Will to Power

Nietzsche's name for the essential character of reality: "the world is will to power, and that alone" (BGE 36). In Nietzsche's texts it names at once a psychological principle (drives seeking their discharge), a biological principle (life as increase), and — in later texts — a cosmological-metaphysical principle (the essence of the world). Chouraqui 2014 offers a distinctive reading: the will to power is metaphysical, not ontological. That is, it describes all the beings accurately, but it cannot provide an account of Being as such, because it is essentially relational and oppositional — it requires external resistance to be anything at all. The will to power is therefore the warrant of becoming, not of Being. Being must be thought otherwise — as self-falsification, the very movement through which will to power presents itself as something more than it is.

Key Points

Will to power is end-directedness without representation: it has a direction but does not thematize or represent its target. Not Kantian teleology
The quantum of power is constant within an organism and within the world as a whole — only direction changes
Will to power operates through incorporation (Einverleibung): assimilation of external drives, redirection of internal drives, expansion at the expense of what is overcome
Resistance is prior to striving, not derived from it: "the will to power can only express itself against resistances; it seeks what will resist it" (IX [151]). There is no will to power "before" its resistance — they are co-original
Will to power describes the beings but not Being: it is a statement about what-there-is, not about what-it-is-to-be. Chouraqui reads it as metaphysical in Nietzsche's pejorative sense (a "two-world theory" of sorts), not ontological
For Chouraqui, will to power's failure to reach ontology is why Nietzsche's ultimate thesis is Being as self-falsification — will to power is how falsification happens; the movement of falsification is Being

Details

Will to power as metaphysical, not ontological

This is Chouraqui's most counterintuitive specific claim (Ch. 3, "Will to Power as Metaphysics"). Most readers take the will to power to be Nietzsche's ontology — the thesis that what-there-really-is is a swarm of power-seeking drives. Chouraqui argues the opposite: the will to power is metaphysical because it can only describe the beings, not Being.

The argument hinges on the relational character of will to power. A will to power is always a will to power against something — against a resistance, against an opposition. Nietzsche is explicit: "the will to power can only express itself against resistances" (IX [151]); "there is no will to power without resistance" (paraphrased from various notebook entries).

Now suppose, Chouraqui asks, that we ask: what is it for a totally self-identical world (i.e., Being attained to unity) to be will to power? The question is unanswerable. A totally unified world has nothing external to oppose; so it has no resistance; so it has no will to power; so it has no being in Nietzsche's sense. The concept collapses at the moment it reaches its completion.

Chouraqui puts it sharply: "The will to power is not, strictly speaking, ontological but metaphysical. That is to say, it is a doctrine that describes accurately the world not in its Being but as it actually is. Indeed, for a theory to give a truly ontological account of the world as we describe it, it should be able to give us an account of what it would be for the world to 'be' self-identical. Yet, an account of self-identity in terms of will to power is impossible because a will to power exists only against another will to power" (Ch. 3).

The implication: will to power is the warrant of becoming

If will to power cannot describe a fully self-identical Being, it also cannot describe a Being that is not becoming. What it describes is the movement between oppositions — what Nietzsche calls becoming. "The will to power stands for the whole realm of becoming" (Ch. 3, paraphrasing Nietzsche and the Transition).

This means the will to power is how becoming happens. It is the structural engine of all change: drives seeking discharge, assimilating, redirecting, resisting. It describes every event — but in principle, it cannot describe what it would be for there to be no events.

This is what Chouraqui means by calling will to power "metaphysical": it is a doctrine of the beings and their motions, not a doctrine of Being.

The structure: quantum and direction

For both Nietzsche and Chouraqui, the internal structure of will to power is two-fold:

Quantum of power: a constant magnitude. Within an organism, it is fixed. Within the world as a whole, it is fixed (Nietzsche endorses conservation of energy; the world's "overall quantum of power" is discussed at WP, 639 and WP, 708). This means no power is ever created or destroyed — only reorganized.
Direction: a variable vector. The direction of a drive determines whether it discharges outward (against a resistance) or inward (against other drives within the same organism). Direction is the modal feature of drives; it is what makes a drive this drive rather than that one.

Drives are therefore vectors: quantum × direction. Health and sickness are directional conditions — health is the unison of drives under a single direction; sickness is antagonism (drives working against each other). Power is neither created nor destroyed; only its availability varies based on internal alignment. See self-differentiation for how the reversibility of drives makes this possible.

