Nietzsche’s Naturalism Reconsidered

Authors

Brian LeiterFollow

Publication Date

2011

Publication Title

Cadernos Nietzsche

Abstract

According to one recent scholar, “Most commentators on Nietzsche would agree that he is in a broad sense a naturalist in his mature philosophy” (Janaway 2007: 34). This may come as a surprise to those who think of Martin Heidegger, Walter Kaufmann, Paul DeMan, Sarah Kofman, and Alexander Nehamas, among others, as “commentators” on Nietzsche. And yet there are, indeed, clear signs that in the last twenty years, as Nietzsche studies has become more philosophically sophisticated, the naturalist reading of Nietzsche has come to the fore, certainly in Anglophone scholarship.¹ In Nietzsche on Morality (Leiter 2002), I set out a systematic reading of Nietzsche as a philosophical naturalist, one which has attracted considerable critical comment, including from some generally sympathetic to reading Nietzsche as a philosophical naturalist.² I should like here to revisit that reading and, more importantly, the question of whether and in what sense Nietzsche is a naturalist in philosophy.

Recommended Citation

Brian Leiter, "Nietzsche’s Naturalism Reconsidered," 29 Cadernos Nietzsche 77 (2011).

Additional Information

Portuguese Translation