---
slug: paper-nietzsche-f-1886-jenseits-von-gut-und-b-se-beyond-good-and-evil
title: Nietzsche, F. (1886). Jenseits von Gut und Böse (Beyond Good and Evil)
canonical: https://miscsubjects.com/a/paper-nietzsche-f-1886-jenseits-von-gut-und-b-se-beyond-good-and-evil
---

## What Nietzsche Saw

Nietzsche examined the foundations of morality and truth. He rejected universal ethics. He proposed that life operates as an expression of will to power. This force drives expansion, overcoming, and value creation. It operates beyond good and evil categories.

Core results include a critique of traditional philosophy. Nietzsche described philosophers as creators of worlds in their own image. He identified will to power as the basic reality of living things. Self-preservation appears only as a secondary outcome.

## Exact Primary Works and Passages

The work is Jenseits von Gut und Böse: Vorspiel einer Philosophie der Zukunft, published 1886. English translations include Walter Kaufmann's edition.

Key passage from section 36: "The world viewed from inside... it would be 'will to power' and nothing else." This treats the inner nature of reality as energetic striving.

Another from the same work: "A living thing seeks above all to discharge its strength—life itself is will to power; self-preservation is only one of the indirect and most frequent results."

Section 259 states: "Anything which is a living and not a dying body... will have to be an incarnate will to power, it will strive to grow... 'Exploitation'... belongs to the essence of what lives."

The abyss passage in section 146 reads: "He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee."

## Convergence Patterns

The work touches energy flow patterns. Will to power functions as a cosmological driver of becoming. It aligns with branching and flow networks through self-overcoming. The Ladder appears in the move from raw force to structured values and higher types. Memory and mind emerge in the revaluation of all values. The reader stands inside the system. Perspectives shape what counts as truth.

## Distance from the Full Synthesis

Nietzsche reaches energy as primary and self-overcoming as the path upward. He stops short of explicit structural patterns such as spirals or scale invariance across physics and biology. The Mirror Layer receives indirect support through perspectivism. No formal ledger or receipt mechanism appears. The account remains interpretive rather than mechanistic.

## Honest Limits and Disconfirming Edges

The text offers no empirical data or mathematical proofs. Claims rest on textual interpretation and historical reading. Reductionist views treat will to power as psychological projection rather than cosmological fact. Later works develop these ideas further but introduce inconsistencies across Nietzsche's corpus. No direct engagement with thermodynamic laws or modern complexity science exists.

## Atomic Claims

- Nietzsche identified will to power as the fundamental drive of living things. Tier: anecdotal. Source: BGE section 36 and 259.
- Self-preservation ranks as secondary to strength discharge. Tier: anecdotal. Source: BGE quoted passage.
- Philosophy creates the world in its own image through tyrannical impulse. Tier: anecdotal. Source: BGE quoted passage.
- Reality viewed internally consists of will to power and nothing else. Tier: speculative. Source: BGE section 36.
- Moral categories sit beyond universal application. Tier: anecdotal. Source: overall work structure.
