I argue that the Bruce Springsteen song “Born to Run” needs to be interpreted in light of---and thus gives evidence of a connection between---the philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Buber. Along the way I give an in-depth reading of the Nietzschean doctrines of Eternal Recurrence and Overman as they emerge from Also Sprach Zarathustra, as well as a brief overview of Buber’s I and Thou.

In Thus Spoke Zarathustra Nietzsche addresses the problem of how to live a fulfilling life in a world without meaning, in the aftermath of 'the death of God'. Nietzsche's solution lies in the idea of eternal recurrence. This translation of Zarathustra reflects the musicality of the original German, and for the first time annotates the abundance of allusions to the Bible and other classic texts with which Nietzsche's masterpiece is in conversation.

Nietzsche believed in the horror of existence—in a world filled with meaningless suffering. He also believed in eternal recurrence—that our lives will repeat infinitely and that in each life every detail will be exactly the same. Furthermore, it was not enough that eternal recurrence simply be accepted—Nietzsche demanded that it be loved. Thus the philosopher who introduces eternal recurrence is the very same philosopher who also believes in the horror of existence—a paradox that is completely overlooked by (...) commentators (who thus fail to adequately understand Nietzsche). All of this demands careful explanation. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 55, Issue 1, Page 186-203, February 2021.

This chapter contains sections titled: Fighting for Life: Nietzsche ad hominem Falling in Love: Schopenhauer, Music, and the Greeks Nietzsche, Science, Truth, and Truthfulness The Campaign Against Morality Taking on the World: Masters, Slaves, and Resentment The Will to Power, Life Affirmation, and Eternal Recurrence Naturalizing Spirituality: The Faith of an “Antichrist”.

This paper examines Nietzsche’s idea of eternal recurrence and the notions of reincarnation in Onyewuenyi and Majeed with a view to showing how convergence and divergence of thought in the Nietzschean, Onyewuenyean and Majeedean philosophy contexts can inform cross-cultural philosophizing. Nietzsche’s idea of eternal recurrence represents his deep thought, which claims that every aspect of life returns innumerable times, in an identical fashion. On the other hand, Onyewuenyi posits that reincarnation is un-African as he conceives it as the (...) theory that when the soul separates from the body, at death, it informs another body for another span of life, while Majeed sees evidence of the African rootedness of the belief in reincarnation, based on his study of the Akan people of Ghana and concedes that the belief, itself, is irrational, since there is no scientific or empirical basis for it. Attempts are made to highlight the dynamics of Nietzsche’s idea of eternal recurrence and to articulate the essential ingredients of Onyewuenyean and Majeedean conceptions of reincarnation. These forms of thought will be examined critically to exhibit their convergence and divergence in the context of cross-cultural philosophizing. Keywords: eternal recurrence, reincarnation, will to power, vital force, cross-cultural philosophy, spirit-world. (shrink)

The article is primarily a study of Nietzsche’s unpublished fragments from the period spring-autumn 1881, in which Nietzsche first developed his thought of the “eternal recurrence of the same.” In the article, I attempt to accomplish two goals: the first goal is to explain Nietzsche’s theses on the eternal recurrence, which at that time were still remarkably clear and coherent. And the second goal is to try to find in these same theses an explanation for their future silence. (...) In other words, the article examines the relationship between Nietzsche’s theses that he developed in 1881 and his book _Thus spoke Zarathustra_, which, in Nietzsche’s own words, relies on these theses as their “grounding thought,” but nevertheless never fully reveals them. Both lines of inquiry lead to the conclusion that the core of Nietzsche’s introduction of the idea of eternal recurrence is his concept of _Einverleibung_ or embodiment. Indeed, the analysis shows that Nietzsche’s main concern with the thought of eternal recurrence was not to set forth its clear articulation within consciousness, but rather to construct it in such a way that it could become an unconscious instinct capable of gradually displacing the “embodied mistakes” that dominate our thinking from within itself. (shrink)

