Reference:
Rakhmanovskaya E..
Paradoxes of the lust for power
// Philosophy and Culture. – 2017. – ¹ 10.
– P. 97-109.
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Abstract:
Whereas the theme of power has always been in the center of philosophical thought, it was mostly associated with the questions of government structure and politics – origin, delegation of power, mechanisms of its retention and augmentation, manifested as an instrument of ensuring the social stability. In other words, the power was viewed as a vivid and axiomatic phenomenon, which however, required the politological, social, and ethical analysis. Only the beginning of the XIX century marks the drastic reconsideration of power, overcomes the dominant substantial representations, determines the significant contradictions characteristic to power as such, as well as phenomenon of its own. The most considerable contribution into reevaluation of philosophy was performed by F. Nietzsche, who consolidated the will to power as a primary reality of human existence. The philosopher demonstrated that the lust for power is not destiny of the chosen, but an unconscious desire of any individual. Although the power is externally justified by the social causes, introspectively, based on the internal logics of its development, does not need them, being a cause in of itself and complying with the law of self-expansion and self-affirmation. Enrooted in human nature, the lust for power manifests as an instinct, as well as passion and feeling of fascination with your own strength. The author attempts to reconstruct the views of F. Nietzsche upon the phenomenon of human passions, and concludes that in the philosopher’s perceptions, passions express the highest level of individual, inner, which confront the transpersonal, social, and moral. It is underlined that power can be viewed as the way for ego-expansion, metaphorical extension of boundaries of the “body”. Special attention is given to the state of anarchy that usually is associated with chaos and destructions, but in Nietzsche’s interpretation represents a highest level of power.
Keywords: ego-expansion, domination, Mahatma Gandhi, power rapture, power vacuum, instinct, passion, Nietzsche, will to power, power refusal
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