University of Notre Dame, Program in History and Philosophy of Science, 453 Geddes Hall, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA.
Hist Philos Life Sci. 2011;33(2):165-90.
Despite his position as one of the first philosophers to write in the "post-Darwinian" world, the critique of Darwin by Friedrich Nietzsche is often ignored for a host of unsatisfactory reasons. I argue that Nietzsche's critique of Darwin is important to the study of both Nietzsche's and Darwin's impact on philosophy. Further, I show that the central claims of Nietzsche's critique have been broadly misunderstood. I then present a new reading of Nietzsche's core criticism of Darwin. An important part of Nietzsche's response can best be understood as an aesthetic critique of Darwin, reacting to what he saw as Darwin having drained life of an essential component of objective aesthetic value. For Nietzsche, Darwin's theory is false because it is too intellectual, because it searches for rules, regulations, and uniformity in a realm where none of these are to be found - and, moreover, where they should not be found. Such a reading goes furthest toward making Nietzsche's criticism substantive and relevant. Finally, I attempt to relate this novel explanation of Nietzsche's critique to topics in contemporary philosophy of biology, particularly work on the evolutionary explanation of culture.
尽管弗里德里希·尼采是最早在“后达尔文”世界写作的哲学家之一，但由于种种令人不满的原因，他对达尔文的批判经常被忽视。我认为，尼采对达尔文的批判对于研究尼采和达尔文对哲学的影响都很重要。此外，我表明，尼采批判的核心主张被广泛误解。然后，我提出了一种对尼采对达尔文核心批判的新解读。尼采回应的一个重要部分最好被理解为对达尔文的美学批判，对他认为达尔文从客观审美价值中抽走了一个基本组成部分做出反应。对尼采来说，达尔文的理论是错误的，因为它太理智了，因为它在一个没有规则、规定和统一性的领域中寻找这些东西，而且，这些东西在那里是找不到的——而且，它们不应该在那里找到。这种解读最能使尼采的批评具有实质性和相关性。最后，我试图将这种对尼采批判的新颖解释与当代生物学哲学的主题联系起来，特别是与文化的进化解释有关的工作。
