Heidegger and Nietzsche

Heidegger's attitude toward Nietzsche can be seen in interpretations of such problems as will to power, nihilism, the revaluation of values, and eternal recurrence. Heidegger defined power as essence or substance, while Nietzsche defined it as strategy. According to Nietzsche, nihilism goes through three stages. The first is an implanting of values, the second is their removal, and the third is the positing of new values. Heidegger had a completely different view of the problem of nihilism. For him, nihilism was not a new positive thinking in which one person's relationship to another is paramount, but a different thinking of Being in regard to beings. The position of perspectivism is important in interpreting Nietzsche's idea of eternal recurrence. Understood cosmologically, this idea seems senseless and useless. According to Nietzsche, there are no truths, there are only interpretations. According to Heidegger, truth exists, and it is revealed in language. Nietzsche is the author of the thesis not only that God is dead, but that art is dead. How Nietzsche and Heidegger can be harmonized remains an open question.