Abstract

What meaning does the “will of nothingness” have for Nietzsche? How does it relate resentment? In what sense do they look alike? What make they differ from each other? What is the meaning of the Nietzschean proposition that says that it’s better to “will nothingness, than not will”? It means, above all, that is impossible for the will to negate itself. Schopenhauer tried to justify such auto-negation in the saint’s constitution. Following James Braid, Nietzsche finds a new meaning for the “rest on nothingness”: it is an hypnotic state and being like this, it is neither an auto-negation of will in the Schopenhaurean sense nor a resentment in the way Dühring puts forth. Against the Dühringean principle of the universal necessity of reaction, Nietzsche holds a necessity of action. The disregard for this necessity means, for him, an indication of an equally universal tendency towards the self-seduction of man. In this sense, it shows the still living domination of the ascetic ideal over the will of truth in modern science