The 12^th International Conference of
	ISSEI	In cooperation With
	International Society for the Study of European Ideas

Section V: Religion, Philosophy, Anthropology, Psychology, Language

Workshop: Nietzschean Thinking: Beyond the “Two Cultures”

Chair: Saul Tobias

Few European thinkers have been as central to debates about the relation between scientific and imaginative thought as Friedrich Nietzsche. Over the course of the twentieth century, Nietzsche’s work has been feted by partisans of both scientific and imaginative approaches to the study of culture. His thought has served as a model for applying evolutionary biology, physiology, and neuropsychology to the study of human society. It has also been treated as a defense of imagination and cultural creativity in the face of growing scientific determinism. In the last few years, there has again been a positivist turn in Nietzsche scholarship, characterized by a renewed attention to the naturalistic grounds of Nietzsche’s analysis of individual and collective human development. While some welcome this as a valuable antidote to the literary appropriation of Nietzsche’s thought by postmodernism, others fear that Nietzsche’s uniquely imaginative approach to political and cultural issues will be lost in the efforts to align Nietzsche’s thought with a naturalist perspective.

Reflecting on Nietzsche’s efforts to combine scientific and literary traditions is particularly relevant at a time when scientific knowledge continues to make inroads into areas of human culture once deemed the preserve of the humanistic disciplines. Developments in genetics, evolutionary biology, environmental science, physiology, and neuropsychology have radically increased science’s relevance to the study of topics as diverse as religious experience, empathy and emotion, language acquisition and cognition, social interaction, and cultural development. At the same time, scientists are increasingly aware of the ‘feedback loop’ between culture, body, and natural environment, such that scientific reductionism has become increasingly untenable. More than ever, the openness and plasticity of individual and cultural imagination is recognized as complementary to, rather than a refutation of, the latest developments in science and medicine.

In light of science’s increasing application to the disciplines of philosophy, religious studies, psychology, anthropology, and cultural studies, this workshop will explore the relation between (and potential synthesis of) the scientific and imaginative dimensions of Nietzsche’s thought. The workshop also welcomes papers that explore the relevance of Nietzsche or Nietzschean approaches to problems in social, political, and cultural life that raise issues of science and imagination. Possible topics include gender; race; religion and fundamentalism; cosmopolitanism and nationalism; the human and the environment; human diversity and competition; the ethical and cultural implications of genetics; and evolutionary psychology, among others. Papers that focus on Nietzsche’s work, as well as papers that apply a broadly Nietzschean approach to contemporary social and cultural issues, are welcome.

Saul Tobias

California State University, Fullerton

stobias@fullerton.edu

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