> Was ist gut? --Alles, was das Gefuehl der Macht, den Willen zur
>Macht, die Macht selbst im Menschen erhoeht.
> Was ist schlecht?--Alles, was aus der Schwaeche stammt.
> --Antichrist, =A72
>
>This, I suggest, just begs the question of what power and weakness are.
It would if Nietzsche had nowhere else addressed the questions of power,
weakness, strength, etc. I would suggest that there is no lack of
questioning in Nietzsche's writing along these lines. It seems that you are
bothered that in order to read Nietzsche, one must have already read him.
"Begging the question" is the English version of the Latin, _petitio
principii_, meaning "assumption of the basis," or the "fallacy of founding a
conclusion on a basis that needs as much to be proved as the conclusion
itself" (Fowler). Your suggestion that the Nietzsche quote you provide,
untranslated, is begging the question of what power and weakness are is,
itself, begging the question of what the meaning of Nietzsche's quote is,
for which you provide no reading, explanation, or interpretation to justify
the conclusion you are trying to draw.
For those who don't wish to go to the trouble of digging up the translation,
here it is:
"What is good? Everything that heightens the feeling of power in man, the
will to power, power itself.
What is bad? Everything that is born of weakness."
Best,
Steve C.
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