Naturalism and Religion: A European Perspective

Abstract

From as early as the end of the nineteenth century, Nietzsche has been read as a critic of naturalism and his philosophy of art as a defense of radical subjectivity.1 While the diagnosis of a philosophy of radical subjectivity is appropriate, the purported opposition to naturalism is a fallacy. Because Nietzsche only expresses himself in aphoristic or essayistic forms, however, it is not an easy task to connect the traces of his (at least temporary) position. For this task, his third Untimely Meditation, “Schopenhauer as Educator,” published in 1876, proves particularly illuminative.2 At first glance, this eulogy for Arthur Schopenhauer seems to have little to do with the topic of nature and religion. Indeed, Nietzsche’s early reception of Schopenhauer—whose philosophy had been nearly forgotten in the political, economic, and scientific success of Germany at the time—contains his polemic critique of the culture of his time as an age of anonymous mass society that destroys every individual lifestyle. He recommends Schopenhauer as “teacher and taskmaster” against this “inhuman chapter of history;”3 against the “lazy” and the “generation dominated by public opinion” in order to relearn the question of how to live.4