This book was written by Christian Emden and published in 2014. Among many other things, it provides the most comprehensive and detailed investigation of the work of the scientists that influenced Nietzsche’s development of the concept of the will to power. He argues that the biological version of that concept plays a fundamental role in Nietzsche’s philosophy.
The book is described as exploring “Nietzsche’s philosophical naturalism in its historical context, showing that his position is best understood against the background of encounters between neo-Kantianism and the life sciences in the nineteenth century. Analyzing most of Nietzsche’s writings from the late 1860s onwards, Christian J. Emden reconstructs Nietzsche’s naturalism and argues for a new understanding of his account of nature and normativity. Emden proposes historical reasons why Nietzsche adopted this position; his genealogy of values and his account of a will to power are as much influenced by Kantian thought as they are by nineteenth-century debates on teleology, biological functions, and theories of evolution. This rich and wide-ranging study will be of interest to scholars and students of Nietzsche, the history of modern philosophy, intellectual history, and history of science.”
Emden, Christian J. 2014. Nietzsche’s Naturalism: Philosophy and the Life Sciences in the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge.