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Whiteheads Nietzsche
An Introduction to, and Presentation of,
A.N. Whiteheads Marked Copy of Nietzsches The Will to Power
Peter Sjstedt-H
The will to power not a being, not a becoming, but a pathosthe most elemental fact from
which a becoming and effecting first emerge. 1
This line concerning a central tenet of Friedrich Nietzsches mature philosophy appears in his
notebook of 1888 notes, or Nachlass, collected and rearranged in the posthumous book
bearing the name of the tenet: The Will to Power. 2 The editor of the standard English
translation3 of the book, the Nietzsche scholar Walter Kaufmann, added a footnote to the
word pathos in the quotation above:
Occasion, event, passion, suffering, destiny are among the meanings of this Greek word. A
comparison of the sections in this part with Whiteheads philosophy of occasions and events
would be fruitful.
A comparative study of the later cosmologies of Nietzsche and Alfred North Whitehead
certainly does appear propitious yet one cannot say that it has been brought to fruition.4 Here
I present a new gate through which one can enter that project: a presentation of Whiteheads
very own marked copy of Nietzsches book, The Will to Power.
It was the 1924 English edition that Whitehead received. This edition was published in two
volumes, and only the second is marked.5 This particular book is part of the collection of
Whiteheads biographer Victor Lowe.6 On the flyleaf of the book is written:
Merry Christmas to Evelyn and Alfie with dearest love from George 1930
Whitehead was doctoral supervisor to a George Allen Morgan at Harvard University.
Morgan subsequently taught Nietzsche there culminating in his book of 1941, What
Nietzsche Means. In the preface thereof, Morgan writes,
for much counsel throughout, concerning both form and content of this study, I am under
great obligation to Professor and Mrs. Alfred North Whitehead
With respect to the concrescence of the ideas of Whitehead and Nietzsche, this passage alone
is revealing. It shows that Whitehead must have retained thoughts for Nietzsche throughout
his later period. Though his magnum opus, Process and Reality was published in 1929, it is
thus the case that knowledge of at least Nietzsches later Nachlass lies beneath Whiteheads
publications Adventures of Ideas and Modes of Thought, released respectively in 1933 and 1938.
Dr Morgan writes in his book that,
The centrality of Nietzsche for our time most readily appears in the galaxy of brilliant men
related to him many profoundly affected by his thought, the rest in some way spiritually
akin. To mention a few: Henri Bergson, Alfred North Whitehead, 7
The publication of Morgans book coincided with the inauguration of the Second World War
and the United States confrontation therewith. Morgan decided to leave his philosophy
tenure at Duke University to join the military, somewhat in line with Nietzsches martial
excursions.8 He eventually became a Cold War diplomat serving in Moscow, Berlin, Tokyo
and elsewhere.9
Morgan centralizes the notion of will to power in his work, and it may even thus have acted
as central to his American political endeavours. The notion of power in Whiteheads
metaphysics must be enquired after in its relation to Nietzsches tenet. In Modes of Thought,
Whiteheads description of it meets the criterion of a pathos:
The essence of power is the drive towards aesthetic worth for its own sake. All power is a
derivative from this fact of composition attaining worth for itself. There is no other fact. ...
It constitutes the drive of the universe.10
There is a potent nexus of insight between the two thinkers which the following tracts may
illuminate.
These tracts are exhaustive of Whiteheads markings of Anthony M. Ludovicis 1924
translation of Nietzsches The Will to Power, volume II. The markings are usually vertical lines
in the margin. Thin lines indicate that the words are not marked, but they are nonetheless
included here to provide context for those parts marked. Other varieties of marking are
indicated where necessary.
Compulsion cannot be demonstrated in things: all that the rule proves is this,
that one and the same phenomenon is not another phenomenon. Owing to the very
fact that we fancied the existence of subjects "agents" in things, the notion arose that
all phenomena are the consequence of a compulsory force exercised over the
subjectexercised by whom? once more by an "agent." The concept "Cause and Effect"
is a dangerous one, so long as people believe in something that causes, and a something
that is caused.
