
In Nietzsche's unpublished notes (later published by his sister as "The Will to Power"), Nietzsche seemed to view the Will to Power as (metaphysical) general force underlying all reality, not just human behavior—thus making it more directly analogous to Schopenhauer's will to live. For example, Nietzsche claims the "world is the will to power—and nothing besides!"
Power is being thought of the sense of will to control, to characterize, to limit the ἄπειρον, a Greek word meaning "(that which is) unlimited," "boundless", "infinite", or "indefinite" from ἀ- a-, "without" and πεῖραρ peirar, "end, limit", "boundary", the Ionic Greek form of πέρας peras, "end, limit, boundary".
Nietzsche means the essence of beings is uncovered in relation to the multitude of ways we comport ourselves to the Being of beings (in the non / perhaps never exhaustive list Gericke provided in the post). To recapitulate:
-"The answer to the question ‘What is that?’ is a process of fixing a meaning from a different standpoint. The 'essence', the 'essential factor', is something which is seen as a whole only in perspective, and which presupposes a basis which is multifarious (Nietzsche 1968:556)."
Gericke points out:
-What it is to possess a property essentially is a matter of debate. That is putting it mildly. Included here are (very crudely summarized) Socrates (essence as common properties), Plato (essence as archetype), Aristotle (essence as genus), Porphyry (essence as species), Boethius (essence vs. existence), Avicenna (essence as quiddity/whatness), Abelard (essence as semantic feature), Scotus (essence as haecceity/thisness), Descartes (essence as principle attribute), Locke (essence as sortal), Leibniz (essence as sufficient reason), Kant (essence vs. appearances), Hegel (essence in/as appearances), Nietzsche (only (non) appearances), Wittgenstein (essence as grammar), Husserl (essence as given), Heidegger (essence as being), Sartre (existence before essence), Popper (essence as definitional fallacy), Quine (essence as accidents), Putnam (essence as stereotype), Kripke (essence as necessary properties), Derrida (“essence” vs. identity/difference), Deleuze (“essence” vs. difference/multiplicity)
Privileging one of these interpretations of / perspectives on the essence of beings over another (and in fact over those we haven't discovered yet) is an act of the Will to Power: Controlling and Limiting the apeiron.