Does Sartrean existentialism provide the end to Nietzsche's idea of a superman? Those that have risen through the will to power are trapped within the misfortune of their own circumstance as much as anyone who did not make such a journey. In the end the will to power is no more than the call to change ones way of life and that alone is dictated by the possibilities open to ones life - One becomes something and that will power alone does not dictate what you become
I want to compliment the author of this thread on the intelligence of his/her question. I probably should wait until after next semester when I take "Phenomonology and Existentialism" to post a response because my knowledge concerning some of the topics in this thread are somewhat limited. But apparently this thread has been viewed over fifty times and no one has responded. Based on my limited understanding I think that even though the superman would still be trapped within his own possibilities, I think what Nietzsche would say (using Sartean terminology) is that what your possibilites are, i.e. how one organizes his/her own instrumental-complexes depends on if you are "all-too-human" or what Nietzsche would refer to as the superman. Since one creates one's own world one's possibilities are created by oneself. Since the possibilites open to one's life are created by the individual, regardless of the external circumstances one becomes what one wills.
Then will yourself to become the president of America, No infact will yourself to be a rock star. Both things involve predispositions to be in place which you may not have. To be a rock star you would generally need to have at least a musical instrument. Since Nietzsche claimed to be describing a path everyone could opt for - he ignores the obvious namely that to a bourgeois overfed pig like himself it costs little to get a guitar to buy a pro-series guitar in Africa would cost about 2 years wages of anyones money. So lets make everyones chances equal. You are going to will youself to be a rockstar now go and get $40,000 dollars for a guitar and play me a tune and if I like it you are in - if not you can stand in the rain with the other 30,000 guitarists that are crap. Anyway the poster was saying that if you will yourself to power you are trapped there in the life you made for yourself - you will live a rockstars life. You will be trapped by the circumstances of fame and power as surely as a nobody is trapped in the circumstance of being a nobody
I think the idea is that Sartre comes in from the angle, as he said, that "hell is other people". Sartre thought it made no sense to say that you can will youself to power since other people may exert their will upon you and thus subvert your view. He thought that a waiter, for example, would know himself to be a person, but to others he was little more than an object. To other people he was the one dimensional character of "the waiter" and in believing that to be the case had mistakenly denied him his chance to be fully in control of his own view of himself. He would then have two choices. To act in bad faith and become "the waiter" or to assert his will over theirs and act outside the normal expectations of what a waiter is. By living up to their expectations he subverts his own will in favour of theirs, and by choosing a different path to that of being "the waiter" he would no longer be subject to their will but would face a greater dilemma, that of being free ( for example he might lose his job) but according to sartre, freedom is merely the freedom to choose and once the choice is made we are again bound by the conditions of our choosing. We are then at the void, at the height of our will to power when we free ourselves from the choices we normally face and are faced with nothing but more decisions to make. As a waiter there were fewer choices and this made life comfortable. Freedom is what we are afraid of and it forces us to recoil and choose something that will again limit our fredom. By the way, not choosing is also a choice but then we are subject to "fate" if you like which is another form of non-freedom because choices will be forced upon us. The moment between being released from our circumstances and being forced into another choice is a brief moment of freedom which causes us a kind of nausea or giddyness of mind
First of all, Nietzsche does not view humans as equals, so being a superman is not for everybody - which I would tend to agree, albeit careful not to take extra steps along that logical path. But both Sartre's "freedom" and Nietzsche's "will to power" (even Max Stirner's "owness") admit to the fact that one creates oneself within constraints or what Sartre would refer to as the "coefficient of adversity", which is incidentally also very important in Nietzsche's thought. It is not a matter of willing oneself to be a rockstar, therefore. I think the main difference between Sartre and Nietzsche is that the latter thinks "exceptional natures" are better suited to will themselves against this coefficient of adversity. Nietzsche does not think therefore that failure to accrue in power is solely the result of social oppression, but instead that it is primarily dictated by the potentialities of the individual. And finally, that it is better that things be that way.
As Zarathustra walked up the trail on the way to his cave, he came upon a Thing: An Eyeball striding along on two tiny stalks! He shuddered and avoided it and went on his way, only to come upon -- an Ear! A huge, misshapen Ear with a little head behind it, and once again two tiny stalks masquerading as legs! 'When?', he wondered, 'When am I going to meet a complete man on this trail? And this Ear, this horrible, misshapen Ear, is that not what they call -- a scholar?'
Friends, romans, coutrymen, lend me your horribly mis-shapen ears so that I may speak to you of the fame and fortune that beset the nietzscien man they began as brothers that were princes. their father the king died and being close they decided to rule together in equality. They wanted more power and fought and built an empire, they were emporers they wanted to conquer the world, and did so as they thought if they ruled the world they would be free but then they found themselves trapped in exactly the life of the worlds emporers and they realised that no amount of willing themselves to higher power could make them free
Who was the first philosopher to use the term "thrownness" for both being-in-the-world and being-toward-death? I know Heiegger used it a lot, but did he originate it? Sartre said we are "thrown" into this world in the sense that "existence precedes essence." Anyone know for sure?
Kierkegaard I believe but its been a long time since I did philosophy but I wouldnt mind betting that if it didnt originate with sartre it was either kierkegaard or heidegger.