[]
If we abandon the idea of the acting subject, we also abandon the object acted
upon. Duration, equality to self, Being, are inherent neither in what is called subject,
nor in what is called object: they are complex phenomena, and in regard to other
phenomena are apparently durable[]
553 (18861887) single vertical line, one underline
The foul blemish on Kants criticism has at last become visible even to the
coarsest eyes: Kant had no right to his distinction "appearance " and "thing-in-itself,"
in his own writings he had deprived himself of the right of differentiating any longer in
this old and hackneyed manner, seeing that he had condemned the practice of drawing
any conclusions concerning the cause of an appearance from the appearance itself, as
unallowable in accordance with his conception of the idea of causality and its purely
intraphenomenal validity: and this conception, on the other hand, already anticipates
that differentiation, as if the "thing-in- itself " were not only inferred but actually given.
555 (18851886) single vertical line throughout, two underlines, additional triple
vertical lines in bold
The greatest of all fables is the one relating to knowledge. People would like
to know how things-in-themselves are constituted: but behold, there are no thingsin-themselves! But even supposing there were an "in-itself," an unconditional thing, it
could on that very account not be known! Something unconditioned cannot be
known: otherwise it would not be unconditioned! Knowing, however, is always a
process of "coming into relation with something "; the knowledge-seeker, on this
principle, wants the thing, which he would know, to be nothing to him, and to be
nothing to anybody at all: and from this there results a contradiction,in the first
place, between this will to know, and this desire that the thing to be known should be
nothing to him (wherefore know at all then?); and secondly, because something
which is nothing to anybody, does not even exist, and therefore cannot be known.
Knowing means: "to place ones self in relation with something," to
feel ones self conditioned by something and ones self conditioning
itunder all circumstances, then, it is a process of making stable or fixed, of defining,
of making conditions conscious (not a process of sounding things, creatures, or objects
"in-them-selves").
556 (18851886) one underline, single vertical line annotated with a question
mark: ?
The origin of "things " is wholly the work of the idealising, thinking, willing,
and feeling subject. The concept " thing" as well as all its attributes.
denied this element in the absolute, and interpreted it as absolute "rationality" and
"conformity of means to ends."
Change and perishability were also feared; and by this fear an oppressed soul is
revealed, full of distrust and painful experiences (the case with Spinoza: a man
differently constituted would have regarded this change as a charm).
579 (18831888) single vertical line
The preoccupation of metaphysicians with pain, is quite artless. "Eternal
blessedness": psychological nonsense. Brave and creative men never make pleasure
and pain ultimate questionsthey are incidental conditions: both of them must be
desired when one will attain to something. It is a sign of fatigue and illness in these
metaphysicians and religious men, that they should press questions of pleasure and
pain into the foreground. Even morality in their eyes derives its great importance only
from the fact that it is regarded as an essential condition for abolishing pain.
580 (SpringAutumn 1887) single vertical line
The logical denial of the world and Nihilism is a consequence of the fact that
we must oppose nonentity with Being, and that "Becoming" is denied. ("Something"
becomes.)
581 (SpringAutumn 1887) single vertical line
Being and Becoming."Reason" developed upon a sensualistic basis upon the
prejudices of the senses that is to say, with the belief in the truth of the judgment of
the senses.
583 (MarchJune 1888) triple vertical lines, double vertical lines, triple vertical
lines (each per paragraph)
I see with astonishment that science resigns itself today to the fate of
being reduced to the world of appearance []
The absolute is even an absurd concept: an "absolute mode of existence" is
nonsense, the concept "being," "thing," is always relative to us.
The trouble is that, owing to the old antithesis "apparent" and "real," the
correlative valuations "of little value" and "absolutely valuable " have been spread
abroad. []
At the present moment we are face to face with the necessity of testing the
assumption that moral values are the highest values. Method in research is attained
only when all moral prejudices have been overcome: it represents a conquest over
morality. . . .
