Being-towards-death in Heidegger

Heidegger encounters an immense problem when he defines Dasein as an entity or being that, “in its very Being…[has] Being [as] an issue for it” (32); as something that “always understands itself in terms of its existence—in terms of a possibility of itself” (33): how can Dasein be the whole of itself? For if Dasein is to make its Being an issue for itself, it must be able to access itself (that is, access its own being, its own ontological existence) in its totality: Dasein must, in Heidegger’s formulation (which conceives this access only as Being in a definite way), be-a-whole. This needs to be the case, or Dasein could only at best have a “partial” (i.e. not-whole) understanding of itself, and it would then be questionable as to whether Dasein’s Being is really an issue for it if its Being can only be partially an issue for it. That is, Heidegger’s entire conception of Dasein as a Being whose Being is an issue for it collapses: Being must be at least possibly accessible to an entity if that entity is a whole of itself for Dasein to really make an issue of itself, in order for it not to only partially be when it attempts to be itself fully (or authentically). If Dasein accessed Being by being partially, what would access Being, and thus what would have Being as an issue for itself, would not be Dasein: it would be that part of Dasein that accesses Being. Thus, the problem of Dasein’s being-a-whole is fundamental for Heidegger to answer: Dasein cannot be as Dasein at all if it is only possible for it to partially be. But this requires something that is not at all obvious: Dasein must be-a-whole before it is what we would normally call a “whole.” That is, what we normally call a “whole” is something that runs its course and ends, forming a closed, complete, and total structure. Since Dasein is obviously in the process of being itself and not ending, how could it be at an end if it does not be an end before it really ends? Dasein would have to be not-itself or at the end of itself in order to access (or be) its Being in its wholeness. How, then, could it really take its Being as an issue, if it must be something not itself in order to be-a-whole? Heidegger, as we shall see, solves this problem via an analysis of the phenomenon of death. In looking at death, he at once undermines our notion of “whole,” and at the same time is more rigorous than us in maintaining the notion of Dasein as something whose Being is an issue for it: Dasein, we shall see, is always already capable of being-a-whole because it is, when it is authentically most itself, always already a whole. We shall see that this capability lies in how Dasein is always existing in a mode that Heidegger calls “Being-towards-death:” a state possible for Dasein both because Dasein has its Being as an issue for it and is not something Heidegger calls “present-at-hand.”
According to how we understand “whole,” Dasein is to access itself as a whole, or be-a-whole, by turning itself into not-Dasein: Dasein would have to be something at the end of Dasein in order for Dasein to be a totality—that is, in order for Dasein to be finished off or closed. And what is this not-Dasein other than death for Dasein? In death, as Heidegger explains, Dasein suddenly becomes “no-longer-being-there;” something other than Dasein (in German, literally “being-there”) which used to be Dasein (280). Indeed, it is then that Dasein becomes a totality in our sense: Dasein is a totality if it is no longer something that was indeed Dasein. That is, if Dasein “was”—if it is no longer existing—it indeed can be said to have existed, and this existence must have formed some type of closed-off structure that we could call a whole. Thus, what we are asking when we ask if Dasein can be-a-whole seems to be something immensely contradictory: whether Dasein can exist as Dasein while not existing as Dasein; whether we can live as Dasein at our death, or “be-at-the-end.” This is obviously impossible, Heidegger concludes, so long as we keep our notion of death (and with it, our notion of wholeness as reached in death). If we conceive of death as something that ends a thing, there is no way this could apply to Dasein—and then of course Dasein would have to be something other than it is in order to have access to it. This is because our idea of wholeness, Heidegger argues, takes a thing (which we mistakenly call Dasein) and shows that death adds a certain state to it (dying) that then nullifies the thing (makes it dead or not-itself). Dasein is not such a thing that can be added on to in this manner: this conception of Being-at-the-end, if applied to Dasein, would make Dasein into something that Heidegger calls “ready-to-hand” or “present-at-hand”—that is, we would make Dasein into a thing; an entity or being that is just like all other entities. If we think that Dasein is not just a thing that exists, but rather something that has its existence as an issue for it—that is, if we think that we are beings that can only be adequately defined with respect to the complex of ways that we exist, and not just the fact that we exist—we have to rethink our idea of being-at-an-end so as to be adequate to treating Dasein as something not present-at-hand. Notice that this does not imply we have to make our notion of death something that Dasein can indeed access: Heidegger here is not being circular, arguing that Dasein is indeed able to access or be death because death is something that it can access or be, but is only finding an adequate conception of Being-at-an-end—it may turn out that Dasein could not have access to its end as itself.
Thus, we have to conceive of death as something that is not just added on to Dasein as a state it can just exist in. Heidegger’s notion of “being-at-an-end” becomes, then, something that an entity can exist towards, if only because being-at-an-end is indeed being (or being-towards or having a comportment or stance towards existence) in such a way that one is at-an-end or over with: “Death is not something not yet present-at-hand, nor is it that which is ultimately still outstanding [that is, something that needs to be added on to Dasein]… Death is something that stands before us—something impending” (294). If death is something that will happen to Dasein in such a way that Dasein can exist as Dasein in (but of course not, it seems to Dasein, after) its death, Dasein is able then to “be-towards-death,” or be in such a way that Dasein has a stance towards its own death. We thus are able to still be ourselves towards what Heidegger also calls our “uttermost” or last “not-yet:” Dasein has the ability to still be Dasein (not yet being not-Dasein) in its own death. This is what he means when he says that “being-at-an-end implies existentially being-towards-the-end. The uttermost ‘not yet’ has the character of something towards which Dasein comports itself” (293-4). “Being-at-an-end” then becomes “being-towards-death” for Heidegger, due primarily to how we have to treat Dasein as something not present-at-hand—as something that has Being as an issue for itself. If what we are asking when we ask if Dasein can be-a-whole is whether we can live as Dasein at our death, or “be-at-the-end,” this is obviously impossible: there is no way for Dasein to be at the very point where it is something other than it is. And this is not primarily because Dasein cannot be something other than itself (indeed, as we shall see, when Dasein is “inauthentic” this is precisely the case) but rather because Dasein is something that is never at a certain point or state: it is always in a certain way. Dasein can then be-at-the-end because what we are really asking, Heidegger seems to suggest, is whether Dasein can be-in-the-end, or be-towards-the-end (if being-in-something is conceived as a way to be towards something)—that is, be-towards-death.
And if this is the case, then being in this way does not necessarily have to happen at the point of what we would normally call “death,” or “the end” of Dasein. But in order to show this, Heidegger has to show what being-towards-death looks like: how we can actually take up a stance towards our death. Again, in showing this Heidegger relies upon Dasein not being something ready-to- or present-at-hand. Heidegger calls what we normally call death the “demise” of Dasein—it is the end for Dasein only insofar as we conceive Dasein as entity that is present-at-hand. If Dasein is something more and something qualitatively different than an entity that is present-at-hand, Dasein can indeed have its demise without its death, or its death without its demise (in fact, Heidegger holds that either one of these is more often the case than someone dying at their demise). If, as we said, death is something Dasein can exist towards, and death does not necessarily imply a Dasein’s demise, death can happen always, even while we live. We can live (when living is conceived as being), as it were, in death. In fact, Heidegger holds that it is always already the case that we living in death—that is, we are always already dying:
Dasein, as thrown Being-in-the-world, has in every case already been delivered over to its death. In being towards its death, Dasein is dying factically and indeed constantly, as long as it has not yet come to its demise. When we say that Dasein is factically dying, we are saying at the same time that in its Being-towards-death Dasein has always decided itself in one way or another (303).
Heidegger’s first two sentences here make sense to us now. But his third, that “we are saying at the same time that in its Being-towards-death Dasein has always decided itself in one way or another” expands our idea of how “Dasein is dying factically and indeed constantly” with the use of two crucial concepts: what he calls Dasein’s “thrownness,” and Dasein’s “deciding of itself,” or its “understanding.” If Dasein is something that has its Being as an issue for it, it has its Being as an issue for it always: when Dasein is being in a particular way at a particular juncture, it finds itself as “thrown” into that way of being. Dasein as “thrown” exists simply in a way of being at a particular juncture, regardless of how it got into that particular way. Furthermore, if Dasein has its being as an issue for it, it has this Being as an issue for it in a particular way: when Dasein exists in a particular way, Dasein can be said to “understand” its being as an issue in some particular way. Understanding then manifests itself in the very way Dasein exists, for if Dasein is something that has its own Being as an issue for it, its understanding of this issue makes it be according to this understanding—or be with respect to its possibilities of being in a particular way that is precisely its understanding. As Heidegger said, Dasein “always understands itself in terms of its existence—in terms of a possibility of itself:” Dasein in its being decides among the possibilities of itself in existing in a certain way, and thus understands itself so long as it is. And since understanding is deciding in being, understanding does not need to be a conscious understanding—and thus Dasein can be said to have always an “understanding” of its Being whether it grasps this consciously or not. If this is the case, “Dasein has always decided itself in one way or another” with respect to the way that it is—or its “thrownness”—in the way that it is, or how it is towards itself as thrown. And if Dasein’s death is something that Dasein can exist towards (and is not merely a state which is added on to Dasein, as we saw Heidegger assert above), then Dasein “is in every case already been delivered over to its death:” that is, it has taken up some sort of stance towards its death—or understood itself as thrown being towards death—and has taken up (and always continues to take up) this stance already. Thus Heidegger can say that Dasein is always already dying. Being-towards-death is something Dasein always does.
