Why naturalism? Translating homo natura back into Nietzsche's text
Why naturalism? Translating homo natura back into Nietzsche's text
This article questions a common reading of Section 230 of Beyond Good and Evil as containing a canonical statement of Nietzsche’s naturalism. The section cannot be read simply as the programmatic statement of an investigative task, and is relatively vague as to its nature. Nietzsche’s aim is aporetic. He presents the naturalist task as involving mental self-cruelty and a struggle with unconscious vanity, suggesting that thinkers have found no way to justify why they choose this task, unless they invoke self-descriptions which are false and belong to a metaphysical conception of truth and inquiry that naturalism must resist. In the Genealogy, Nietzsche revisits this theme and announces his task as that of calling into question these justifications of naturalist inquiry.
Nietzsche naturalism inquiry vanity cruelty
307-321
Janaway, Christopher
61c48538-365f-416f-b6f7-dfa4d4663475
12 September 2024
Janaway, Christopher
61c48538-365f-416f-b6f7-dfa4d4663475
Janaway, Christopher
(2024)
Why naturalism? Translating homo natura back into Nietzsche's text.
The Monist, 107 (4), .
(doi:10.1093/monist/onae016).
Abstract
This article questions a common reading of Section 230 of Beyond Good and Evil as containing a canonical statement of Nietzsche’s naturalism. The section cannot be read simply as the programmatic statement of an investigative task, and is relatively vague as to its nature. Nietzsche’s aim is aporetic. He presents the naturalist task as involving mental self-cruelty and a struggle with unconscious vanity, suggesting that thinkers have found no way to justify why they choose this task, unless they invoke self-descriptions which are false and belong to a metaphysical conception of truth and inquiry that naturalism must resist. In the Genealogy, Nietzsche revisits this theme and announces his task as that of calling into question these justifications of naturalist inquiry.
Text
Why Naturalism? Translating homo natura back into Nietzsche text
- Accepted Manuscript
Text
onae016
- Version of Record
More information
Accepted/In Press date: 14 May 2024
Published date: 12 September 2024
Keywords:
Nietzsche naturalism inquiry vanity cruelty
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 490462
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/490462
ISSN: 0026-9662
PURE UUID: bb247947-d38b-4672-b3c9-276a5695fc73
Catalogue record
Date deposited: 28 May 2024 16:52
Last modified: 21 Aug 2025 01:50
Export record
Altmetrics
Download statistics
Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.
View more statistics
