Nietzsche, Biology and Metaphor
by Gregory Moore
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Book Summary Information
Author: Gregory MooreEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2002-02-11
ISBN: 0521812305
Number of pages: 238
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Book Reviews of Nietzsche, Biology and Metaphor
Book Review: Nietzsche and the nineteenth century Darwin muddle
Summary: 5 Stars
The confusion over Darwinian theory is almost endless, and in many ways Nietzsche was one of the Darwin casualties. However, he was also an acute critic of Darwin's theory of natural selection, even as he seems to embrace the broader implications of evolutionism, but very much in the context of his times, and the milieu of the end of the nineteenth century with its theories of degenerationism, Social Darwinism, eugenics. Here Nietzsche is given, but should not be, a free ride, which he doesn't deserve.
This work is thus in one way a superb study of this context, and in another itself a casualty of Darwinian theory. However, the book escapes without too much harm and constitutes a thorough examination of much that never enters most accounts of Darwinism. It is the fate, and not altogether an inappropriate one, of a thesis from this perspective to assume tacit Darwinism to rebuke, let us say, the mishmash of 'post-Hegelianizing nature philosophy', celebrating Darwin's advance. This fails to see that this dualism of nature philosophy and positivism is a false dilemma--neither side got it right, although Darwin's theory carried the day, in part because it matured as a research project for naturalists who could use Darwin's theory as an operational hypothesis under the rubric of the 'Darwin faith'.
In this massive confusion, one would wish to criticize Nietzsche on many grounds, but the grounds chosen ends up the one thing he got right, the limits of selectionism!! This is said by someone who is no fan of Nietzche. These fans should be made aware of Nietzsche's remarks on extermination of the unfit.
The current scientific paradigm here is apparently too far gone to get the issue straight it seems, although it is understandable to resist vigorously the vitalist nosedive visible in the period on the part of Darwin critics. But denouncing nature philosophy is good as far as it goes, but maybe they at least saw that reductionist nonsense such as Darwin's was a non-starter, as dozens of commentators desperately pointed out. A confusion arises here because the Kantian version of all this (cf. the teleomechanists) is far more tuned to science than the Hegelian. Kant demonstrated the clear steps between Newtonian thinking and teleology/esthetics/morality that the age of Darwin was busy unlearning. Now they get to fight the fundamentalists in the Bible Belt, which won't prove helpful.
However this fascinating study manages to bully through this upside down situation with some indispensable discussions, and references to the literature now nearly inaccessible to the laymen.The amount of useful material that survives here is astonishing, and completely changes one view of the superficial Nietzsche now current.
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