Naturalism, Science, Positivism

Abstract

Nietzsche is to be taken at his word when he says that he wants to ‘translate man back into nature’ (BGE230). This task, which he admits may be ‘strange and insane’ (BGE230), is nevertheless a directive to anyone devoted to gaining knowledge of human psychology. Knowledge must turn its back once and for all on the errors, falsifications, and mystifications about human psychology that most of the contributors to the philosophical tradition have routinely supplied. We must instead ‘stand before the rest of nature, with intrepid Oedipus eye and sealed Odysseus ears, deaf to the siren songs of old metaphysical bird catchers who have been piping to him all too long, “you are more, you are higher, you are of a different origin!”’(BGE230). Since we have to be of nature if we are to stand before the rest of nature, our psychology must likewise be explicated using only naturalistic resources rather than the spiritual dualist drivel that the philosophical and religious salesmen have been peddling for centuries.