Nietzsche (detail) by Robberto
from the personal collection of Naima Morelli
click here for more details
I think it's fair to characterise Nietzsche's philosophy as a kind of augmented naturalism, that is to say, one that comes with some surprising additional features; or what my mother would describe as naturalism with knobs on.
This is why Nietzsche can never quite bring himself to fully endorse modern science or accept that there is an objective, mind-independent reality governed by natural laws, etc. Hard realism and mechanical materialism aren't quite frölich enough for his tastes.
This is why Nietzsche can never quite bring himself to fully endorse modern science or accept that there is an objective, mind-independent reality governed by natural laws, etc. Hard realism and mechanical materialism aren't quite frölich enough for his tastes.
Nevertheless, Nietzsche does like to speak of translating man back into nature [BGE 230] and to conceive of culture in terms of physis. So he's basically a 19th-century naturalist and both his atheism and his monism (the world is will to power - and nothing besides) are rooted in this intellectual tradition.
What's interesting, however, is how Nietzsche relates his naturalism to his wider project of revaluation. Arguing that morality is a method for exercising power over wild nature - including the animal man - he suggests that we can now use the same method to elevate and strengthen, rather than tame and make sickly.
In other words, having gained mastery of the earth and produced the human being, we can now begin work on the creation of an enhanced nature and a transhumanity: Übernatur und Übermensch, with the latter conceived as a strange and exquisite plant.
In sum, Nietzsche's moral naturalism is an attempt to translate values that many philosophers like to think of as transcendent ideals back into the world as a monstrous phenomenon of will to power and to life in all its splendid immorality. It is preferable, he says, to live as a satyr rather than a saint - and homo natura comes with horns upon his head rather than a halo of light floating above it.
However, we should note that the breeding of such a figure would require cultural and social conditions that are entirely alien to our age, which is why Nietzsche's politics cannot easily be squared with liberal humanism and why to think beyond good and evil remains such a dangerous (and intriguing) proposition.
In sum, Nietzsche's moral naturalism is an attempt to translate values that many philosophers like to think of as transcendent ideals back into the world as a monstrous phenomenon of will to power and to life in all its splendid immorality. It is preferable, he says, to live as a satyr rather than a saint - and homo natura comes with horns upon his head rather than a halo of light floating above it.
However, we should note that the breeding of such a figure would require cultural and social conditions that are entirely alien to our age, which is why Nietzsche's politics cannot easily be squared with liberal humanism and why to think beyond good and evil remains such a dangerous (and intriguing) proposition.
Note: I also discuss Nietzsche's concept of translating man back into nature (with reference to the work of contemporary artists Willy Verginer and Orly Fayer) in two other recent posts: click here and here.
This post is dedicated to Keith Ansell-Pearson for 25 years of Nietzschean inspiration, friendship and support.
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