Will to Power, Nietzsche''s Last Idol

The book proposes a critique of Nietzsche's works 'from within'. In doing so, it answers the continuing question asked by any reader of Nietzsche: Why did he decide not to write the major work he said he would write?

Jean-Etienne Joullié analyses the notion of will to power formulated by Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche hoped to make will to power the centrepiece of his late philosophy and the basis on which a revaluation of all values would be possible. In this grandiose project, he encountered problems that were to prove insurmountable: the criticisms he had directed at his predecessors returned to sabotage his plans. Will to power is a stillborn philosophical chimera: even with an element of naturalism, romanticism cannot be reconciled with ancient heroism. Nietzsche''s attempts to erect a new philosophy of will to power ended in failure and it is reasonable to believe that Nietzsche recognised this. The physical collapse in Turin was also an existential one. On January 3rd, 1889, Nietzsche had not said everything he wanted to say, but he had said everything that he could say.