This granted, Dasein would seem to always decide upon its death in its understanding of itself as thrown towards death. But how is this understanding really possible if Dasein is not in its demise while at the same time dying? And does dying have anything to do with being-a-whole anymore if being-towards-death is something that Dasein can always be? Indeed, Heidegger turned towards the phenomenon of death not only because it is what we conceived Dasein to be when it was not-itself (which was only partially true, insofar as Dasein was really not-itself in death and not in its demise), but because he indeed affirms it as the condition in which being-a-whole is possible. He does this in this way in order to refute our conception that someone can only be-a-whole, or be “fulfilled” at their demise: this is to collapse death and the demise of Dasein into the same phenomenon, which, as we have seen, does not do justice to the nature of Dasein. He thus rescues Dasein from our conception of it as present-at-hand by making it clear that Dasein does not have to be something like not-Dasein in order for Dasein to achieve being-a-whole, as we falsely assumed. That is, Dasein does not have to be-a-whole before its demise by being something not-itself, as we originally suggested. Instead, it is always and only a whole before its demise through its dying.
If this means that Dasein is always already being-a-whole, Heidegger would say that this is indeed the case. But what does death offer Dasein that its demise does not in terms of its ability to Be-a-whole? We have seen Heidegger call death “Dasein’s uttermost ‘not yet,’” which we showed was Dasein’s ability to still be Dasein in its own death—that is, Dasein’s ability to not yet be not-Dasein. It is now evident that death allows Dasein something other and something more fundamental than an encounter with what it is like to be in demise: Dasein’s death offers it an encounter with what it is like not to be. If Dasein always understands itself in terms of a possibility of itself—or, in other words, if Dasein (as an understanding Being with possible ways to be) is “potentiality-for-being,”—then what we encounter in Dasein’s death is the possibility of ourselves not having any more possibilities. Furthermore, death is a possibility that is absolutely certain to happen or cannot be outstripped, and a possibility that can happen always: death is both certain as to whether it can occur and indefinite as to when and how it can occur, as Heidegger puts it (294). And if this further point is so, this is what allows Dasein to be-a-whole in death (and in not its demise), because it is an encounter that allows Dasein to understand how it is always already a whole in its dying: if Dasein is always dying, and dying is the confrontation with the possibility of Dasein’s having no more possibilities, then Dasein in dying understands that it is always already being-at-its-end, or is, at that juncture, a whole. The “end” that allows Dasein to be-a-whole is always, and so Dasein is always being-a-whole—it is always being or existing at the point which its possibilities are always as much as they are, in the sense that they cannot be anymore (past possibilities are past) and they could not be again (the next instant could be the end of Dasein’s possibilities in death). Furthermore, this end is the end for no one else but Dasein: death is not related to anything other than Dasein (there is nothing remaining after Dasein’s death that could give it more possibilities), and so there is no way it could not be a totality in its death. What is lost after death, in actually being not-Dasein, is not something shared by (or related to) more than one being or between Dasein and the world, but is lost by only Dasein: this makes the whole that Dasein is in the end of being its very own, or, since this is the absolute possibility of its end, its “ownmost.” In death, Dasein is therefore immensely far from being something that is not-Dasein, as we mistakenly said: it is when Dasein is most Dasein that Dasein inhabits being-towards-death. Heidegger sums this up in the following:
As potentiality-for-Being, Dasein cannot outstrip the possibility of death. Death is the possibility of the absolute impossibility of Dasein. Thus death reveals itself as that possibility which is one’s ownmost, which is non-relational, and which is not to be outstripped (294).
If there will be no more Dasein, and if nothing else but Dasein will be no more when Dasein is no more, then Dasein must necessarily be whole or totality—that is, be its most—at the juncture in which it inhabits being-towards-death—that is, always.
But Heidegger holds that being-a-whole, if it is going to happen always in Being-towards-death, can only be conceived as something that is entered into in two modalities: authentically or inauthentically. Mostly, we are not authentically being-towards-death: we are not taking a stance towards death by understanding the impossibility of being after death in all its depths: this is what Heidegger means when he says the following:
Proximally and for the most part Dasein covers up its ownmost Being-towards-death, fleeing in the face of it. Factically, Dasein is dying as long as it exists, but proximally and for the most part, it does so by way of falling (295).
“Falling,” or the phenomenon of existing inauthentically, is a way of being-towards-death that makes Dasein, who is always authentically being most itself in its always being-a-whole, not understand and be itself in its plenitude or wholeness. Falling prevents Dasein from confronting its death and hinders Dasein from grasping its being-a-whole by covering up death’s certainty and its indefiniteness. Or, to collapse the two into one phenomenon that we have found characteristic of Dasein, inauthentic falling covers up the fact that Dasein is always dying (not just some of the time or only at its demise):
Death is deferred to ‘sometime later’ … [This] covers up what is peculiar in death’s certainty—that it is possible at any moment. Along with the certainty of death goes the indefiniteness of its ‘when.’ Everyday Being-towards-death evades this indefiniteness by conferring definiteness upon it (302).
When death is not conceived of as something “impending,” as something that could always happen, this lends definiteness to Dasein’s understanding of its death, and makes it not be-towards-death authentically—that is, as if death could always happen. This allows us to characterize why Dasein does not always comport itself towards death, or understand itself as being-towards-death: when Dasein is inauthentic in its “everyday” manner, it evades its essence’s own actuality as always being-towards-death.
But why is its death )and the fact that this death is always) so absolutely horrendous or uncanny to Dasein? Heidegger shows us: in the face of death what is revealed is something inescapably inauthentic that Dasein is also certain to have (if only in the fact of its being born): namely the uncertainty as to whether it really is and definiteness as to when and how it is—Dasein’s thrownness. Dasein is, as we elaborated above, thrown being towards death: Dasein is brought into a world, and finds itself there—it is definite of this. But it does not have a stance towards itself a something that is existing as long as it is thrown and as long as it is not understood as thrown towards death—it is therefore uncertain as to how to be. Inauthentic Dasein “guiltily” remains in this state (as Heidegger will later say in his section on the call of conscience, that manifests itself in guilt), because there it does not have to understand itself and can simply be. Authentic Dasein confronts this inauthenticity and connects Dasein’s thrownness to its death. Characterizing authenticity in these terms makes sense, insofar as Dasein is being-towards-death as long as it is being, and Dasein is always already at the end of itself: death, insofar as it is the possibility of having no more possibilities and a possibility that can happen any time and in any way, is what Dasein is already in its authenticity—a potentiality-for-being that possibly could have no more possibilities. Being-towards-death is thus what Dasein is thrown as, and engaging in being-towards-death then maintains Dasein within in the full or authentic understanding of its being: that is, as something which has possibility only insofar as it is indeed dying, or will certainly have its possibilities outstripped by its death: it engages in a stance that “amounts to the disclosedness [or understanding] of the fact that Dasein exists as thrown Being towards its end” (295). Heidegger indeed shows this type of being or existence to be “anticipatory resoluteness,” by elaborating how Dasein can, as it were, throw itself (or “take over itself”) through understanding itself as is thrown towards death.
But rather than delve into anticipatory resoluteness as the precise mode in which Dasein’s Being as being-a-whole is accessed, we will focus on how we can see already that Dasein is a whole insofar as it engages in authentic being-towards-death. Because Dasein is usually inauthentic, and in a sense always authentically being-towards-death by not being-towards-death authentically, it is not usually the case that Dasein is being-a-whole—Dasein is usually deficiently being-towards-death in being inauthentic and therefore is deficiently being-a-whole. But a possibility for being-a-whole is always present insofar as Dasein is confronting its death—that is, insofar as Dasein has at least the possibility of being authentic, which is always. Heidegger solves his problem then as we suggested: that is, by conceiving of Dasein as being-a-whole always. In the end this is more true to the definition of Dasein as something that has Being as an issue for itself, because it conceives of Dasein’s being-a-whole in terms of Dasein’s ability to make itself (and its essence) an issue, and not in terms of Dasein being placed in a certain state that suddenly gives it its wholeness from the outside: we thus remain something more than things that are present-at-hand, and become most ourselves as well as wholes of ourselves (which are one and the same thing) when we understand ourselves as being or existing thrown wholly towards death—that is, as beings. It is because death is just like any other time for Dasein that all of Dasein’s authentic existence is a being-towards-death, and Dasein is, therefore, always being-a-whole: but Dasein’s time is only what it is insofar as it is something not present-at-hand, as it is something with possibilities as to how it will take its Being as an issue for itself.

