# Nietzche's "will to power" ... I don't understand it (the phrase, that is) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 10, 2004, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nietzches-will-to-power-i-dont-understand-it-the-phrase-that-is/268481 "2004-10-10T16:59:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Melchior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nietzches-will-to-power-i-dont-understand-it-the-phrase-that-is/268481/21 "2014-02-06T01:36:02Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > If I remember my high school German correctly, isn’t “zur” a contraction of “zu der,” which means “to the” (preposition + definite article, in the dative case)? Not sure if this helps—different languages use definite articles differently. > > And maybe you should think of the word “will” here as in “Where there’s a will, there’s a way”? ‘Zu’ in German is often equivalent to ‘for’ in English. ---
**Author:** ![Melchior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nietzches-will-to-power-i-dont-understand-it-the-phrase-that-is/268481/22 "2014-02-06T01:40:09Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > Maybe it sounds better in German. My German isn’t good enough to be able to tell, but **Mort Furd** is correct that “will to power” is a direct translation of “Wille zur Macht”. I can’t guess at Nietzsche’s reasons for preferring this phrase over some other one, but it may help to think of “will to power” as something like “train to Weimar”. Power is what we’re moving towards, and our will is what we are using to get there. No, Mort Furd is wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Capt\_Kirk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@Capt\_Kirk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt_Kirk)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nietzches-will-to-power-i-dont-understand-it-the-phrase-that-is/268481/23 "2014-02-06T01:47:32Z")
Zombie Nietche Oh my! **Capt** ---
**Author:** ![kellner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c2a13f/32.png) [@kellner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kellner)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nietzches-will-to-power-i-dont-understand-it-the-phrase-that-is/268481/24 "2014-02-06T02:24:53Z")
> [@Melchior](#): > > Wille zur Macht means ‘desire for power’. Not really and that’s the problem. I am not competent to judge just how wrong “will to power” is, but I think this thead alone indicates that it is at least awkward and unusual. Unfortunately “desire for power” doesn’t quite work either. “Wille zur Macht” means something analogous to “desire for power” - just with “will” instead of “desire”. In this context this distinction is meaningful, because “will” is all about intent to a degree that “desire” just isn’t. Apparently there is no good equally compact way to express that in English and the translator decided to preserve the concepts and stretch the subcategorization to the breaking point. ---
**Author:** ![Melchior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nietzches-will-to-power-i-dont-understand-it-the-phrase-that-is/268481/25 "2014-02-06T02:41:33Z")
> [@kellner](#): > > Not really and that’s the problem. > > I am not competent to judge just how wrong “will to power” is, but I think this thead alone indicates that it is at least awkward and unusual. > > Unfortunately “desire for power” doesn’t quite work either. “Wille zur Macht” means something analogous to “desire for power” - just with “will” instead of “desire”. In this context this distinction is meaningful, because “will” is all about intent to a degree that “desire” just isn’t. Apparently there is no good equally compact way to express that in English and the translator decided to preserve the concepts and stretch the subcategorization to the breaking point. Yes, really. ‘Will to’ \*cannot \*be used before nouns. I am qualified. I retranslated the book Will to power between 2009 and 2011. Look at this: [http://www.linguee.com/english-german/search?source=auto&query=wille+zu](http://www.linguee.com/english-german/search?source=auto&query=wille+zu) ---
**Author:** ![Melchior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nietzches-will-to-power-i-dont-understand-it-the-phrase-that-is/268481/26 "2014-02-07T16:01:27Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > It’s not at all hard to imagine a writer in English using a phrase like “will to success.” It might be ungrammatical, but it carries a bit more oomph than “will to succeed.” > > Maybe my grammatical sensibilities have been corrupted by Madison Avenue, Anthony Robbins, and the all-pervasive American business culture. ‘Commitment to success’ is idiomatic. ‘Will to success’ is not, and is incorrect. ---
**Author:** ![Esox\_Lucius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/848f3c/32.png) [@Esox\_Lucius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esox_Lucius)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nietzches-will-to-power-i-dont-understand-it-the-phrase-that-is/268481/27 "2014-02-07T21:04:16Z")
I see it as taking some poetic license with the language to express an overarching philosophical concept in a simpler way. “Will to power” is trying to express more than “universe built on power”, or whatever it’s supposed to mean. But I agree with the OP that it’s awkward enough to break the flow of thought when you read it. Maybe Nietzsche’s poetic license ought to be revoked. ---
**Author:** ![Melchior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nietzches-will-to-power-i-dont-understand-it-the-phrase-that-is/268481/28 "2014-02-07T21:56:57Z")
> [@Esox\_Lucius](#): > > I see it as taking some poetic license with the language to express an overarching philosophical concept in a simpler way. “Will to power” is trying to express more than “universe built on power”, or whatever it’s supposed to mean. But I agree with the OP that it’s awkward enough to break the flow of thought when you read it. Maybe Nietzsche’s poetic license ought to be revoked. You need to understand ‘will to power’ is a translation, and translations are either correct or not. The word \*zu \*means ‘for’ here, not ‘to’. This is indisputable. Once you have established that, the rest falls into place. \*Macht \*is ‘power’. So, it’s “x for power”. In this case, X = ‘desire’ or something similar. That’s really all there is to it. ‘Will to’ is \*never \*used before a noun, only before a verb. The ‘to’ functions as part of the infinitive (‘to win’, ‘to live’, etc.). In German, \*Wille zu \*is used before both nouns and verbs. This is \*not \*true in English. ‘Desire for power’ is also intelligible. ‘Will to power’ is nonsense. See: [http://www.linguee.com/english-german/search?source=auto&query=Wille+zu](http://www.linguee.com/english-german/search?source=auto&query=Wille+zu) ---
**Author:** ![Melchior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nietzches-will-to-power-i-dont-understand-it-the-phrase-that-is/268481/29 "2014-02-07T22:30:30Z")
Some people who don’t really understand the intricacies of German (or English) see the word \*zu \*and think it’s equivalent to ‘to’. \*Nach \*in German is often translated as ‘to’, and '\*zu \*is often translated as ‘for’. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nietzches-will-to-power-i-dont-understand-it-the-phrase-that-is/268481.md?page=1)