Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 19:10:22 +0100 From: Massimiliano Marinelli <m.marinelli-AT-fastnet.it> Subject: Re: Nietzsche on Mill and Darwin Steven E. Callihan wrote: >Nietzsche takes pains to disassociate his thinking, the will to power >specifically, from any kind of teleology of strength, from the notion of >evolution as progress, from Spencerism, as you pointed out, I believe, but >also from Darwin's own perhaps unfortunate attempts to defend and explain >his own theory (the phrase "survival of the fittest" was his, after all). I agree with Steven, but ... only two remarks: 1) there is a great difference between Spencer theory and evolution theory. The first is "optimistic", the latter is nihilistic Darwin, as philosopher, can be a phlegmatic, (J.T. Duryea) but, as a scientist, he was nihilistic. So in BGE 253 N. names Darwin as a mediocre englishman, but in BGE 9 the picture of nature is darwinist. 2) On the survival of the fittest, I remember that we know the fittest only "a posteriori". There are a casual mutation and a natural selection: that is all. Ciao, Max Massimiliano Marinelli . Bioethics Department, Urbino Italy --- from list nietzsche-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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