Contra Reginster

Chouraqui rejects Bernard Reginster's influential definition of the will to power as "the will to the overcoming of resistances" (Reginster 2006). The objection: if will to power is defined as overcoming resistance, then striving must presuppose resistance — but Nietzsche is clear that resistance presupposes striving, not the other way around. "We should not think of the will to power moving toward resistances, as if it existed prior to them. On the contrary, we must stop thinking of resistance in relational terms, as an encounter" (Ch. 1).

For Chouraqui, Reginster's view makes will to power circular at best. The concept that Chouraqui adopts instead: will to power and resistance are co-original. Neither precedes the other. The "line of contact" between opposing wills to power is the primary fact, not the collision of pre-existing terms.

End-directedness without representation

Will to power has direction but not aim. This is a subtle distinction Chouraqui draws in Ch. 2 (following Nietzsche's RL of 1872–73): "That something may be finalized without consciousness is the essence of instincts." Drives discharge in a direction without representing that direction, without thematizing a target.

Chouraqui uses this to argue against readings (e.g., the "teleological" Reginster-Richardson-esque readings) that give will to power an internal representation of its end. No: the direction is derived analytically from the movement, not pre-given in it. This makes will to power asymptotic rather than teleological.

Incorporation as the basic mechanism

Will to power's operation is incorporation (Einverleibung). "It is part of the concept of the living that it must grow — that it must extend its power and consequently incorporate alien forces" (WP 702). Incorporation is assimilation: the stronger will to power absorbs the weaker, which is not annulled but redirected — its drives now serve the incorporator's direction.

This is why Nietzsche's ethics and his ontology are the same project. To become healthy (ethical) is to redirect one's internalized drives outward (which is the basic operation of will to power); to understand will to power correctly (ontological) is to grasp that this redirection is what Being is. See incorporation-of-truth for the methodological side.

The upshot: Being as self-falsification

Chouraqui's overall argument in Ch. 3 is that will to power's metaphysical-not-ontological character is why Nietzsche's final ontological thesis must be Being as self-falsification. The argument:

Will to power is how the world moves (metaphysics).
Will to power cannot attain a self-identical completion (because it requires resistance).
Therefore, Being cannot be thought as self-identical.
But Being must be thought as something. What remains?
The answer: Being is the very movement of will to power as it presents itself as more than it is — the self-identical objects, the subject-object split, the metaphysical two-world theories. Being is the falsification that the will to power produces as its condition of operation.

"It is plausible that the will to power itself acts as a falsifier of itself (there is 'nothing besides' will to power to falsify)" (Ch. 1, quoting Nietzsche IX [106]). The will to power falsifies itself as the phenomenal world of subjects and objects — because this falsification is the condition under which will to power can operate at all. The falsification is Being.

This is why will to power, for Chouraqui, is not Nietzsche's ontology but the vehicle of Nietzsche's ontology. The ontology is self-falsification; will to power is the metaphysical mechanism through which self-falsification occurs.

The Primary Text (BGE 1886): Will to Power in Two Registers

With the 2026-06-28 ingest of *Beyond Good and Evil*, the wiki finally anchors will to power in Nietzsche's own text rather than only in his interpreters. The primary attestations:

§13 — life as will to power: "Anything that lives wants above all to discharge its strength — life itself is will to power —: self-preservation is only one of the indirect and most frequent consequences of this." Against Spinoza's conatus and Darwinian survival.
§36 — the cosmological generalization, hedged: "The world seen from inside… it would be precisely 'will to power' and nothing else." But the passage is built throughout on Gesetzt dass ("supposing that"): it is licensed only by "the conscience of method" (posit a single causality to its limit) and offered "as my proposition has it." It is an experiment, not a flat assertion.
§22 — will to power as interpretation: nature's "conformity to law" is "interpretation, not text"; one could read the same nature as sheer will to power — and "Supposing this too is only interpretation… so much the better." Nietzsche reflexively grants will to power is itself a perspectival reading (cf. perspectivism).
§23 — the methodological home: psychology as "morphology and doctrine of the development of the will to power."
§259 — the flat bio-social register: "life itself is essentially appropriation, injury, overpowering… exploitation… because life simply is will to power." Here it is asserted without hedging — but in the biological-social register (life, organisms, societies), not the cosmological one of §36. Cf. §186, "a world whose essence is will to power."
§211 — the spiritual register: for the philosopher-of-the-future, "their will to truth is — will to power"; cf. §9, philosophy as "the most spiritual will to power."