Nietzsche's Critique of Staticism Manuel Dries Part 1: Time, History, Method Nietzsche's Cultural Criticism and his Historical Methodology 23 Andrea Orsucci Thucydides, Nietzsche, and Williams 35 Raymond Geuss The Late Nietzsche's Fundamental Critique of Historical Scholarship 51 Thomas H. Brobjer Part II: Genealogy, Time, Becoming Nietzsche's Timely Genealogy: An Exercise in Anti-Reductionist Naturalism 63 Tinneke Beeckman From Kantian Temporality to Nietzschean Naturalism 75 R. Kevin Hill Nietzsche's Problem of the Past 87 John Richardson Towards Adualism: Becoming and Nihilism in Nietzsche's (...) Philosophy 113 Mamuel Dries Part III: Eternal Recurrence, Meaning, Agency Shocking Time: Reading Eternal Recurrence Literally 149 Lawrence J. Hatab Suicide, Meaning, and Redemption 163 Paul S. Loeb Nietzsche and the Temporality of (Self-)Legislation I91 Herman W. Siemens Part IV: Nietzsche's Contemporaries Geschichte or Historie? Nietzsche's Second Untimely Meditation in the Context of Nineteenth-Century Philological Studies 213 Anthonyl K. Jensen 'An Uncanny Re-Awakening': Nietzsche's Renascence of the Renaissance out of the Spirit of Jacob Burckhardt 231 Martin A. Ruehl Part V: Tragic and Musical Time Metaphysical and Historical Claims in The Birth of Tragedy 275 Katherine Harloe Nietzsche's Musical Conception of Time 291 Jonathan R. Cohen. (shrink)

Approaching the idea from three viewpoints, The author contends that eternal recurrence is a central and unifying theme in nietzsche's thought. She first considers its scientific basis, Arguing for a reinterpretation of the doctrine because nietzsche did not subscribe to the classical atomism of his time. She then considers the idea in its metaphysical perspective: it represents a repudiation of platonism and an affirmation of life. Finally, Urging the unity of the metaphysical and the ethical in nietzsche's philosophy, The (...) author interprets eternal recurrence as an idea created by life itself to serve life by strengthening the will to power. (staff). (shrink)

FOR NIETZSCHE, THERE IS NO TRUTH. WHAT THEN ARE WE TO SAY OF HIS DOCTRINES OF WILL TO POWER AND ETERNAL RECURRENCE WHICH SEEM TO BE HELD AS TRUTHS? THEY TOO ARE ILLUSIONS. BUT, IF SO, HOW CAN ONE HOLD THAT THESE ILLUSIONS ARE TO BE PREFERRED TO OTHER ILLUSIONS? BECAUSE THE HIGHEST STATE IS TO BE THE SOURCE OF ALL VALUE AND MEANING ONESELF WITHOUT RELYING ON AN INDEPENDENT STANDARD OF TRUTH.

In True Detective, the description of time as a "flat circle" is one of the most mysterious aspects of the story. The idea of the flat circle ultimately helps Rust to overcome his bleak interpretation of reality, although for a long time it anchors him in his dreary worldview. A philosophical pessimist is likely to view knowledge and meaning as inherently flawed. Rust tells Marty all about his philosophical pessimism in the first episode of season one. A metaphysical claim tries (...) to describe the true nature of reality. Friedrich Nietzsche calls his theory "eternal recurrence", however differ in name aside, there are numerous similarities between his theory and Rust's. The flat circle is really a thought experiment that Rust remains trapped within insofar as he remains a philosophical pessimist, at least up to the point of his near‐death experience, where he "sees the light". (shrink)

In this paper I examine the relation between modern transhumanism and Nietzsche’s philosophy of the superhuman. Following Loeb, I argue that transhumanists cannot claim affinity to Nietzsche’s philosophy until they incorporate the doctrine of eternal recurrence to their project of technological enhancement. This doctrine liberates us from resentment against time by teaching us reconciliation with time and something higher than all reconciliation. Unlike Loeb, however, I claim that this “something higher” is not a new skill (prospective memory), but rather (...) a love for the past in the form of loving that aspect of it that is still with us, namely, the will to power itself, which is the engine of all life. Love of the past is thus equivalent to love of life. Since human beings are conscious incarnations of the will to power, in our case, love of life manifests itself as love of our humanity or love for that aspect of ourselves that connects us to each other, for we recognize it to be the same in all of us. Thus, learning this kind of love enables us to joyfully coordinate our wills in the pursuit of Zarathustra’s superhuman ideal without turning it into a destructive mockery of itself. While learning this kind of love would facilitate a joyful version of transhumanism, I conclude by suggesting that it is unlikely to be achieved through technological interventions of the sort envisioned by transhumanists. Instead, it requires the kind of participatory pedagogical program that Nietzsche thought his Zarathustra would fulfill. (shrink)

