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THE WILL TO POWER AS ART


where and how we can find traces of discordance in Nietzsche's inversion of Platonism. At the same time, on our way we should provide a richer and better defined significance for the catchword "Platonism."

We pose two questions. First, what is the scope of those determinations which in Plato's view apply to what we call "art"? Second, in what context is the question of the relationship of art and truth discussed?

Let us turn to the first question. We customarily appeal to the word techne as the Greek designation of what we call "art." What techne means we suggested earlier (cf. p. 80). But we must be clear about the fact that the Greeks have no word at all that corresponds to what we mean by the word "art" in the narrower sense. The word "art" has for us a multiplicity of meanings, and not by accident. As masters of thought and speech, the Greeks deposited such multiple meanings in the majority of their sundry univocal words. If by "art" we mean primarily an ability in the sense of being well versed in something, of a thoroughgoing and therefore masterful know-how, then this for the Greeks is techne. Included in such know-how, although never as the essential aspect of it, is knowledge of the rules and procedures for a course of action.

In contrast, if by "art" we mean an ability in the sense of an acquired capacity to carry something out which, as it were, has become second nature and basic to Dasein, ability as behavior that accomplishes something, then the Greek says melete, epimeleia, carefulness of concern (see Plato's Republic, 374).* Such carefulness is more than practiced diligence; it is the mastery of a composed resolute openness to beings; it is "care." We must conceive of the innermost essence of techne too as such care, in order to preserve it from the sheer "technical"


* Cf. especially Republic 374e 2: the task of the guardians requires the greatest amount of technes te kai epimeleias. Socrates has been arguing that a man can perform only one techne well, be he shoemaker, weaver, or warrior. Here techne seems to mean "skill" or "professional task." In contrast, meletaino means to "take thought or care for," "to attend to, study, or pursue," "to exercise and train." He melete is "care," "sustained attention to action." Epimeleia means "care bestowed upon a thing, attention paid to it." Schleiermacher translates epimeleia as Sorgfalt, meticulousness or diligence. Such is perhaps what every techne presupposes. Epimeleia would be a welcome addition to the discussion of cura, Sorge, in Being and Time, section 42.


Martin Heidegger (GA 6 I) The Will to Power as Art - Nietzsche 1