The load-bearing finding — two registers. BGE presents will to power hedged where it is cosmological (§36, "supposing… only interpretation") and flat where it is biological-social (§259, "life simply is"). This split is internal to the text, and it bears directly on the wiki's standing disagreement (see Positions): it gives primary-text support to Chouraqui's metaphysical-not-ontological reading; it is the textual basis of Klossowski's "equivocation" (meaningless cosmic energy vs. goal-bearing organic will are Nietzsche's own two registers); and it is friction for Heidegger's assertoric reading, since the cosmological register Heidegger needs is the hedged one. (Heidegger could reply that the hedging is the Vermenschlichung/humanization he diagnoses — so the finding sharpens rather than settles the dispute.) Flagged as a claim candidate (bge-will-to-power-hedged-vs-flat) for audit Phase 8; recorded here as a Positions-level textual finding, not yet a claims-register entry.

GM 1887: will to power as the principle of all "overpowering"

The 2026-06-28 ingest of *On the Genealogy of Morality* adds a second primary register — and it lands on the flat side of the split, but in the organic-interpretive, not the cosmological, key:

II.12 — the methodological core: "all occurrences in the organic world are an overpowering, a becoming-master, and… all overpowering and becoming-master are a new interpreting"; "all purposes, all utilities are only signs that a will to power has become master over something less powerful." Asserted without hedging — as the principle of the genealogical method itself (origin ≠ purpose; the history of a thing is a sign-chain of overpowerings). Its domain is the organic/historical, not the cosmos of BGE §36.
II.17–18 — will to power turned inward: the "instinct of freedom (in my language: the will to power)," blocked by the state, becomes bad-conscience — will to power as self-formative, not only outward-discharging.
III.18 — will to power in the smallest doses: even the ascetic priest's "love of one's neighbor" is "a stimulation of… the will to power… in the most cautious dosage."

Bearing on the two-registers finding. GM confirms that the un-hedged will to power is the organic one (II.12, as in BGE §259); the cosmological register (BGE §36) remains the hedged outlier across both primary texts. This stabilizes the candidate bge-will-to-power-hedged-vs-flat and supplies, via II.12, the missing link between will to power and genealogy (and via II.18 the link to bad-conscience) that the interpreter-anchored account above lacked.

Positions

The wiki records two opposing primary-source readings of will to power as well as several secondary-source positions:

Heidegger 1936-1939, *Nietzsche I* (primary source): will to power is the Vollendung der Metaphysik — the completion of Western metaphysics. Its essence is the Beständigung des Werdens in die Anwesenheit: the willed making-stand-fast of becoming into presence. The "highest" will to power commands becoming to remain, willing it into the Anwesenheit-form that is the Greek determination of Being. Hence Nietzsche is the letzter Metaphysiker: his thought preserves the originary Greek determination of Sein als Beständigkeit des Anwesens at maximum extremity. Will to power is also the truth-character (as *Gerechtigkeit*) of Nietzsche's metaphysical Grundstellung. Heidegger's reading is the basis of much Anglo-American Nietzsche reception (Sallis, Krell, Schurmann).
Chouraqui 2014 (primary source for the opposing reading): will to power is metaphysical but not ontological. It describes all the beings accurately, but it cannot describe Being-as-self-identical because it is essentially relational and oppositional — it requires external resistance to be valid at all. A will to power attained to total unity would not be will to power at all. Therefore will to power is the warrant of becoming, not of Being. Nietzsche's actual ontology is self-falsification — Being as the very movement of falsification — not Beständigung. Heidegger's reading is rejected as re-substantializing what Nietzsche de-substantializes.
Reginster (2006, The Affirmation of Life) defines will to power as "the will to the overcoming of resistances." Chouraqui rejects this as circular.
Richardson (1996, Nietzsche's System) treats the will to power as genuinely teleological with "telic" structure. Chouraqui accepts the direction but rejects the representational aspect.
Müller-Lauter (1971, Nietzsche) reads will to power as a pluralism of internal drives in perpetual struggle. Chouraqui is broadly sympathetic but adds the metaphysics/ontology distinction.
Deleuze (1962, Nietzsche et la philosophie) reads will to power as affirmation and difference. Distances itself from Heidegger's "metaphysics of absolute subjectivity" reading. Chouraqui engages less directly but distances himself from the Deleuzian pairing of Nietzsche+Foucault vs. Heidegger+MP.
Klossowski 1969 (primary source) reads will to power as the primordial impulse = intensity = "force itself" — and, most distinctively, as "only a humanized term for the soul of the Vicious Circle, whereas the latter is a pure intensity without intention" (Ch. 3). The "will" in "will to power" is a fiction of language, an interpretation imposed by the agent: "every 'willing' that starts with 'consciousness' is still merely a fiction." Klossowski isolates a constitutive equivocation in Nietzsche: cosmic energy has "neither goal nor meaning" (the circulus vitiosus), whereas organic/social will-to-power introduces goal and meaning — "power is insignificance, and what is insignificant in itself exercises the greatest violence" (Ch. 5). This is a third position distinct from both Heidegger (Beständigung/Vollendung) and Chouraqui (metaphysical-not-ontological warrant of becoming): for Klossowski WtP is neither the completion of metaphysics nor the vehicle of self-falsification but the interpreting (meaning-bestowing) name for an intensity that, in itself, has no intention. Adjacent to but distinct from the Deleuzian intensity-reading above.
Nietzsche, *BGE* 1886 (primary text, now in the wiki): BGE presents will to power in two registers — a hedged cosmological hypothesis (§36, under "the conscience of method," conceded as "only interpretation," §22) and a flat bio-social fact (§259, "life simply is will to power"; §186). The split is internal to the text and bears on the dispute: it supports Chouraqui (metaphysical-not-ontological) and Klossowski (the equivocation), and is friction for Heidegger's assertoric reading (the cosmological register is the hedged one). See §"The Primary Text (BGE 1886): Will to Power in Two Registers" above and claims#bge-will-to-power-hedged-vs-flat (live claim).