Nietzsche’s early philosophy is marked by the sentiment that “only as an aesthetic phenomenon is existence and the world eternally justified (BT §5),” however, in aphorism 313 of The Gay Science, Nietzsche writes: No image of torment: I want to follow Raphael’s example and never paint another image of torment. There are enough sublime things; one does not have to seek out sublimity where it lives in sisterhood with cruelty; anyway, my ambition would find no satisfaction if I wanted to (...) make myself a sublime torturer. Might Nietzsche be suggesting here that the tragic experience drawn from art is no longer a necessary feature of a justification of reality? In this essay, I will argue that aphorism 331 of The Gay Science illustrates that Nietzsche has significantly moved away from the claim that reality can be aesthetically justified as presented in Birth of Tragedy. I will then examine Nietzsche’s doctrine of eternal recurrence. Next, I will offer an interpretation of eternal return that presents a new justification of reality, one in which objective judgment can combat nihilism. I will further argue that, despite Nietzsche’s move away from an aesthetic conception of reality, eternal recurrence is best understood in aesthetic terms, particularly in terms of “theatricality.” Nietzsche conceives of life as a kind of play to be performed eternally, and I will demonstrate how this understanding of recurrence informs the psychological and moral question posed by the demon in Gay Science §341. (shrink)

I argue that Nietzsche's thought of eternal recurrence is merely a kind of thought experiment that has two forms of engagement. The first form of engagement is destructive and results in the principles of classical logic being reduced to epistemic nihilism. In this first form, Nietzsche is thinking eternal recurrence, as it is presented in previous philosophers, to its end. The second form of engagement does not require the presuppositions of classical logic and is made through the affect (...) of disgust. This second mode of engagement can result in two outcomes; suicidal pessimism or life affirmation. The work on eternal recurrence that scholars typically think of as published has very little positive commitment to the ontological or metaphysical status of eternal recurrence. However, if eternal recurrence does represent the physical nature of the universe, as Nietzsche sometimes speculates about in his notebooks, this would not hurt either his destructive or his affective argument. The affective form of engagement allows us to think about the emergence of this affirmative ideal without strong positive commitment to any particular metaphysics or epistemology. The appearance of such an ideal may be multiply realizable over various physical organizations of the universe. The new life affirming ideal which emerges is not a form of humanism. Rather, Nietzsche thinks that the thought of eternal recurrence will produce "the 'humanity' of the future." The thought of eternal recurrence selects out, via suicidal pessimism, those who cannot affirm life. This fosters the development of a new humanity that can affirm life and create a new kind of happiness unknown to humans previously. This new ideal, amor fati [love of fate], is not simply a reconciliation with suffering and hardship of the past. Rather, one must want and hope that such a thing is the case. This ideal, held by the most powerful people of the future, is an expression of will to power. This ideal understands hardship and challenges on the sea of life as part of what makes us truly great and our lives intrinsically valuable. (shrink)

Nietzsche's embrace of the idea of eternal recurrence has long puzzled readers, both because the idea is inherently implausible and because it seems inconsistent with other aspects of his philosophy. This paper offers a novel account of Nietzsche's motives for that embrace—namely that Nietzsche found in eternal recurrence the only possible way to reconcile three potent and apparently conflicting convictions: (1) there are no Hinterwelten (“worlds-beyond”), (2) the great love (take joy in) all things just as they are (...) (amor fati), and (3) all joy wills eternity. The case for this account has two parts. I show first that Nietzsche was deeply committed to each of these principles at or before the time the idea of eternal recurrence “came to” him in 1881 and second that these principles, though in apparent conflict, can, as Nietzsche understood them, be reconciled by, and only by, the idea of eternal recurrence. It follows, I argue, that the idea of eternal recurrence was originally independent of Nietzsche's conceptions of the will to power and the Übermensch. (shrink)

What I would like to try to show here, to the extent that I can do so briefly, is that Nietzsche's doctrine of the eternal recurrence of the same things is - whatever else it might be in addition to this - an ethical idea. Considering it as such, I will argue, promises to shed light both on the content of Nietzsche's ethics and on the idea of recurrence.