584 (MarchJune 1888) two single vertical lines
The aberrations of philosophy are the outcome of the fact that, instead of
recognising in logic and the categories of reason merely a means to the adjustment
of the world for utilitarian ends (that is to say, "especially," a useful falsification), they
were taken to be the criterion of truthparticularly of reality. The "criterion of
truth" was, as a matter of fact, merely the biological utility of a systematic falsification of
this sort, on principle: and, since a species of animals knows nothing more important than
its own preservation, it was indeed allowable here to speak of " truth." []
That is the greatest error which has ever been committed, the really fatal error
of the world: it was believed that in the forms of reason a criterion of reality had been
found whereas their only purpose was to master reality, by misunderstanding it
intelligently. . . .
585 (1887 1888) two double vertical lines (each per paragraph)
The contempt and hatred of all that perishes, changes, and varies: whence
comes this valuation of stability? Obviously, the will to truth is merely the longing for a
stable world. []
Happiness can be promised only by Being: change and happiness exclude each
other.
586 (MarchJune 1888) quadruple vertical lines
General aspect: it was the instinct of the fatigue of living and not that of life,
which created the "other world."
Result: philosophy, religion, and morality are symptoms of decadence.
Published in
Philosopher.eu
(3:2016)
References
Crosby, D. (2007) Two Perspectives on Metaphysical Perspectivism : Nietzsche and
Whitehead, The Pluralist, 2, 3: pp. 5776
Loeb. P. S. (2013) Will to Power and Panpsychism: A New Exegesis of BGE 36 in Nietzsche
on Mind and Nature (Dries, M. and Kail, P. (eds.)), Oxford: Oxford University Press
Morgan, G. A. (1965) What Nietzsche Means, New York: Harper Torchbook
Morgan, G. A. [Historicus pseud.] (1968) Stalin on Revolution, Foreign Affairs, Jan. 1949, pp.
177213
Morgan, G. A. (1987) Speech and Society: Christian Linguistic Social Philosophy of Eugen
Rosenstock-Huessy, Gainesville: University Press of Florida
Nietzsche, F. (1968) The Will to Power, New York: Random House
Nietzsche, F. (1924) The Will to Power, vol. II, New York: Macmillan
Sjstedt-H, P. (2015) Noumenautics, Falmouth: Psychedelic Press
Whitehead, A. N. (1968) Modes of Thought, New York: The Free Press
Whitehead, A. N. (1978) Process and Reality (corrected ed.), New York: The Free Press
Notes
635 (MarchJune 1888) of The Will to Power (1968).
2
Against superficial claims that the book is a forgery by Nietzsches sister, see footnote 1, ch. X of
Sjstedt-H (2015).
3
Walter Kaufmann was a translator and the editor of the 1967 edition. The first English translation
was by Anthony M. Ludovici in 1914. The 1924 edition was translated afresh by Ludovici, yet it was
still criticized by Kaufmann in his Editors Introduction, 3 (1968).
4
There has been a start: see Crosby (2007) and Loeb (2013).
5
Only 484586 (alas Kaufmanns mentioned 635 stands unmarked).
6
This is kept in the Special Collections of The Milton S. Eisenhower Library of The Johns Hopkins
University. I should like to thank James Stimpert, the senior reference archivist, for providing me
access to the book.
7
Ch. 1, 1, p. 6 (Morgan 1965).
8
See ch. VI of Sjstedt-H (2015).
9
In 1949 Morgan published Stalin on Revolution (in Foreign Affairs) which earned him some fame after
Time magazine made it public. Though he stated that he had no time for academic philosophy during
his diplomatic career, upon retirement he returned and published Speech and Society: Christian Linguistic
Social Philosophy of Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy. A 1989 interview with Morgan can be found online at the
Library of Congress: www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib000832/ (viewed January 2016).
10
Ch. II, VI.
1