A Review of Christian J. Emden’s Nietzsche’s Naturalism. Philosophy and the Life Sciences in the Nineteenth Century
Author：Yi-Ping Xia
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Nietzsche’s naturalism or Nietzsche as a naturalist could be regarded as one of the hottest research topics in Anglo-American Nietzsche studies in the past twenty years.
Of all the related works, Christian Emden’s Nietzsche’s Naturalism is indispensable in the field of Nietzsche studies for its excellent historical contextualization and keen attention to philosophical problems. In this book, he reconstructs Nietzsche’s philosophical naturalism in the context of early neo-Kantianism and the life sciences in the nineteenth century and interprets Nietzsche’s genealogy as a philosophical critique that delivers a natural history of normativity. This review will begin with a brief introduction of the debate around Nietzsche’s naturalism in Anglo-American and German scholarship, then give an overview of the chapters in Emden’s book. After introducing and commenting on Emden’s core ideas, it will conclude with a brief reflection on contemporary Nietzsche studies.