Power ≠ Power: Against the Mix-Up of Nietzsche and Spinoza

Abstract

The reception of Nietzsche’s philosophy is still predominated by a widespread “hermeneutics of innocence” (Losurdo) that dissimulates Nietzsche’s elitist perspectives. This article challenges a core element of this hermeneutics, the conflation of Spinoza and Nietzsche. The assumption of a continuity of their power concepts overlooks that the late Nietzsche took a sharp anti-Spinozian turn and introduced his “will to power” against Spinoza’s “conatus.” Whereas Spinoza’s potentia agendi designates a collective and cooperative capacity to act, which can be reconceptualized with the help of Gramsci’s theory of hegemony, Nietzsche’s “will to power” naturalizes the principle of domination. An ethics inspired by Nietzsche can never get rid of its inherent “pathos of distance,” which manifests itself even in its most “leftist” forms as a celebration of social distinctions against ordinary people. Recourse to Spinoza can help redefine life affirmation in a democratic-socialist way and thus provides an ethics for a hegemony from below.