Emden on Nietzsche's Naturalism: A Critical Assessment

Abstract

I review and evaluate the intellectual historian Christian Emden's recent book Nietzsche's Naturalism: Philosophy and the Life Sciences in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge University Press, 2014). Topics addressed include: the meaning of naturalism; the relationship between substantive and methodological versions of naturalism and physicalism and other reductionisms; the role of Kant and NeoKantians like Lange and Helmholtz in Nietzsche's philosophy; the actual role of the life sciences in Nietzsche's naturalism; and what is involved in a naturalistic account of normativity.

Keywords: Nietzsche, Kant, Lange, naturalism, physicalism