The Journal of Nietzsche Studies

Le colombe dello scettico focuses on Nietzsche's dealings with consciousness during his middle and late years, from 1880 to 1888. The investigation that Luca Lupo carries on in this book is exhaustive and quite useful in the field of Nietzsche studies, since it concerns a tricky topic that until now has not been taken as the subject of a complete study. The reason why dealing with this subject is not so easy is that the notion of consciousness can only be found in a few passages of Nietzsche's published works, and he never gives a complete treatment of it. This is a problem that involves many other topics of Nietzsche's writings, but in the case of the notion of consciousness it is most evident that his thinking never comes to a last word on the questions he deals with. As Lupo shows in the first pages of his book, one cannot talk about a "treatment" of this subject as much as of many others since in Nietzsche's writings one can only find sketches of his reflections rather than complete theories. Indeed, Nietzsche carried on his observations through "temporary resting points and ever changing perspectives" (17). Starting from this idea, Lupo tries to find an orientation in Nietzsche's both published and unpublished writings by finding some pages that one can take as reference points to develop a kind of text mapping that he defines as a "philosophical cartography" (18).

In the four chapters into which the book is divided Lupo shows how Nietzsche defines the higher psychical functions. The first section concerns the drives , paying attention to the "causality drive" ( Ursachentrieb ) that according to Nietzsche is the ground of any higher conscious experience (72, 85). Lupo then deals with the single psychical functions, treating separately the triad composed by knowing, thinking , and willing , and the main subject of his investigation, the notion of consciousness . In the last chapter of the book one finds some observations on the later statements presented by Nietzsche on these topics and on the role played by the language.

The investigation starts from 1888, from the pages of Twilight of the Idols in which Nietzsche is concerned with the idea of causality. Then Lupo comes back to 1880, to follow the development of Nietzsche's thought from the first ideas on consciousness he presents in the notebooks of that year to the later observations that one can find in the unpublished writings from 1888. This circular [End Page 87] shape directly follows from the methodological choice made by Lupo, since his aim is to reconstruct Nietzsche's thought on consciousness following the guiding lines that one can find in his writings themselves. Thus, Lupo reads Nietzsche's notebooks looking for the ideas, perspectives, and main results of other scientists and thinkers of his time that led Nietzsche to the statements that one can find in his published books. Lupo carries on his research close to Nietzsche's writings, trying to show what he was really thinking and what he wanted to tell us. That is why he leaves out any reference to the contemporary debate. His main aim is not to discuss any possible comparison with twentieth-century psychology or the latest results of neurobiological studies, even though his way of arguing reveals his interest in the main outcomes presented by the cognitive sciences. For instance, Lupo refers to the ideas of Daniel Dennett in a section in which he shows how Nietzsche deals with the mind-body problem (even if not describing it with these words) and argues that one can bring the mind back to the corporeal functions. In doing this-according to what Dennett himself once said-Nietzsche adopts "a rich and remarkable view of the materialistic and evolutionary basis of our knowledge" and thinks in a pure anti-Cartesian way (135).

The main outcome reached by Lupo is a description of both the consciousness...