V—Commanders and Scientific Labourers: Nietzsche on the Relationship between Philosophy and Science

Abstract

Nietzsche’s attitude toward science is ambivalent: he remarks approvingly on its rigorous methodology and adventurous spirit, but also points out its limitations and rebukes scientists for encroaching onto philosophers’ territory. What does Nietzsche think is science’s proper role and relationship with philosophy? I argue that, according to Nietzsche, philosophy should set goals for science. Philosophers’ distinctive task is to ‘create values’, which involves two steps: (1) envisaging ideals for human life, and (2) turning those ideals into prescriptions for behaviour and societal organization. To accomplish step (2), philosophers should delegate scientists to investigate what moral rules and social arrangements have best advanced this ideal in the past or might in the future.