Nietzsche, Biology and Metaphor

This book explores Friedrich Nietzsche's response to the debates sparked by Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species.

Gregory Moore (Author)

9780521812306, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 24 January 2002

238 pages
24.6 x 16 x 2.1 cm, 0.51 kg

'This is one of the best products of the 'new historical' school of Nietzsche interpretation. This book overlaps with recent work on Nietzsche's relation to Darwinism but raises many broader issues. ... Neitschze, Biology and Metaphor makes a new and valuable contribution to our understanding of Friedrich Neitzsche.' British Journal for the History of Philosophy

Nietzsche, Biology and Metaphor explores the German philosopher's response to the intellectual debates sparked by the publication of Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species. By examining the abundance of biological metaphors in Nietzsche's writings, Gregory Moore questions his recent reputation as an eminently subversive and (post-) modern thinker, and shows how deeply Nietzsche was immersed in late nineteenth-century debates on evolution, degeneration and race. The first part of the book provides a detailed study and interpretation of Nietzsche's much disputed relationship to Darwinism. Uniquely, Moore also considers the importance of Nietzsche's evolutionary perspective for the development of his moral and aesthetic philosophy. The second part analyzes key themes of Nietzsche's cultural criticism - his attack on the Judaeo-Christian tradition, his diagnosis of the nihilistic crisis afflicting modernity and his anti-Wagnerian polemics - against the background of fin-de-siècle fears about the imminent biological collapse of Western civilization.

Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part I. Evolution: 1. The physiology of power
2. The physiology of morality
3. The physiology of art
Part II. Degeneration: 4. Nietzsche and the nervous age
5. Christianity and degeneration
6. Degenerate art
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Educational: History [YQH], History of ideas [JFCX]