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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2010
It is commonly agreed that Nietzsche's doctrine of eternal recurrence is hard to understand. The difficulty lies not so much in any great complexity or highly technical character as in uncertainty over what kind of doctrine it is intended to be. Without knowing this we are in no position to agree upon the guidelines for assessing its validity or invalidity. In this discussion I intend to suggest an approach to the problem which will help us to answer these questions—and to avoid some of the difficulties encountered by previous interpretations.
1 See e.g. Danto, A. C., Nietzsche as Philosopher (New York: Macmillan, 1965), 203–209Google Scholar; I. Soll, “Reflections on Recurrence: A Re-examination of Nietzsche's Doctrine, Die Ewige Wiederkehr des Gleichen”, and Zuboff, A., “Nietzsche and Eternal Recurrence”, both in Solomon, R. C., ed., Nietzsche: A Collection of Critical Essays (New York: Anchor Books, 1973)Google Scholar; Sterling, M. C., “Recent Discussions of Eternal Recurrence: Some Critical Comments”, Nietzsche-Studien 6 (1977), 261–291CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Krueger, J., “Nietzschean Recurrence as a Cosmological Hypothesis”, Journal of the History of Philosophy 16 (1978), 435–444CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 See e.g. Solomon, R. C., From Rationalism to Existentialism (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), 136–137Google Scholar, and Stern, J. P., A Study of Nietzsche (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 168–169Google Scholar.
3 Magnus, B., “Eternal Recurrence”, Nietzsche-Studien 8 (1979), 371CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 Löwith, K., Nietzsches Philosophie der ewigen Wiederkehr des Gleichen (new ed.; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1956), 92Google Scholar.
5 KGW VIII/1, 98 and 323 (The Will to Power, 604 and 481). Here and throughout “KGW” refers to Nietzsche, Kritische Gesamtausgabe: Werke, ed. Colli, G. and Montinari, M. (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1973Google Scholar–). The English translations of Walter Kaufmann have been used, where available, with occasional modifications.
6 “Morality as Anti-Nature”, in Twilight of the Idols, 6.
7 See e.g. KGW VII/1, 64, 113 and 417.
8 See also KGW VII/2, 157–158.
9 E.g. KGW VII/1, 555 and 627; see Solomon, From Rationalism, 136–137, and Magnus, “Eternal Recurrence”, 372.
10 Fink, E., Nietzsches Philosophie (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1979), 83Google Scholar.
11 The Gay Science, 143.
12 KGW V/2, 421.
13 See e.g. Magnus, B., Nietzsche's Existential Imperative (Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1978), 74Google Scholar; Alderman, H., Nietzsche's Gift (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1977), 5 and 85Google Scholar; Krueger, “Nietzschean Recurrence”, 436; and Nehamas, A., “The Eternal Recurrence”, The Philosophical Review 89 (1980), 333CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
14 “Why I am a Fatality”, in Ecce Homo, 8.
15 It is unfortunate that in the most recent English translation of Thus Spake Zarathustra the word Kraft is translated as “power” in this passage.
16 “Before Sunrise”, “The Other Dancing Song”, and “The Drunken Song” in Thus Spake Zarathustra.
17 KGW VII/3, 281 (The Will to Power, 1062).
18 “The Problem of Socrates”, Twilight of the Idols, 5.
19 Beyond Good and Evil, 203.
20 KGW VII/1, 561.
21 KGW VII/2, 9.
22 The Gay Science, 341.
23 As suggested by Jaspers, K., Nietzsche: An Introduction to the Understanding of his Philosophical Activity, trans. Wallraff, C. F. and Schmitz, F. J. (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1965), 355Google Scholar, and Sartre, J.-P., Saint Genet (New York: New American Library, 1971), 348nGoogle Scholar.
24 The Gay Science, 283.
25 See also KGW V/l, 509, 679–680 and 715, and V/2, 521.
26 See also The Dawn, 432.
27 Ainsi parlait Zarathoustra (Paris: Gallimard, 1971), 400Google Scholar. The chapter “On Involuntary Bliss” contains some similar lines.
28 Opuscules et fragments inédits de Leibniz, ed. Couturat, L. (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1961), 420Google Scholar.
29 See also the contrast between Leibniz and Heraclitus in Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, 7.
30 Beyond Good and Evil, 42.
31 “On Reading and Writing”, in Thus Spake Zarathustra. In this remark Zarathustra reveals himself to be a student of Empedocles, one of whose surviving fragments reads “Stepping from summit to summit, not to travel only one path of words to the end” (Diels' fragment 24, as translated by John Burnet).
32 KGW V/2, 518 and 566.
33 The Gay Science, 431.
34 Historisch-Kritische Gesamtausgabe: Werke, Band 3, ed. Mette, H. J. and Schlechta, K. (Munchen: C. H. Beck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1935), 298Google Scholar.
35 Diels' fragment 119. A somewhat similar statement is attributed to Democritus: “The soul is the dwelling-place of the daimon” (Diels' fragment 171). Nietzsche however called this “a Heraclitean view, not a Democritean one” (Historische-Kritische Gesamtausgabe: Werke, Band 4, ed. Mette, H. J. and Schlechta, K. [München: C. H. Beck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1937], 76)Google Scholar.
36 For a rather broad use of this theme in connection with Nietzsche, see Stefan Zweig's The Struggle with the Daimon, included in his Master Builders: A Typology of the Spirit, trans. E., and C. Paul, (New York: Viking Press, 1939)Google Scholar.
37 The Birth of Tragedy, 13.
38 Beyond Good and Evil, 292.
39 The Dawn, 76.
40 “On Redemption”, in Thus Spake Zarathustra.
41 The Gay Science, 285.
42 “On Old and New Tablets”, in Thus Spake Zarathustra, 2.
43 KGW VII/3, 338–339 (The Will to Power, 1067).
44 KGW VIII/1, 127 (The Will to Power, 797).
45 Lucian, , Loeb Classical Library, vol. 2 (London: Heinemann, 1919), 476Google Scholar.
46 KGW VIII/2, 201 (The Will to Power, 639).
47 Ibid., 201.
48 KGW VII/1, 43.
49 “At Noon”, in Thus Spake Zarathustra.
50 KGW VIII/2, 7 (The Will to Power, 712).
51 Ibid., 173–174 (The Will to Power, 1037).
52 KGW V/2, 451.
53 KGW VIII/1, 320 (The Will to Power, 617).
54 “On Old and New Tablets”, in Thus Spake Zarathustra, 19. See also KGW VII/1, 579 and 676.
55 “The Drunken Song”, in ibid., 10.
56 Ibid., also KGW VII/1, 503 and VII/3, 58.
57 See especially KGW VII/3, 363ff.
58 Beyond Good and Evil, 17.
59 “The Four Great Errors”, in Twilight of the Idols, 3; also KGW VIII/1, 101 (The Will to Power, 531).
60 KGW VIII/1, 94 (The Will to Power, 660).
61 KGW VIII/2, 104.
62 Ibid., 246.
63 Ibid., 41.
64 KGW V/2, 475.
65 KGW VIII/1, 112 (The Will to Power, 616).
66 KGW V/l, 541.
