Brian Lightbody - Böcker

Philosophers often use the term “naturalism’ in order to describe their work. It is commonplace to see a metaphysical, epistemological and/or ethical position self-described and described by others as one that is “naturalized.” But what, if anything, does the term naturalized add--or subtract---to the position being articulated? I demonstrate in The Problem of Naturalism: Analytic and Continental Perspectives, that the term naturalism connotes such a broad meaning that it is difficult to demarcate naturalism from philosophy itself. Still, many philosophers have tried to provide non-trivial and non-vacuous definitions of the term. My book, by and large, argues that such attempts are unsuccessful. Instead, I argue that naturalism is an attitude and neither a methodology nor a substantive position. I then articulate the guidelines the naturalist needs to follow, as well as the virtues he or she needs to practice, in order for the term naturalism to do any meaningful work. Much of the book explains and then critiques the various attempts to define naturalism in the Anglo-American secondary literature. Some of the criticisms I raise seem to emanate from the internal logic of the naturalistic position being expressed. However, others have emerged from gleaning the work of such Continental thinkers as: Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger and Foucault. I use these thinkers in order to expose the unjustified implicit and sometimes explicit assumptions that many naturalistic philosophers presume to hold when they attempt to render a clear, distinct and robust naturalist position.

Philosophical Genealogy Volume I: An Epistemological Reconstruction of Nietzsche and Foucault’s Genealogical Method is a rigorous examination of the philosophical investigatory practice known as «genealogy». This critique of the philosophical tradition leads to the creation of new values. Both Nietzsche and Foucault extolled these critical and emancipatory virtues of genealogy.Volume I examines the principal ontological and epistemological problems with Nietzsche and Foucault’s respective uses of the genealogical method. It elucidates the differences between genealogy and other forms of historical inquiry before turning to explicate, in great detail, the three axes of genealogical inquiry: the power axis, the truth axis and the ethical axis. Volume I explains the very important role the body plays in a genealogical investigation before examining several of the problems with the doctrine of perspectivism – a central component to a genealogical inquiry.Philosophical Genealogy Volume I provides a thorough and incisive analysis of essay two of On the Genealogy of Morals, as well as the «the means of correct training» section in Discipline and Punish, while reaffirming the problems that have been examined in previous chapters and pointing toward a solution that will be further explicated in Philosophical Genealogy Volume II.

Philosophical genealogy is a distinct method of historical and philosophical inquiry that was developed by the nineteenth-century philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, and subsequently adopted and extended by the twentieth-century philosopher, Michel Foucault. In brief, genealogies critically examine the historical origin of philosophical concepts, ideas and practices. They challenge the value of traditional methods of philosophical inquiry along with the results that these inquiries produce.Philosophical Genealogy Volume I: An Epistemological Reconstruction of the Genealogical Method explored the three axes of the genealogical method: power, truth and the ethical. In addition, various ontological and epistemic problems pertaining to each of these axes were examined. In Philosophical Genealogy Volume II: An Epistemological Reconstruction of the Genealogical Method, these problems are now resolved. Volume II establishes what requisite ontological underpinnings are required in order to provide a successful, epistemic reconstruction of the genealogical method. Problems regarding the nature of the body, the relation between power and resistance as well as the justification of Nietzschean perspectivism, are now all clearly answered. It is shown that genealogy is a profound, fecund and, most importantly, coherent method of philosophical and historical investigation which may produce many new discoveries in the fields of ethics and moral inquiry provided it is correctly employed.

“The world viewed from the inside, the world defined and determined according to its “intelligible character”––it would be “will to power” and nothing else.” Cryptic passages like this one from section 36 of Beyond Good and Evil have been the source of much intrigue, speculation, and puzzlement in the Nietzschean secondary literature. This passage in particular along with many others, have sparked a slew of questions in recent decades such as: “What is the will to power? “Is will to power a metaphysical principle?” “Is it an empirical assertion?” “Or, is will to power merely a hypothesis that Nietzsche himself rejected?” Although asked ad nausea inthe literature, the multitude of answers given to the above questions never seem to satisfy. In this book, Brian Lightbody shed light on Nietzsche’s most famous “esoteric” teaching by explaining what the will to power is and what it denotes. He then demonstrates how will to power may be naturalized in an attempt to show that the doctrine is epistemically and empirically defensible. Finally, he uses will to power as a philological key of sorts to unlock Nietzsche’s philosophy as a whole by showing that his ontology, epistemology, and ethics are only properly understood once a coherent naturalized rendering of will to power is produced.

Moreover, Nietzsche’s initial elucidation of drive theory in On the Genealogy of Morals (and elsewhere) is well-complemented with a fecund, profound, and clear elucidation of the concept in the secondary literature.Yet, there remains a glaring lacuna for all the discussion of drive theory in the scholarship.