I critically examine Nietzsche’s argument in The Will to Power that all the detailed events of the world are repeating infinite times (on account of the merely finite possible arrangements of forces that constitute the world and the inevitability with which any arrangement of force must bring about its successors). Nietzsche celebrated this recurrence because of the power of belief in it to bring about a revaluation of values focused wholly on the value of one’s endlessly repeating life. Belief in (...) recurrence would bring joy to those who had achieved excellence in this life and crush those who had not. I point out, however, that this significance of recurrence must be spoiled by the consideration that within each of the long cycles of recurrence there would have to be, as well, countless variations of this life. And I consider the issue of personal identity within such recurrences. Is it the same person or merely resembling but distinct persons in the recurrences or the variations? If it is the same person in precise recurrences, should the subjectively identical experience be thought of as really additional for that person? (shrink)

Nietzsche’s presentation of the eternal recurrence in Gay Science 341 is often viewed as a practical thought experiment meant to radically transform us. But exactly why and how we are supposed to be transformed is not clear. I contend that addressing these issues requires taking a close look at the psychological setting of the passage. The eternal recurrence is presented in our “loneliest loneliness.” I argue that facing the eternal recurrence from a state of profound loneliness both (...) motivates self-transformation and contributes toward helping us succeed at that project. (shrink)

-/- This paper offers a preliminary interpretation of Nietzsche’s doctrine of Eternal Recurrence, according to which the doctrine constitutes a parable that, speaking of what is permanent in life, praises and justifies all that is impermanent. What is permanent, what always recurs, is the will to power or to self-overcoming that is the fundamental engine of all life. The operating mechanism of such a will consists in prompting the living to undergo transformations or transitory deaths, after which this fundamental (...) engine resurrects again and is once more activated. The individual human being, in his capacity as creator, is only a conscious and finite surrogate of this fundamental will. In confronting his abysmal thought of Eternal Recurrence, Zarathustra comes to the realization that the individual human being will never cease to be a mere transit that, while remaining in existence, will have to always return to the moment of his own self-overcoming. This means that the small man in each of us, the man that can be overcome, will always recur, and that even the greatest man we could become will still be too small and human all too human. Although this thought generates disgust with existence, it can also become a source of life-affirmation, when we learn to love our tragic destiny: that of never being able to realize the ideal of superhumanity that is recommended by the book, and, yet, that of eternally striving to realize it. (shrink)

(Version 2.4) I have argued elsewhere for ascribing an error theory about all normative and evaluative judgements to Nietzsche. Such a nihilism brings with it a puzzle: how could we—or at least the select few of us being addressed by Nietzsche—continue in the face of this nihilism? This is a philosophical puzzle and so, defeasibly, an interpretive puzzle. If there is no theory it would make sense for Nietzsche to have about how the select few could go on, then this (...) is some evidence against the proposed interpretation of him as a nihilist. I defended the interpretation by arguing that Nietzsche’s declarations about creating values point to a practice of generating honest evaluative illusions. Such honest evaluative illusions are tricky things, though, and, precisely because they are honest, one might worry that they lack the motivational power of genuine evaluative belief. Can they truly play the role that evaluative beliefs play in our psychological economies? I suspect that Nietzsche does not want the honest illusions to play exactly the role that evaluative beliefs played. The cheerfulness, the playfulness, the lightness that Nietzsche hopes for are, I have suggested, a function of the shift from belief to pretence, from illusion to honest illusion. The question, nonetheless, is whether the resulting picture is too light. Can I go through life merely acting, as a critic might put it? My suggestion in this essay will be that the thought of eternal recurrence is meant to add weight to the lightness of acting—“acting”, obviously, in both the here relevant senses of the word. (shrink)

The essay introduces an interpretation of Nietzsche's Eternal-Recurrence-Thought distinct from traditional 'cosmological' as well as 'ethical' interpretations. The interpretation suggests that eternal recurrence is a conceptualization of intellectual and volitional processes. External recurrence is understood as a concept articulating peculiarities about mental processes related to knowledge and pleasure.Der Aufsatz stellt ein Interpretation von Nietzsches Gedanken der Ewigen Wiederkunft vor, die weder 'kosmologisch' noch 'ethisch' sein möchte. Diese Interpretation hält die Ewige Wiederkunft für eine Konzeptualisierung von Verstandes- und Willensakten. (...) Der Begriff der Ewigen Wiederkunft wäre somit entworfen, um Besonderheiten der Prozesse des Scelenlebens zu artikuliern, die mit Erkenntnis und Lust zu tun haben. (shrink)

For Lowith, the centerpiece of Nietzsche's thought is the doctrine of eternal recurrence, a notion which Lowith, unlike Heidegger, deems incompatible with the will to power.