Nietzsche and Hegel: breaking the dialectic...

Nietzsche breaks with the Hegelian dialectic by more rigorously conceiving the Hegelian "subject," or that aspect of "what actually is" in Hegel that becomes, that negates: there is a negativity that is greater and more powerful than Hegelian negativity, a type of becoming that is more true and more fundamental than Hegelian becoming, and thus a different type of movement and structure of the actual than the dialectic.

When we say "subject," we are of course referring to the famous and crucial phrase from the Preface to the Phenomenology of Spirit that essentialy sums up Hegel's philosophical position:

In my view, which can be justified only by the exposition of the [Hegelian] system itself, everything turns on grasping and expressing the True [what is real, actual], not only as Substance, but equally as Subject.
-Phenomenology of Spirit, §17.

Essentially, this means that what is actual, is only because it is both 1) being, existence (this is what is meant by "Substance," a thing that has attributes), and 2) becoming (this is what is meant by "Subject"). That which really or actually is, not only is (that is, not only exists), but also becomes or incorporates becoming into its existence. In fact, by saying "equally" Hegel says that what is actual is indeed actual only to the extent that it also becomes: becoming and being only effect actuality insofar as they occur equally, insofar as becoming incorporates itself into being just as much as being exists. Now, this becoming that is incorporated into the Substance that is actual Hegel calls "negativity." Thus he says a little later on in the Preface:

The living Substance is being which is in truth Subject, or, what is the same, is in truth actual only insofar as it is the movement [read: becoming] of positing itself, or is the mediation [read: becoming] of its self-othering with itself. This substance is, as Subject, pure simple negativity.
-Phenomenology of Spirit, §18.

"Pure negativity" Hegel says a little later, is, "when reduced to its pure abstraction [or the most general concept which will encompass it], simple becoming" ("Preface", §20). Thus, when being (Substance) is "in truth," as Hegel says here, when it is actual, it negates, it becomes. Linking negation up with the concepts of becoming and being, subject and substance, we can see then why Hegel calls becoming "negativity:" becoming is the absence of being, and therefore, conceived purely, is not. It is the "not," pure and simple--what does not exist but what makes something actual. We can also see that the statement about the True as substance and equally as subject responds essentially to Descartes, who thought the True, the actual, was only insofar as it was Substance.

