Nietzsche and the Politics of Aristocratic Radicalism (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 623 Fisch's failing in his attempt to downplay Kant's influence on Whelwell has more to do with his lack of knowledge of Kant than with his misunderstanding of Whewell's texts. Whewell's debt to Kant is revealed in ways that have not yet been properly articulated. Whewell's major effort was one of establishing that there are empirical laws that are nevertheless necessary. In philosophy of science, this was precisely Kant's problem: how to locate the a priori, hence necessary, elements in eighteenth-century physics. For a helpful exercise compare Kant's Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science with Whewell's essay of 1834, "On the Nature of the Truth of the Laws of Morion ." Both works seek to discover that which is necessary in the laws of motion; both worry about the empirical content of the laws. Also, compare Kant's statement of confidence in inductive unification at A662-663/B69o-691 of the Critique of Pure Reason with Whewell's similar confidence, expressed in the discussion of consilience of inductions in Novum Organon Renovatum. The essays by Friedman, Harper and Butts in Butts 0986p provide by implication additional reasons for thinking that Whewell's Kantianism was a deep, not a negligible, feature of his theory of science. A Composite Portrait consists of thirteen essays. Two are by Fisch; they repeat themes from his book. Others discuss many aspects of Whewell's career: his epistemology, his moral philosophy, his work as apologist and priest, his politics of language, his interests in palaetioiogy, his debate with Mill over the status of induction. It is impossible to discuss all of the papers in detail, or even to select a few for extensive treatment. But readers should know that in this volume they can find an excellent survey of Whewell's scientific interests written by Michael Ruse; that Gerd Buchdahl's classic discussion of the Mill/Whewell debate is here reprinted; that David Wilson's essay on Whewell's effort to combine metaphysics and physics (which is also part of the Kantian influence) is one worth reading with care. Indeed, all of the papers in the volume are worth reading. The volume should certainly be in the library of Whewell scholars and others interested in Victorian British intellectual affairs. ROBERT E. BUTTS University of Western Ontario Bruce Detwiler. Nietzsche and the Politics of Aristocratic Radicalism. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 199o. Pp. x + 242. Cloth, $24.95. The relation of Nietzsche's philosophy to his political thought poses a problem not easily dispatched. To the extent we focus on his philosophy and ignore the thrust of his politics we risk domesticating what was never intended to be a docile academic project. If, on the other hand, his politics is engaged at its face value, we are left holding what amounts to the chaff of his work. We then risk the abandonment of unnurtured "Consilience and Natural Kind Reasoning," in An Intimate Relation: Studies in the History and Philosophy of SciencePresentedto Robert E. Butts on His 6oth Birthday (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1989), 115-152. 9Robert E. Butts, ed., Kant's Philosophy of Physical Science: MetaphysischeAnfangsgriinde der Naturwissenschaft, 1786-1986 (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1986). 624 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 3o:4 OCTOBER 1992 philosophic kernels, owing to the abhorrence his political statements are likely to provoke. Most commentators on Nietzsche, for better or worse, take the first course. Bruce Detwiler, in Nietzsche and the Politics ofArhtocratic Radicalism, opts for the second. Thework bears the burdens and displays the virtues of this choice. Nietzsche's political views, Detwiler insists, are "integral with the rest of his thought" and "in some ways [are] even required by it" (5)- The basic thesis is that Nietzsche's philosophic prescriptions naturally, and for the most part coherendy, extend themselves into the pofitical realm. Nietzsche's enduring philosophic project is held to be the creation of a higher, aesthetically grounded self. The political component of this task entails the formation of a new aristocracy of philosopher-artists. We are, for the most part, speaking about a spiritual aristocracy, with primarily cultural goals to achieve. But the means needed to elevate Nietzsche's spiritual...