Arendt reminds the reader that the question she is exploring here is whether the Will should be considered a faculty of choice between actions, goals, or objects or a faculty for spontaneity. Philosophers’ understanding of the Will has historically not allowed for total spontaneity, the freedom of an individual to do something entirely anew. Since there is a modern-age concept of progress, the Will became about power to impact the future rather than moral choice. Nietzsche viewed the look toward the future as a lack of optimism and progress: “‘Mankind’ does not advance; it does not even exist” (159). Nietzsche did not believe in the power of divine grace. Instead, he elevates the self as the source of Will’s power.

Nietzsche viewed the goal of life to escape the pain/pleasure framework that structures human life. He argued that joy occurs when humans step outside of pain and pleasure. His concept of eternal recurrence is important to his philosophy and marks a turn to the Greek concept of time and the Will.

Arendt turns her attention to her former mentor, Martin Heidegger, who saw the Will to power as the original sin. He saw his own submission to the Nazi movement as an example of this. He argued that thinking is not subjective: “What man thinks does not arise from his own spontaneity or creativity; it is the obedient response to the command of Being” (174). In Heidegger’s philosophy, the world of appearances is a distraction from Being; humans hide behind the apparent world. In his past works, Heidegger gave the thinking ego primacy over the Will; his later works reverse this idea.

Arendt states that she keeps running into the same flaw as she considers the history of philosophy centered on the Will: All these concepts of the Will are conceived by professional thinkers. She believes philosophers are consumed with necessity and the desire to know, so much so that they champion knowing above freedom. Arendt proposes that it is the same self in the thinking ego that is ensured by the Will. She considers the Will the source of character.

Arendt criticizes German Idealism once more, calling it science fiction. Political liberty is dependent upon plurality, not the primacy of the self. It differs from personal freedom. She argues that there is no such thing as action without plurality.