For Descartes, the cogito, when it grasped its actuality, was a res cogitans, "thinking thing," a thing that possessed the attribute of thinking. For Hegel, conceiving of actuality as guaranteed by the mere attribute of a thing did not seem concrete enough: reality and actuality conceived only as the adequate possession of a particular attribute seems too flimsy. Cartesian truth, Hegel thinks, would only be a matter of determining whether something possessed the right attribute and so was a substance--it was no more profound than this, this determining what is essentially already priveliged to be a substance (since it already possesses the attribute). The whole method of Descartes, the whole taking away of all that was supposedly real to reach what was actual, is essentially meaningless, since it only finds out what was already there. For Hegel, this whole process of abstracting away from reality essentially and necessarily effected the grasping of actuality that Descartes found--it did something, it had to do something, otherwise the truth that Descartes found would merely be superfluous, would not govern reality or essentially be true. Thus, whatever was true also had to be a "subject," had to be not merely an attribute but a predicate that determined the thing it was asserted to be the possession of.

Calling this predicate of the substance "subject" essentially means: the "I think" is not indifferent to the "I am," the thinking itself of Descartes effectuates the being that the thinking supposedly proves; or, put differently, the "cogitans" is not merely an adjective modifying "res," but essentially determines "res" as a verb. The "res," is what it does. This "doing" is not merely being, but is in fact a going beyond being into a realm where being is not. Conceived adequately, this "doing" is, for Hegel, a becoming. Thus he says, essentially of the res cogitans, that for it not to be a mere empty phrase, a mere truth that is indifferent to the everyday world that it supposedly governs, in order for it to govern that world as its actual nature, it must become, must enter into an other state that is not being--that in fact is not-being itself, negation: "whatever is more than... a word... contains a becoming-other that has to be taken back [into the word itself as its action, as what it does]" ("Preface" §20).

Now that this is cleared up, where does Nietzsche fall with respect to all of it? We said that Nietzsche breaks with the Hegelian dialectic by more rigorously conceiving the Hegelian "subject." We now see that implied in this is a radicalization of how Hegel, too, more rigorously conceived the Cartesian cogito: Nietzsche too is reacting to Descartes. Essentially, then, how Hegel conceives of actuality as effected by a becoming--becoming as negativity being the essence of the "subject"--will have to be just as inadequately conceived for Nietzsche as Descartes' substance was for Hegel.
Let us see what Nietzsche says:

What are attributes?-- We have not regarded change in us as change but as an "in itself" that is foreign to us... and we have posited it, not as an event, but as a being, as a "quality"--and in addition invented an entity to which it adheres; i.e. we have regarded the effect as something that effects, and this we have regarded as a being. But even in this formulation, the concept "effect" is arbitrary: for those changes that take place in us, and that we firmly believe we have not ourselves caused, we merely infer to be effects, in accordance with the conclusion "every change must have an author";--but this conclusion is already mythology: it separates that which effects from the effecting. If I say "lightning flashes," I have posited the flash once as an activity and a second time as a subject, and thus added to the event a being that is not one with the event but is rather fixed, is, and does not "become."-- To regard an event as an "effecting," and this as being, that is the double error, or interpretation, of which we are guilty.
-The Will to Power, #531 (composed 1885-1886)

Now, first of all, we should clarify what Nietzsche means by "attribute" in this note, for the question "what are attributes?" is that to which the whole rest of the note responds. Nietzsche means by "attribute" both attribute in the Cartesian sense, as that which is a property of a substance, but also "predicate" in the Hegelian sense, as that which is the subject of a substance. This is the upshot of the paragraph: we see not only that attributes are attributes, but that things that are asserted as predicates are attributes. It is not even a matter of a misnomer: Hegel does not use "predicate" when what he "really means" is "attribute," for Nietzsche--Hegel is not merely mistaken in taking something that is an attribute to be a predicate. What Nietzsche is getting at here, what he essentially determines the "attribute" to be, is something that is also signified by "predicate"--using "predicate" does not outstrip or go beyond what is essentially signified by "attribute," as Hegel thinks it does. That is, Nietzsche destroys Hegel's assumption that in making the attribute into a predicate, he is accurately conceiving actuality. Niether attribute nor predicate can do this for Nietzsche: actuality is something that exceeds the grasp of both these concepts, and thus are just as effective in grasping actuality as we now know (after Hegel) the attribute was--we can therefore lump them together under one name.

The main thrust of the paragraph thus made visible, we can turn to the actual statements themselves to determine how indeed the Hegelian predicate is just like an attribute. For wasn't the predicate subject, and the subject negativity, that is, becoming? How is becoming in Hegel only an attribute?
Because, says Nietzsche, it is not adequately conceived as becoming. In other words, it is covertly conceived as being. This is what Nietzsche means when he says, "We have not regarded change in us as change but as an 'in itself' that is foreign to us... and we have posited it, not as an event, but as a being, as a 'quality.'" "Change" here is becoming. "Not regarding change as change" means not conceiving becoming as a becoming that is adequate to the nature of becoming. What is this nature? Well, as we already determined when looking at Hegel, the nature of becoming is not-being: becoming is what happens when being stops being and changes into a different type of being. While a being is changing into a different type of being, it engages in a process where it turns into its opposite and negation--it becomes, it engages in not-being. Thus, if becoming is the opposite of being, to not regard becoming as becoming is essentially to pass off something as becoming that is not really the full and pure opposite of being, but only approximates this opposite. This pseudo-opposite would therefore be something that appears to change, appears to become, but does not really become. In fact, it would still be being. This is what Nietzsche means by "we have posited it [change, becoming] not as an event, but as a being." Now, what remains to be explained is the crucial part of this statement: how is this pseudo-becoming a pseudo-becoming because it is "regarded.. as an 'in itself' that is foreign to us?" Indeed, this "foreign-ness" of becoming is proffered as the essential thing that makes it lack actuality in the paragraph. How could becoming be in itself something foreign, and as this not really be actual becoming?

