The Science and Philosophy of the "Thermodynamic School" of Evolution
This book was written by Timothy McWhirter and published in 2025. It examines the relation between the maximum power principle developed by Alfred Lotka and H. T. Odum and the concept of the will to power developed by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. It discusses the work of the scientists and philosophers that influenced the…
This book was written by Maudemarie Clark and David Dudrick and published in 2012. The authors provide a comprehensive interpretation of Nietzsche’s book Beyond Good and Evil. In this book, Nietzsche provides his famous argument for the concept of the will to power, the version that applies to biotic and abiotic systems. Clark has argued…
This paper was written by Christian Emden and published in 2016. The abstract states: “The ‘will to power’ remains one of Nietzsche’s most controversial philosophical concepts. In this article I argue that the will to power ties in directly with Nietzsche’s naturalistic discussion of normativity. The link between the will to power and normativity cannot…
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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…
Read More “Nietzsche’s Naturalism: Philosophy and the Life Sciences in the Nineteenth Century” »
This book was written by John Richardson and published in 2004. It illustrates the various ways in which Nietzsche was influenced by Darwin. Additionally, it focuses on describing Nietzsche’s concept of the will to power as a biological principle, rather than an ontological principle, notwithstanding his focus on this ontological version of the principle in…
This book was written by Friedrich Nietzsche and published in 1887. In it Nietzsche develops a typology of moral values that describes whether they foster the growth and flourishing of life, or they undermine its growth and are a sign of the degeneration of life (GM Preface, 3, 6). In Beyond Good and Evil, published…
This book was written by Friedrich Nietzsche and published in 1886. Among many other things, it contains Nietzsche’s famous argument for his concept of the will to power (aphorism 36), his claim that living things seek to discharge their strength rather than just survive (13), his description of life growing “not out of any morality…