The Affirmation of Life: Nietzsche on Overcoming Nihilism by Bernard Reginster

Author:Bernard Reginster
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Published: 2009-11-06T16:47:00+00:00

The Eternal Recurrence

But all joy wants eternity-wants deep, wants deep eternity.

-THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA, IV 19

The eternal recurrence is "the fundamental conception" of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, a book Nietzsche regards as his highest achievement (EH, III 1, Preface 4). In one of his latest books, he also identifies himself as the teacher of the eternal recurrence: "I, the last disciple of the philosopher Dionysos-I, the teacher of the eternal recurrence" (TI, X 5). Yet, for all its importance, the doctrine is also one of the most difficult and mysterious in a body of works that includes many difficult and mysterious views. According to a venerable scholarly tradition, the idea of the eternal recurrence should be understood in the context of a campaign against nihilism.' It is, specifically, the centerpiece of a new ethical ideal of "affirmation of life" Nietzsche puts forward in opposition to the nihilist's negation of life: "the idea of the eternal recurrence, this highest formula of affirmation that is at all attainable" (EH, III Thus Spoke Zarathustra 1; cf. BGE 56).

In keeping with much of the scholarship, I will take the following text to provide the pivotal formulation of the doctrine:

The greatest weight.-What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: "This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence-even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!"

Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: "You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine." If this thought gained possession of you, it would change you as you are or perhaps crush you. The question in each and every thing, "Do you desire this once more and innumerable times more?" would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight. Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate confirmation and seal? (GS 341)

The idea of the eternal recurrence is invoked to formulate a thought experiment: how would you react if "this life, as you now live it and have lived it [recurred] once more and innumerable times more [ ... ] all in the same succession and sequence"? The purpose of this thought experiment is to determine whether you are life-affirming or lifenegating. You affirm life if you react with joy to the prospect of its eternal recurrence, and you "crave nothing more fervently.

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