Wolfgang Müller-Lauter

Who is Wolfgang Müller-Lauter?

Wolfgang Müller-Lauter was a German philosopher and scholar. He is particularly known for his groundbreaking work on the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, considered to be one of the most important contributions to the study of Nietzsche in the twentieth century. He was Ordinary Professor of Philosophy at the Kirchliche Hochschule Berlin and from 1993 Emeritus Professor in the Theological Faculty of the Humboldt University Berlin.

Müller-Lauter began his career with a doctoral thesis on Martin Heidegger, to whose work he had been led through a study of Jean-Paul Sartre. In preparing a lecture course on the roots of nihilism in the twentieth century at the Kirchliche Hochschule in Berlin, Müller-Lauter became increasingly interested in Nietzsche's treatment of the problem of nihilism. Müller-Lauter’s own approach to Nietzsche is marked by a critique of Heidegger’s then prevalent reading of Nietzsche’s thought. In particular, Müller-Lauter took issue with Heidegger’s characterization of Nietzsche as the “last metaphysician of the West.” Heidegger had seen Nietzsche as attempting, but ultimately failing, to overcome the metaphysical tradition. Müller-Lauter argued cogently on the basis of a detailed analysis of Nietzsche's texts that the role that Heidegger reserved for himself had in fact been effectively performed by Nietzsche himself. Central to this interpretation was the reexamination of the “doctrine” of the will to power found in Nietzsche’s work, turning it from a metaphysical doctrine into a theory of a plurality of will-to-power quanta dynamically interacting with one another in processes with an inherently contradictory and perspectival character. This work set a new standard of rigor and seriousness in Nietzsche scholarship as well as establishing an influential reading of Nietzsche's work.