In this article I argue that we should understand Nietzsche’s doctrine of eternal recurrence as the ideal of life affirmation opposed to philosophical pessimism, the view that life is not worth living. I first articulate Nietzsche’s psychological account of pessimism as a vengeful focus on the past and an aversion to time understood as transience. I then consider the question of why a person with the opposite psychological orientation – a creative relation to the future and an endorsement of (...) time – would will the eternal recurrence of all things. My answer appeals to Nietzsche’s notions of will to power and the redemption of the past from its senselessness. The interpretation of eternal recurrence that emerges from this approach takes Nietzsche’s vision of a great, world-redeeming individual to be integral to his doctrine of eternal recurrence. This is just one way in which it differs from common interpretations of eternal recurrence as a cosmological theory or thought experiment. (shrink)

Published in PoMo Magazine vol. 2, nr. 1 (Spring/Summer 1996) during my years as a grad student at the New School. I examine Nietzsche's presentation of the eternal recurrence, and discuss its interpretations by Heidegger, Bataille, Derrida, Klossowski, Stambaugh, and Vattimo. I will be returning to Nietzsche in the future.

Joan Copjec has shown that modernity is privy to a notion of immortality all its own – one that differs fundamentally from any counterpart entertained in Greek antiquity or the Christian Middle Ages. She points to Blumenberg and Lefort as thinkers who have construed this concept in its modern guise in different ways, and ultimately opts for Lefort's paradoxical understanding of immortality as the ‘transcending of time, within time' before elaborating on a corresponding notion in Lacan's work. It can be (...) shown that Nietzsche, too, provides a distinctly modern conception of ‘immortality', articulated in relation to his notions of affirmation, singularity and eternal recurrence. In brief, this amounts to his claim that, to affirm even one single part or event in one's life entails affirming it in its entirety, and, in so doing – given the interconnectedness of events – affirming all that has ever existed. Moreover, once anything has existed, it is in a certain sense, for Nietzsche, necessary despite its temporal singularity. Therefore, to be able to rise to the task of affirming certain actions or experiences in one's own life, bestows on it not merely this kind of necessary singularity, but what he thought of as ‘eternal recurrence' – the (ethical) affirmation of the desire to embrace one's own, and together with it, all of existence ‘eternally', over and over. This, it is argued, may be understood as Nietzsche's distinctive contribution to a specifically modern notion of immortality: the ability of an individual to live in such a way that his or her singular ‘place' in society is ensured, necessarily there, even after his or her death. South African Journal of Philosophy Vol. 26 (1) 2007: pp. 70-84. (shrink)

There is a long and successful scholarly tradition of commenting on Nietzsche’s deep affinity for the philosophy of Heraclitus. But scholars remain puzzled as to why he suggested at the end of his career, in Ecce Homo, that the doctrine he valued most, the eternal recurrence of the same, might also have been taught by Heraclitus. This essay aims to answer this question through a close examination of Nietzsche’s allusions to Heraclitus in his first published mention of eternal (...) recurrence in The Joyful Science and in a related set of notes from the period when he was formulating and defending his doctrine of eternal recurrence while writing Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The key to answering this question, it is argued, is that Nietzsche came to believe that the doctrine of eternal recurrence, when properly understood as requiring identical repetition, has to presuppose a Heraclitean reality of eternal, absolute, and universal flux. (shrink)

This long overdue English translation of Karl Löwith's magisterial study is a major event in Nietzsche scholarship in the Anglo-American intellectual world. Its initial publication was extraordinary in itself—a dissident interpretation, written by a Jew, appearing in National Socialist Germany in 1935. Since then, Löwith's book has continued to gain recognition as one of the key texts in the German Nietzsche reception, as well as a remarkable effort to reclaim the philosopher's work from political misappropriation. For Löwith, the centerpiece of (...) Nietzsche's thought is the doctrine of eternal recurrence, a notion which Löwith, unlike Heidegger, deems incompatible with the will to power. His careful examination of Nietzsche's cosmological theory of the infinite repetition of a finite number of states of the world suggests the paradoxical consequences this theory implies for human freedom. How is it possible to will the eternal recurrence of each moment of one's life, if both this decision and the states of affairs governed by it appear to be predestined? Löwith's book, one of the most important, if seldom acknowledged, sources for recent Anglophone Nietzsche studies, remains a central text for all concerned with understanding the philosopher's work. (shrink)