Well, let us reflect on what Hegel said becoming was. Hegel said "the living Substance is being which is in truth Subject, or, what is the same, is in truth actual only insofar as it is the movement of positing itself, or is the mediation of its self-othering with itself." Notice that Hegel describes what is in effect becoming--Subject--as a type of "self-othering with itself." Is not this "self-othering" of which Hegel speaks what Nietzsche refers to as the "foreign?" Indeed, what is "other" is what is foreign: what is other is whatever is not-itself, what is not-here (but there, over and against oneself, in the foreign). Indeed, the German "fremd" carries this meaning of "other" with it much more than the "foreign" with which we translate Nietzsche: in German "other" is "anderes", a conjunction of "an", meaning "on," "apart from and yet related to," "an aspect of a thing that is not it but is added onto it," "on top of and against," and therefore essentially "not" in a privative way similar to the Latin prefix "a-" when it is used as a prefix, and the word "da," which means "here"--thus we say what is other is what is not-here. Indeed, Hegel himself often plays on this meaning, implying that what is other is also what is foreign. What this part of the passage of Hegel's means, then, is what we have just explained when we were explaining becoming: "self-othering" is what is necessary for something not just to merely exist as a substance, but also as subject. In order for something to really exist, it must in a sense go out of itself and change such that it becomes its own other. This is what Hegel means by "mediation:" something mediates insofar as it traverses a path in which it engages in a process where it becomes foreign, other than itself. Now, when we were explaining becoming and its opposition to being, we did not give it this sense of "becoming-foreign"--but indeed we can see that this is what we meant. Becoming is not just becoming for Hegel, it is becoming-other, becoming-foreign. It is becoming something that, while it "is" not, is indeed something that is set up as in opposition to being--that is, substance proper. This is so much the case that we can say the following: what does not become other, what does not become foreign to itself as being, does not become at all for Hegel. What does not set itself up in opposition to being when it becomes is only still merely being, merely substance without being subject, and fails to attain actuality or Truth.

Now we understand what Nietzsche means by regarding change or becoming "as an 'in itself' that is foreign to us." For Hegel, becoming is, in itself, what is foreign to being. As soon as something engages in becoming instead of being, it must be foreign or other to being, because becoming is in itself something different, foreign and other to being, to existence.

Now, Nietzsche says this regard for becoming as in itself foreign to being makes becoming or change into being. Why is this the case? Is not becoming something that is foreign to being? Hegel seems to be on the right track here: Nietzsche suddenly looks as if he is ruthlessly undermining something that most, if not all, would agree upon. But let us hear Nietzsche out. Why does Nietzsche assert becoming is being when it is regarded as the other of being? Because this makes becoming into "a 'quality.'" What is a quality? we must ask. Well, a quality is a quality of being. It is something that being does not have as an attribute or (what is the same for us now) a predicate, but which is commensurable with the character that being itself has. Being of the same quality as being means that one is commensurable with, adequate with, equivalent with being. Being a quality of being means that one can be substituted for being without any change effecting itself within the character of being. Thus, we see how what we agree upon fails us, along with Hegel. For it is obvious that if becoming, according to Hegel, is something that is commensurate with being, can be exchanged with being without making being change, well, as change itself becoming can no longer really be called becoming. What Nietzsche is getting at is this: if becoming can be something that being can just enter into, well, then it is not really becoming because it does not force that being to become, to change. The only question left to us, then, is whether Hegel holds this. If we reflect on what we have heard Hegel say, namely, that becoming is negation this will prove the case. Simply by negating itself, by being not-being, being itself can become what is other to it--becoming. Nietzsche is right. If being can be other than itself and thereby be becoming, becoming is commensurable with the character of being, and is therefore its "quality." When being negates itself, then, it is still being. All this comes down to one fundamental insight: Nietzsche effectively claims here that as long as becoming is the other of being, then it is not actually becoming.

Before specifying what actual becoming would be (presumably a becoming that is not the other of being), we might take a moment to show how immense this claim is. For its power is such that it effectively "breaks" the dialectic of Hegel. Furthermore, it does not break it from the outside by specifying something wrong with the points Hegel begins his dialectic at and ends it with (nature and Absolute Knowledge, respectively), in the manner of Strauss, Feuerbach, and the early Marx. What Nietzsche does is much more radical, and only the late Marx and Kierkegaard approached it prior to him: Nietzsche breaks the dialectic from the inside, from the movement of the aufheben or negativity that constitutes it.

So, what is the dialectic, and how does it get constituted by negativity? This is an immense question, but we can state what it is quite simply from what we have already determined. The dialectic is the name we give for the process of negation that makes a being or substance attain its actuality through its becoming. It is essentially the process of "mediation" we described earlier--a substance's taking up of its own opposite (the opposite remaining its becoming) in its becoming. When this substance is determined as all of actuality, all of the world and its meaningful events, or, to call it by its Hegelian name, Spirit--when this is the case we have the "dialectic" proper: it is the totality of world-meaning or Spirit mediating itself, going through the process of its becoming actual. This huge global movement is, then, what is broken by Nietzsche. No longer can we look at the history of the world and of its meaningful events as a process of the becoming-actual of being, or the subjectivization of its substance, for this becoming-actual or subjectivization is what is already there, what is superfluous about its deeper essence. Thus, what Hegel hated about Descartes, namely, that he was saying something that did not really say anything, can be applied back to Hegel by Nietzsche. Any process of negation, the becoming other of a thing, doe not necessarily have to proceed the way that Hegel specifies it will because he conceives of this becoming merely as a quality of being. We can see how this might change our perception of things when we look at the example of the lightening that Nietzsche gives: "lightning flashes."

