Will to power
The will to power (German: "der Wille zur Macht") is a prominent concept in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. The will to power describes what Nietzsche may have believed to be the main driving force in man: achievement, ambition, the striving to reach the highest possible position in life; these are all manifestations of the will to power.
Alfred Adler incorporated the will to power into his individual psychology. This can be contrasted to the other Viennese schools of psychotherapy: Sigmund Freud's pleasure principle (will to pleasure) and Viktor Frankl's logotherapy (will to meaning). Each of these schools advocates and teaches a very different main driving force in "man". The "will to power" has been "identified" in nature in the dominance hierarchies studied in many living species.[citation needed]
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[edit] Background
Friedrich Nietzsche found early influence from Schopenhauer, whom he first discovered in 1865. Schopenhauer puts a central emphasis on will and in particular has a concept of the "will to live." Writing a generation before Nietzsche, Schopenhauer explained that the universe and everything in it is driven by a primordial will to live, which results in all living creatures' desire to avoid death and procreate. For Schopenhauer, this will is the most fundamental aspect of reality — more fundamental even than being.
