Abstract

This essay aims to provide an interpretation of the relationship between subjectivity and power in Friedrich Nietzsche that differs both from the interpretations that make the «will-to-power» the instrument of the domination of the strong over the weak and from the interpretations that see in «the will-to-power» the recovery of the idea of «innocence of becoming». The hypothesis put forward consists in identifying in the nexus that Nietzsche poses between the birth of the subject and the will to life one of the seminal loci in which philosophy approaches the burning theme of voluntary servitude. The Author focus on the continuity detected between Christianity and the modern world to emphasize the complexity with which Nietzsche describes the process of subjectification that made the human animal docile and controllable, manipulable and obedient, bringing us one of the first and most powerful investigations into the link between subjectivity and pastoral power.