MLR, IOI.2, 2oo6 58I Christian J.Emden deals with the connections between Nietzsche's early writings on rhetoric and neurophysiological theories of his time, a topic that has gone unnoticed in the many reflections on rhetoric inspired by poststructuralist accounts. Finally, Nadeem J.Z. Hussain argues that Nietzsche's scepticism and his reliance on natural science can be reconciled ifwe consider him to be proposing views similar to those we find in the philosophy of Ernst Mach. By comparison the remaining essays, grouped under the rubric 'Nietzsche, Sci ence and Philosophy', are somewhat disappointing. With one notable exception, they deal only indirectly with Nietzsche's actual readings and dialogues with the natural scientific theories of his day, focusing instead on philosophical aspects of his preoccu pation with science. Babette E. Babich examines Nietzsche's critique of science (Wis senschaft), maintaining that ultimately he believed science had to be re-established in accord with its condition of possibility: art. Robin Small, in the exception to the rule in this section, looks at Nietzsche's contribution to contemporary 'science wars' between Germany and England, in particular with regard to thermodynamics and evolution. Christa Davis Acampora considers Nietzsche's notion of the 'will to power' and its implications for a rethinking of science ( Wissenschaft) as a 'gay' science. In a short essay Duncan Large takes up 'chemistry' inNietzsche's writings, conclud ing that despite his exiguous knowledge he relied often on itsmetaphorical richness. The final contribution by Tracy B. Strong contains several pertinent observations on Nietzsche's notion of a philosopher, but they are related only tangentially at best to his views on natural science. One difficulty that the writers in the second half of this volume encounter is con nected with the word 'science'. In English the term has come to refer almost exclu sively to the natural sciences. Wissenschaft, especially inNietzsche's time, on the other hand, comprehends systems of knowledge or scholarship in a general sense. When Nietzsche uses Wissenschaft, he ismost often concerned with the historical 'sciences' including classical philology, or even with philosophy. Several authors take note of this terminological confusion, but they go on none the less to confound science with Wissenschaft. Nietzsche's critique ofWissenschaft was aimed only marginally at the na tural sciences. Especially in his early writings, where he speaks often of Wissenschaft, it ismisleading to associate his thought with developments in biology, chemistry, or physics. Nietzsche, of course, did have a critique of natural science, and of individual natural sciences; these critiques are scattered throughout his writings. But these re ferences are usually marked rather clearly to avoid confusion with Wissenschaft. Only on rare occasions does Nietzsche include the natural sciences in his larger objections to formations of knowledge as a general notion. For this reason, the philosophical implications of 'science' for Nietzsche have to be approached with great caution and precision. Many of the essays in the first half of this collection and at least Small's essay in the second half help us to understand how Nietzsche entered into intellectual dialogue with the natural sciences of his time. For these essays alone this volume is a splendid contribution to a growing recognition that Nietzsche was not really the untimely meditator, but rather a thinker actively engaged with the discourses of nineteenth-century Europe. UNIVERSITYOFCALIFORNIA ATBERKELEY ROBERTC. HOLUB Briickenschlag zwischen den Disziplinen: Fritz Mauthner als Schriftsteller, Kritiker und Kulturtheoretiker. Ed. by ELISABETH LEINFELLNER and JORG THUNECKE. Wuppertal: Arco. 2004. 272 pp. ?39. ISBN 3-98084IO-5-7. The Prague-born Fritz Mauthner is now best known for his Beitrage zu einer Kritik der Sprache (I9OI-02) and its thesis about the metaphorical nature of all discourse. 582 Reviews The present volume continues the efforts of some of its contributors to rehabilitate his language critique as a defining influence on the post-Nietzschean 'language crisis' of modernism. Although, as Ludger Liitkehaus remarks, Mauthner's philosophical survival has been that of an insect set in the amber ofWittgenstein's famous dismissal of him in his Tractatus, around 1930 Samuel Beckett was reading the Beitrage to James Joyce in Paris, and the editors show us just how startlingly progressive his critique of gendered discourse...