This book argues that Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra employs circular and cyclical (diurnal and seasonal) symbols to communicate both the life-affirmative and the cosmological aspect of "recurrence" as a unifying idea. It shows that twelve day cycles, which run throughout the book's narrative, and the one full annual cycle, which encompasses the circular and the diurnal images in a continuous cycle of life affirmation, track Zarathustra's ever-changing identity throughout the text. In representing the eternal recurrence, the circular and the (...) cyclical symbols respectively convey the book's central message: Zarathustra comes into being in order to affirm existence as the teacher of eternal recurrence in an endlessly repeating cosmos. The study complements recent findings that Nietzsche's book is on eternal recurrence by establishing the unity among its language, structure, and fundamental conception, which solves the century-old problem of the communication or location of the doctrine within the text. The book is designed for the specialised audience of Nietzsche studies. It would also appeal to both students and professors in various disciplines across humanities and social sciences, as well as to anyone interested in understanding the basic tenets of Thus Spoke Zarathustra. (shrink)

In this book, Lawrence Hatab provides an accessible and provocative exploration of one of the best-known and still most puzzling aspects of Nietzsche's thought: eternal recurrence, the claim that life endlessly repeats itself identically in every detail. Hatab argues that eternal recurrence can and should be read literally, in just the way Nietzsche described it in the texts. The book offers a readable treatment of most of the core topics in Nietzsche's philosophy, all discussed in the light of (...) the consummating effect of eternal recurrence. Although Nietzsche called eternal recurrence his most fundamental idea, most interpreters have found it problematic or needful of redescription in other terms. For this reason, Hatab's book is an important and challenging contribution to Nietzsche scholarship. (shrink)

Neste ensaio, argumento que qualquer um que adotasse um falsificacionismo do tipo que tenho atribuído a Nietzsche se sentiria atraído pela doutrina do eterno retorno. Para Nietzsche, pensar o 'vir a ser' revelado por meio dos sentidos significa falsificá-lo por meio do 'ser'. Mas o eterno retorno oferece a possibilidade de pensar o 'vir a ser' sem falsificação. Em seguida, argumento que qualquer um que mantenha o falsificacionismo de Nietzsche veria na ação humana um conflito entre o 'ser' e o (...) 'vir a ser', de modo semelhante ao que ocorre no juízo empírico. À luz desse conflito apenas o eterno retorno ofereceria a possibilidade de afirmar a vida de modo verdadeiro. Para concluir, discuto de que maneira tal leitura do eterno retorno resolve uma série de enigmas que têm atormentado os intérpretes. In this essay, I argue that someone who adopted a falsificationism of the sort that I have attributed to Nietzsche would be attracted to the doctrine of eternal recurrence. For Nietzsche, to think the becoming revealed through the senses means falsifying it through being. But the eternal recurrence offers the possibility of thinking becoming without falsification. I then argue that someone who held Nietzsche's falsificationism would see in human agency a conflict between being and becoming similar to that in empirical judgment. In the light of this conflict only the eternal recurrence would offer the possibility of truly affirming life. I end by discussing how this reading of the eternal recurrence solves a number of puzzles that have bedeviled interpreters. (shrink)

Table of Contents: 1. The introduction of infinities 2. Gay Science 341, “The greatest weight”, considers infinite value 3. The argument of KSA 11:11:38[12] anticipates Poincaré’s theorem 4. “The Soothsayer” envisions the dark side of eternal recurrence 5. “On Redemption” tells of the will’s struggle with the past 6. “The Stillest Hour” struggles to speak of infinite negative value 7. “On The Vision and the Riddle” envisions the cosmology 8. “The Convalescent” has animals proclaiming recurrence 9. “The Other Dancing (...) Song” expresses love of life 10. “Once More” and “The Drunken Song” sing of infinities 11. “The Seven Seals” proposes marriage to Eternity 12. Part IV pits Zarathustra against the soothsayer 13. “The Ass Festival” celebrates worldly value. (shrink)

