Nietzsche, Biology and Metaphor

This study explores the German philosopher's response to the intellectual debates sparked by the publication of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species. By examining the abundance of biological metaphors in Nietzsche's writings, Gregory Moore questions his recent reputation as an eminently subversive and post modern thinker. The book analyzes key themes of Nietzsche's thought--his critique of morality, his philosophy of art and the bermensch--in the light of the theory of evolution, the nineteenth-century sense of decadence and the rise of anti-Semitism.