Now, for Hegel, the substance of the lightning is actualizing itself or realizing itself in the sky because as it is ceasing to merely be and instead become not just merely itself but what is foreign to itself--its becoming. The lightning flashes: the flashing is the sign of the becoming of the substance that is lightning. We see how intertwined this perspective is with our normal conception of things when we merely begin to think of even more every day examples: the tree grows--it ceases being a tree and realizes itself as a growing-tree; the dog walks--the dog ceases to just merely be a dog by being a walking dog, by becoming something other. These are dialectical interpretations of events because they specify a structure of reality that the events supposedly coincide with. But how does Nietzsche view these events? "If I say 'lightning flashes,' I have posited the flash once as an activity and a second time as a subject, and thus added to the event a being that is not one with the event but is rather fixed, is, and does not 'become.' What this means is that Nietzsche sees the lightening dialectically and looks at its flashing not as an activity of the lightning but merely as something that the lightning instantiates itself as for the dialectician. The flash is not a unique event. It is merely an unfolding of what was always already present in the lightning just simply being lightning. This is because the flashing is not becoming, but being. We can see why Nietzsche says that this view posits the flash twice: the flash is supposedly something that is supposed to be other than being and yet at the same the activity that has made it other. While this first thing is specified by what Hegel calls "becoming," the actual activity, the flashing itself, is not grasped by this type of "becoming" since it is something that really truly excludes being (unlike Hegel's "becoming," which, let us repeat it, is only a being's "quality"). What actually makes the lightning flash is something that is not its becoming. According to Hegel, what makes the lightning flash is its not-being. But this only makes it into something that is a "subject" (as Nietzsche says) over and above its substance. It does not make it flash. Thus we come back to what we first specified as the upshot of this entire passage: what Hegel determined as predicate is just as good as the Cartesian attribute--they both miss the real issue, the real activity that is in complete opposition to being. What this is we have yet to specify--though Nietzsche does indeed specify it--but already we can use a more poignant example in order to hit home how incadequate this Hegelian view of things is: "I murder." The murder is not a consequence of any actual activity on my part according to Hegel--it is only the consequence of my not-being-myself. Now, Nietzsche allows us to see that I am myself insofar as I am not myself, because this murder was indeed me acting in accordance to my character as a substance, as an "I." But as far as Hegel is concerned, the activity of this action extends only so far as to show that I was acting as something that was not myself, but an application of myself, a becoming-other of what-once-was the substance that was myself. We indeed subscribe to this view in the courts, where we think an action is the application of the subjectivity of the subject: Hegel would say that it is the subjectivity of the subject. But this is, according to Nietzsche, missing the point. The action itself is never touched: the real becoming is pawned off as this pseudo-becoming, this mere predicate or attribute of being. This is what Nietzsche means when he characterizes this as a mere dogmatic adherence to the naive believe that "every change must have an author." Every becoming, every lightning flash, every murder, is only as it is because it is the effect of an intention, an authoring, a being that has become by negation or not-being. We have to ask: is this always the case? Especially of nature--how does lightning "intend" a flash?

What is the real action according to Nietzsche? We can look at how he describes this pawning-off in order to specify it. "We have regarded the effect as something that effects," Nietzsche says. That is, we regard an effect as a cause. In order to perceive the real essence of becoming, the activity of becoming, that which we mistakenly think we grasp when we call it this mere "effecting" that is really in essence an effect--in order to get at this we have to reverse cause and effect here. That is, in order to grasp actual becoming, we have to consider what we call a cause here--being, the lightning--and see this as the effect of a different cause. What is this different cause? Nothing other than what is effected by this "effecting," that is, the flashing, what we called the becoming of the being, the negation of the being. Put differently, in order to properly conceive becoming, we have to reverse cause and effect as we normally see it. This means not only that we have to reverse the priority of being over becoming that determines the particular relationship of becoming and being, for it is this priority of being over becoming that makes becoming the "other" of being. In other words, becoming is what it is for Hegel only insofar as it is is not-being. This implies that it has no real essence apart from being merely the cessation of being: where being stops, there becoming is; becoming is only the consequence of being, its effect.

Reversing this priority means reversing cause and effect. Therefore we have to conceive of being itself, existence, as a consequence of what we call becoming, such that being is merely not-becoming. This reversal effectuates a conception of the actual--which we remember is the mediation of the effecting and the effect, what we called being and its negation--that is one in which becoming as activity is genuinely conceived. Becoming in this actual sense is what becomes such that in not becoming it is being. Only when becoming is something that can be (exist) when it stops becoming--and not the mere consequence of a cessation in things being--only when this is the case have we properly conceived becoming. What does this look like? We have hinted at it: instead of seeing the lightning effectuating the flash, or causing it, we see the flash causing the lightning. How can this be?

Well, we regard the lightning as something that serves as the vessel or embodiment for the particular event (becoming) that is the flash. This is perhaps better seen in the example of murder. Where murder was something that was merely the extension and application of the substance or existing person, for Nietzsche, the person is a mere vessel for the act of murder, no matter what she or he intended. And while this may be more troubling, and make it universally harder to assign guilt, looking at events this way will make them more accurate, make them more actual. It is the ability to think this, to think of what is merely as the vessel for the mighty process of becoming (a will to power) that sustains in fact brings it as it is about, that allows us to say we have adequately forged a realm for thought beyond the dialectic and the shoddy interpretation of becoming as something lacking action--that is, it allows us to say we have adequately gone beyond Hegel. We have only hinted at how this beyond is to be really thoroughly conceived, but hopefully the break with the dialectic itself will be clear--and that is what is important in knowing the thrust and the importance of both Nietzsche and Hegel.

Will to Power and Eternal Return

Nietzsche says, "supposing everything is becoming, then knowledge is possible only on the basis of belief in being," (The Will to Power, #518) and thereby shows quite clearly the essential link between his two basic concepts called "the will to power" and "the eternal return." In fact, here he shows these two basic concepts are one. How?

Will to power (in German, der Wille zur Macht) is the fundamental assertion that whatever is, wills, or is only insofar as it possesses (or rather inhabits) some intention towards an object. Now, it is not only this. To will to power means that whatever is, wills itself: the will itself that is, is the object of that will. Thus will to power is the willing of a will. It is the will that the will will again. Now, this does not mean that whatever is--that is, whatever wills--merely wills its own self-preservation. No. It wills enhancement. When we say that will to power is a will that wills itself again, we mean by this "again" not a mere endurance. What wills to power does not seek to merely endure or suffer through the moment and thereby preserve itself--Nietzsche calls this type of will the height of "slavish" morality, and would scoff at our even being able to confuse it with what is signified by "will." What wills to power seeks not to be again--this is what is implied by interpreting "willing again" as a will to endure. Rather, what wills to power seeks to become again, to have the chance to not exist as a will but instead will again--will being at bottom development, overcoming, becoming. If this will to will again means that a will will exist again, well, that is great. But it is essentially of no consequence to a will whether it exists or not--it merely seeks to impose itself on its object.