Several scholars align Nietzsche’s philosophy with Stoicism because of their naturalist approaches to ethics and doctrines of eternal recurrence. Yet this alignment is difficult to reconcile with Nietzsche’s criticisms of Stoicism’s ethical ideal of living according to nature by dispassionately accepting fate—so much so that some conclude that Nietzsche’s rebuke of Stoicism undermines his own philosophical project. I argue that affinities between Nietzsche and Stoicism belie deeper disagreement about teleology, which, in turn, yields different understandings of nature and human (...) flourishing, so that Nietzsche’s objections to Stoicism support his commitments to ethical naturalism and to affirming life’s eternal recurrence. (shrink)

This article shows that Nietzsche’s published presentations endorse the cosmological truth of eternal recurrence and that they indicate how belief in this truth can be supported with direct mnemonic evidence as well as a priori scientific proof. It also introduces a refutation of any attempt to construe Nietzsche’s doctrine as a thought experiment that would help to test or promote the affirmation of nonrecurring life.

Nietzsche’s concept of the self grows out of Kant—and then attempts to subvert Kant. Nietzsche agrees that a unified subject is a necessary presupposition for ordered experience to be possible. But instead of a Kantian unified self, Nietzsche develops a conception of the self of the sort that we have come to call postmodern. He posits a composite bundle of drives that become unified only through organization. This subject is unified, it is just that its unity is forged, constructed, brought (...) about by domination. But if the self is a bundle of struggling and shifting drives, how could it remain unified over time? Nietzsche’s concept of the self requires his doctrine of eternal recurrence, which promises that I will remain the same, exactly and precisely the same, without the slightest change, not merely throughout this life, but for an eternity of lives. (shrink)

ABSTRACTA simple but significant historical fact has been overlooked in interpretations of Nietzsche's eternal recurrence. In making eternal recurrence the standard for the affirmation and love of life, Nietzsche accepts an understanding of love developed in Plato's Symposium: love means ‘wanting to possess the good forever’. I argue that Plato develops two distinct types of love, which remain in tension with one another. I then show that a corresponding tension arises in Nietzsche's work when we consider eternal (...) recurrence as the love of life. By making love central in the phrase ‘love of life’, and by allowing Plato's thoughts on love to inform the love of life that Nietzsche expresses in the thought of eternal recurrence, I show that Nietzsche's dramatic presentations of the eternal recurrence do not present us with a test, but in revealing an incompatibility between loving something in life and loving life in its entirety, they present the tragic conflict in the task of life affirmation. (shrink)

Anthony K. Jensen - Nietzsche's Life Sentence: Coming to Terms with Eternal Recurrence - Journal of the History of Philosophy 44:4 Journal of the History of Philosophy 44.4 671-672 Muse Search Journals This Journal Contents Reviewed by Anthony K. Jensen Emory University Lawrence J. Hatab. Nietzsche's Life Sentence: Coming to Terms with Eternal Recurrence. New York-London: Routledge, 2005. Pp. xix + 191. Paper, $24.95. In his latest book, Lawrence Hatab brings together several threads from his previous writing into (...) an elegant expression that examines a wide range of Nietzsche's thought through the single prism of his notoriously obscure conception of "Eternal Recurrence." The opening chapters establish the affirmation of becoming and the "tragic" view of the world (which Nietzsche had already articulated in his earliest.. (shrink)

The cyclical theory f time, which is better known under the name of the 'theory of eternal recurrence,' is usually associated with certain ancient thinkers--in particular, Pythagoreans and Stoics. The most famous among those who have tried to revive the theory in the modern era is unquestionably Friedrich Nietzsche. It is less well known that the theory was defended also by C.S. Peirce and, as late as 1927, by the French historian of science, Abel Rey. The contemporary discussion of (...) the problem of the direction of time has a direct bearing on the problem of eternal recurrence. The primary purpose of this paper is to evaluate critically the theory itself and then to show how this critical analysis can be applied to Peirce's own version of this theory. (shrink)

This essay explores the ways in which the idiosyncratic onto-theogony of Friedrich Schelling's 1815 version of The Ages of the World anticipates Gilles Deleuze’s equally idiosyncratic interpretation of Friedrich Nietzsche’s doctrine of eternal recurrence. As I argue, Schelling’s work presents a sophisticated theory of being and time, a complex account of the genesis of actuality from within a differentiated transcendental field, and a reworking of the doctrine of Ideas, all of which together project a conception of reality as (...) class='Hi'>eternal recurrence strikingly similar to the one Deleuze draws out of Nietzsche’s scant and elliptical writings on the subject. (shrink)