The Heidegger/Chouraqui disagreement is one of the wiki's standing open questions: does will to power complete metaphysics (Heidegger) or evade it (Chouraqui)? See claims#heidegger-vs-chouraqui-on-nietzsche-leitfrage (live).

Connections

is the metaphysical vehicle of self-falsification — will to power is how falsification happens; the falsification is what Being is
operates through incorporation-of-truth at the methodological level — the symbiosis of truth and will
is structured by self-differentiation — the reversibility of drives' directions
has the form of asymptotic-intentionality — direction without represented aim
is blocked from self-identical completion by eternal-recurrence — the "fact" that any possible state must already have occurred
contrasts with ontologies of presence (Heidegger), plenitude (Sartre's Being), and positive infinity (Cartesian rationalism)
requires resistance as co-original, not derivative
is the engine of sickness and health (as directional conditions of drives)
is mispresented as ontological by many readers (Heidegger, Reginster, etc.) — Chouraqui's distinctive move is to demote it to metaphysics
is the principle of genealogy — GM II.12: all organic "overpowering" is "a new interpreting"; history as a sequence of will-to-power overpowerings
is turned inward as bad-conscience — GM II.18's "instinct of freedom (in my language: the will to power)," repressed by the state, becomes the self-forming "soul"

Open Questions

Chouraqui's metaphysics/ontology distinction uses Heideggerian vocabulary against Heidegger. Is this sustainable, or does it implicitly rely on the distinction it rejects?
If will to power cannot describe Being, why does Nietzsche sometimes seem to say the world is will to power (e.g., BGE 36)? Chouraqui reads these passages as describing "all the beings," not Being. Is this reading defensible?
How does Chouraqui's will-to-power relate to Nietzsche's later perspectivism? If perspectivism is also a view about what-there-is, is it also metaphysical-not-ontological?
Does the critique of Reginster succeed? Reginster has responded; Chouraqui does not engage with later Reginster.

Sources

chouraqui-2014-ambiguity-and-absolute — will to power is developed across the Nietzsche half (Chs. 1–3), most sharply in Ch. 3's "Will to Power as Metaphysics" section. Ch. 1's "Self-Differentiation" and "The Primacy of Intentionality" establish the relational character. Ch. 2's discussion of drives, redirection, and symbiosis develops the quantum/direction structure. Ch. 3's critique of the pyramidal-teleological cosmology (via eternal recurrence) is the decisive move. The Transition chapter is where Chouraqui most clearly articulates why will to power is metaphysical-not-ontological, in opposition to Heidegger's reading
heidegger-1961-nietzsche-i — primary site of the opposing reading. Three lecture courses (1936/37, 1937, 1939) construct will to power as the Vollendung der Metaphysik. Key sites: I.7-9 (analysis of Wille as Über-sich-Herrsein), I.10-12 (Five Theses on Art with Hauptsatz "art = greatest stimulus of life"), III.20 (climactic Beständigung-thesis, lines 4944-5037). Textual anchor: WP 617 "Dem Werden den Charakter des Seins aufzuprägen — das ist der höchste Wille zur Macht."
klossowski-1969-nietzsche-vicious-circle — Ch. 3 (will to power as "a humanized term for the soul of the Vicious Circle"; the "will" as a fiction of language) and Ch. 5 ("Attempt at a Scientific Explanation": power as insignificance; the equivocation between meaningless cosmic energy and goal-bearing organic will-to-power; the four energy fragments). The wiki's third primary-source position on will to power, distinct from Heidegger and Chouraqui