Eternal return (der Ewigen Wiederkunft) is a name for a fundamental reversal of metaphysics that Nietzsche conceived: all being is the becoming of being. Now, throughout metaphysics being (existing, is-ing) is conceived in opposition to becoming. What exists excludes what is-on-the-way-to-existing (this is what is essentially meant by "becoming"). As soon as something becomes, it strictly is not anymore. For example, say my opinion changes. Indeed we say this often enough--what do we mean by it? What is meant by this is that my opinion becomes: it temporarily does not exist while it changes from what it was to what it then, after becoming or changing, is. It is absurd to think of what my opinion is at the time that I am changing it. I only "have an opinion" before and after the becoming of the opinion. So too with being: this is how we can say that it is what does not exist.
Now, if all being is the becoming of being, what do we mean by that? Well, it implies two steps of our cognition. First, we have to see that Nietzsche does not strictly invert the proposition "all being is being" by saying that "all being is... becoming." If we omit "the being of," we see Nietzsche would be simply saying that all being is non-being, all existence is non-existence--in essence, nothing exists. Everything becomes. After contemplating what Nietzsche does not exactly say, we can then proceed to add "the being of" back in and see what he does say. But what he does indeed say has to be taken from the standpoint of this inversion: being is no longer primary, it no longer reigns over becoming. With this dethroning, becoming is more primary. Now, this established, we may assert that if all being is the being of becoming, this means all that is, is as a consequence of becoming (if becoming is primary). This is why this is a reversal of metaphysics: where becoming was subordinated to being, being becomes subordinate to becoming. Its existence is not eradicated, as it would be via the inversion we spoke of before--this would not allow it to be suboordinate. We see that a more complete and rigorous reversal than the mere inversion of being and becoming has occured in allowing being to exist under becoming, be determined by becoming.
And what would this being or existence determined by becoming look like? This is where the scenario signified by the phrase "eternal return" comes in. If all was becoming, and being was a mere consequence of becoming, then all that existed, all being, would have to be the result of a recurrance or return of becoming--that is, becoming that was repeated. Let us sketch out the scenario: if time not the span in which things existed, as it would be within traditional metaphysics, but the span in which they became, then time, if it ended, would have to begin again--this is prescribed by the nature of time remaining the span in which things become. In other words, if the process of becoming ended, it would have to just begin again. Now, what got repeated because of this beginning again, this repetition of time, would then no longer just be becoming, but would have some actual existence independent of the process of becoming. It would have being. Being, then, is what returns, or what is repeated, when becoming ends and begins becoming again. In other words, being is the becoming-again of events in time. This is how being is the being of becoming.
Before we move on, we might ask why does becoming have to repeat--that is, become in the same way that it became before? Well, there are disputed answers to this within Nietzsche scholarship. The easiest way to explain it is that becoming must be a finite process. If what becomes is finite, then there are only a determinate number of possibilities for what becomes to become. Once these are expended completely, then the whole process would have to start over, and, though the order in which they became could be different, each possibility would be expended by the becoming again and thus would exist again.
Now, whether this recurring-time-structure of the world is the case is irrelevant. Nietzsche in fact never claims that it is. But it is not a mere fanciful thought. Why? Because, as we shall see, it is essentially not the structure of the world itself, but the structure of the will to power. In other words, what is designated by the eternal return is not the nature of reality, but the nature of the will to power that produces reality. The will to power operates in such a way that it takes being as the being of becoming, and insofar as this is true--which Nietzsche does claim and assert with vehemence--then reality, whatever it is--Nietzsche in fact thinks we cannot ultimately determine it--will be structured according to the idea of eternal return through the will to power.

How do these two basic ideas relate and become one? We see already that if will wills itself again when it is will to power, it must will itself to repeat. Thus it must will the eternal return to be true of reality, must will the eternal return into reality. In other words, in willing itself again it must will the eternal recurrance of itself, must will its return (i.e. must will itself) again and again, eternally.
But while this explanation is sufficient to link these concepts together, it still preserves a distinction between the two terms. The real key to understanding Nietzsche is getting at why they are one, why they are both aspects of the same phenomenon. And to do this, we must turn to the quote from Nietzsche (it should be noted that this quote isn't the only one where this connection can be made: Nietzsche is in fact quite frequently saying something of the sort that can be construed this way).
But what Nietzsche means by "knowledge" in this quote must be specified first. "Knowledge works as a tool of power," he said once, putting it quite succinctly (The Will to Power, #480). How is this so? Because knowledge is knowledge not of reality, but of what is real for the will that wills power. Thus, knowledge can be a "tool," an effect of the will's intention; it can be a facet or aspect of the intention that intends or strives for its object; it can be a reflection of this intention representing what the intention needs out of reality in order for it to get its object (which, we remember, is itself). If we conceive of knowledge as this, the (to use a not unrelated Freudian term) wish-fulfillment or fantasy of the will to power, and not as the representation of the reality as it is outside of the will (for there is no way the will can get outside the will), then we can begin to turn to the phrase and make sense of it.

