Nietzsche´s ambivalence about science

Anette Horn

Nietzsche realized that the natural sciences were the dominant discourse of his time and were replacing the metaphysical discourse of philosophy and the traditional set of values that underpinned it such as the ideas of virtue and truth. While he eagerly participated in this paradigm shift as his extensive readings on evolutionary biology and its mirror image, the theory of degeneration, physiology and medicine amply demonstrate, and as his own scienticistic discourse bears testimony to, he was also critical of the optimistic claim of science to place society on a better, more rational and virtuous footing. In this sense he sees the obsession of his age with scientific truth as an extension of the Socratic will-to-knowledge which equated truth with virtue and happiness and which Nietzsche regarded as the poison that led to the demise of Hellenic culture which centred around the dynamic balance between the Dionysian and Appolonian impulses that constitute a great culture. While Nietzsche does not question the truth of scientific insight, he does question its usefulness in setting up values that will enrich and heighten modern culture. On the other hand he is very interested in finding out how modern science can benefit our physical and mental well-being, which he regards as a welcome counter-balance against the distrust of the body and issues of health in the metaphysical philosophical tradition from Plato to Kant. This manifests itself in his critique of decadence, e.g., where he deploys a sometimes crude naturalistic vocabulary. The point of this critique, however, is to ask how certain cultural epochs and philosophical systems reflect on the will-to-power of a particular age or founder, whether it encouraged a weak or a strong will-to-power and thereby led to a strong and healthy or a weak and sick culture. In this regard Nietzsche views Western culture as a series of periods of a strong or weak will-to-power but allows for individual authors or thinkers to either conform to or to rebel against the dominant trend of their time. Thus pre-Socratic Hellenic culture and the Renaissance appear as the expression of a strong will-to-power, while the Christian Middle Ages and the Reformation as well as the Enlightenment are seen as a sign of a pedominantly weak will-to-power.

This will-to-power has often been interpreted as a glorification of cruelty and violence, as expressed in the symbol of the ´blond beast´. I will argue that this is only part of the truth and that Nietzsche stressed this aspect of our psyche in order to confront us with a tragic and pessimistic truth about our nature but that he also saw the necessity to sublate this aggression in cultural expressions.

This ties back in with the topic of my paper in so far as he tries to use science for its original purpose, i.e. as an art or techné that humans developed in order to heighten their quality of life and not to be subsumed by it.