"Supposing everything is becoming, then knowledge is possible only on the basis of belief in being." What Nietzsche means is this: if we can only act in such a way that we will to power, and if the will to power supposes everything is becoming or, expressed differently, supposes that the eternal return is true, then knowledge or the will to power's fantasies are possible only if the will to power believes or wills being and not the being of becoming to return eternally. In other words, knowledge is only possible if the will to power goes against itself and, as the will to the eternal return or recurrence of will, wills that the eternal return not be true. Let us be clear: it wills the eternal return not to be the true object of the will to power because in willing being to exist instead of the being of becoming, it wills that the exact reversal of the eternal return (being) be more primary than the product of the eternal return (the being of becoming).
Now, a lot is happening here, but it is already clear that knowledge is a product of the most savage and primordial masochistic act of the will: its will not to return. Knowledge is the reflection of this will to undo will. Now we begin to have a sense of how the will to power and the eternal return are really products of the same immense phenomenon that Nietzsche spent his life fighting: the fall of the will to power into a slavish will to nothingness, the fall of the will of the master into the will of the slave and the advent of nihilism—all this brings about a change in the will to power such that it does not will the eternal return anymore. Only when we figure out that this is the phenomenon that Nietzsche's concepts are forged in order to combat do we see how both the will to power and the eternal return are ideas that are interconnected, for we see they originate from and explain the same thing.
But let us elaborate, starting with the term "slave:" why is knowledge slavish exactly? Because, as we have already established, as knowledge, knowledge represents a reality that the will wills to be true--and in this case this reality is essentially a reality where willing does not occur. If the will wills itself not to return, it wills its own death. And if, looking through Nietzsche's writings, we see that he often says the essence of (biological) life is the will to power, it becomes clear why Nietzsche links this will of the death of willing to the slave, who essentially is characterized as nihilistic: the will against life is a will to nothingness, and therefore nihilistic. Nihilism is the will of the slave for Nietzsche. The term opposed to the slave—master—we see characterizes those who are worthy of life, those who do not seek to be free of it but want to will correctly (that is, will to power).
Master and slave basically characterized, then, we can see that the advent of knowledge was also for Nietzsche the advent of both nihilism and slavishness—in other words, the fall of the will to power to a will to nothingness. According to Nietzsche in this short remark, knowledge of reality only comes on the scene once life, the will to power, ceases to will itself to power again and again. Why? It is clear that if this is true, this fact makes all knowledge slavish knowledge, even if it is held by a master, simply because it has an essence that wills the end of the will to power. It is also clear that a true master would only diverge from willing his power again and again, eternally, by acquiring knowledge (or, descending into the muck of the slave) only to will himself to power better, more easily, more deftly, with more skill. But for anyone who takes reality to be something that can be known, they cease willing to power: they apparently engage with reality in such a way that they are slaves, that they will their own destruction.
But is this true? Does knowledge come on the scene when life ceases to will itself to recur eternally? Why should Nietzsche indeed affirm this? Everything revolves around seeing how knowledge does not seek the eternal recurrence of the will to power. But before we can grasp this, it is handy to picture life before the advent of knowledge. If the essence of life is to will itself (which is, we remember, will to power) to power, then there is no need for knowledge (in the sense we already described) at all. Knowledge can only be a deviation from the primary task, can only be secondary (readers of Freud now see that these primary and secondary tasks are a lot like the primary and secondary processes of the unconscious and the conscious). Adhering to this primary task, then, will in this time before knowledge knows nothing. Put differently, prior to the advent of knowledge, there was only a masterly willing of will such that reality was only the reflection of the will to power. In fact, it was not even a reflection of this will to power: reality simply was—no representation of the will to itself needed to juxtapose itself between the object and the will, as there is with knowledge. Reality was not fantasy or the wish-fulfillment of the will, for the will did not need anything more out of it in order to get at its object than what it already was. As hard or impossible as this is to picture, the key to grasping the fall of the will to power into nihilism is to see that this reality of the master is necessary to keep in view, a reality where knowledge is superfluous and in which life can get along fine without it. For once we know this and grasp it at least as somewhat plausible (looking at animals for examples), the concepts of the will to power and the eternal recurrence seem clearer, and the phenomenon of knowledge more sinister.
As we said, the key to knowing how knowledge arises when life seeks to will itself is to see that any deviation from this primary process must hinder the will to power, and hinder it in a way that resembles knowledge. Since the will to power seeks to will itself again and again eternally, that is, seeks to will the eternal recurrence of the becoming that is itself, all knowledge can only be a will for something else to recur eternally. And while this "something other" does not directly have to be the reverse of the will to power, the force that will undo it, to some degree this reverse is always the ultimate effect of any will that does not will itself to power. Why? Well, because along with any other object willed, there will also be a will against the will to power, a will to nothingness, because it wills something other than becoming to exist. That is, if it does not will becoming, it must will some form of being. And since being can only be a consequence of becoming for the will, this will must will against will. It is that simple.
But we have not shown how it wills against will in a form that resembles knowledge. Well, let us remember what Nietzsche here says knowledge is: knowledge is that which is possible only on the basis of a will that being should exist. Knowledge assumes things simply are. In fact, insofar as it exerts itself, it wills that they are this way. It does not assume that they become—how could it get a handle on them? Indeed, if you know my changing opinion in the process of it being changed, you know nothing: it is not an opinion anymore or yet. Thus Nietzsche shows, quite profoundly, that all those conceptions about reality that go so far as to presuppose that what is real is no longer the old solipsistic Cartesian cogito, but the structure of a world, of a reality that merely happens to fall in line in a particular way with our mode of perceiving—all these Kantian and Hegelian and Comteian notions of reality as a thing that is structured to suit knowledge overlook something. They do this even if they affirm idealistically (like Berkeley) that only knowledge is reality (i.e. that all that is real are pure subjective perceptions--there is no "external reality" at all). They are overlooking how reality is not structured at a deeper level, at the level that makes possible their assertion that reality is structured for knowledge. At this level, being and becoming war with each other, and all that exists is will. Their philosophies thus will being as opposed to becoming, since what is remains the sole object of knowledge (knowledge is not of becoming). And with this will they fail to see that their being can just as well be an effect of becoming.
Now, it is this hastiness, this lack of resolve to make sure being permeates all that is willed that makes their will lack something. What it lacks is a will to impose itself upon all things such that it can expend all its possibilities and recur again: this will lacks a will to power. As such, it has made something be in opposition to becoming, so that it can grasp and comprehend not what it is but what it should be. Reality thus is representation as opposed to reality—fantasy or mere wish fulfillment. As such, it is knowledge. Thus knowledge is the effect of a denigrated will to power.
We have moved quickly, because the central issue here will bring us back to what has just happened. The central issue is this: regardless of whether will to power is what is real, regardless of whether the recurring-time-structure is the structure of reality itself, all knowledge stops short at a point where its essence could be one of two things, being or being of becoming. Since they are identical in their appearance (both appear to be being), but different in their genealogy or origin (one has its origin in being, the other in becoming), the decision to pick one over the other will inevitably be fatal, regardless of which is chosen. For all knowledge can see here is being: it has stopped short of genealogy. It thus affirms being and ceases to have contact with reality other than through fantasy. Now, what made this knowledge stop short? A lack of will. It is not knowledge itself, but the will of knowledge that is its downfall. This will, because it wills only being at this juncture and does not will itself—i.e. because it is not at this juncture true to its nature, which, as a will, is will to power, will to recur again and be again the being of becoming—because it wills being over its own nature it stops short of itself, does not will itself again, again at this final juncture where of all places it should will itself again, assert itself again. It is suddenly truer to the object of the will than the will itself. This, then, regardless of what reality is, makes the will to power what is not willed by knowledge.
And this is why Nietzsche repeats again and again that "knowledge is dangerous." It is not dangerous because it is a "tool of power," in the sense that, as knowledge, it can influence us to will domination over things that we should not dominate, like the poor, etc: knowledge here is not dangerous primarily because it is "ideology," because it has something wrong with its content. It is dangerous first and foremost for the will and its ability to will itself because of its form--that is, because it is merely a tool that seeks to substitute itself for will (one sees parallels with Heidegger's assertion that Being has fallen from its essence to become something merely ready-to-hand, something approximating techne, what gets used in the world). Indeed, Nietzsche thinks that we probably no longer have the capacity to will something without knowledge (in the conventional slavish sense) anymore: he believes that many generations must pass before humanity can live up to such a will again (and a knowledge that is suboordinate to will--we must keep in mind that Nietzsche is not advocating fanaticism or the end of knowledge, but only its being in the proper place, underneath will). Thus knowledge comes on the scene when life ceases to will itself to recur eternally. And thus the phenomenon is unitary: it occurs when being and being of becoming are put before a will, and the will does not make a choice and impose itself but accepts them both as equivalent, as being. In essence, this is the same choice we make everyday when we see a shoe or something made in a foreign land using slave labor and do not see its origin but see it only as a finished product—that is, see it only as a shoe, something that is regardless of where it came from, not as something that is only because it is the result of becoming what it is (that is, being-made-by-slaves). Now, as soon as this type of will becomes the predominant one, all that can result is nihilism, because the choice has already been made inside the slavish will itself against the true nature of life, against a will towards the eternal return of will. As soon as this will to power resurges, however (and it will have to overcome knowledge as slavish knowledge in order to do so) the proper nature of will might be restored to itself and life will again masterfully affirm life (and know masterfully--know not instead of willing but know in order to will).