Nietzsche's Eternal Return
Notes on various aspects of Nietzsche's doctrine of Eternal Recurrence or Eternal Return. Includes information on the positions taken by various critics.
[q][b]Quote 1.[/b] The heaviest burden: ?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? must 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 over 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 were to gain possession of you, it would change you as you are, or perhaps crush you. The question in each and every thing, ?do you want 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 eternal confirmation and seal?? (The Gay Science, s. 341)[/q]
[q][b]Quote 2.[/b] Live so that you may desire to live again, and not only once again, but an infinite number of times! (Eternal Recurrence, s. 25)[/q]
[b]Interpreting the Eternal Return[/b]
1. A cosmological doctrine: that in order for it to make any sense, we must actually eternally recur. (This interpretation is supported by a notebook (unpublished in Nietzsche?s lifetime) in which he attempted to prove that we must eternally recur, and by some fragments in his published texts where he seems to suggest that the power of the doctrine is in the prospect of it actually occurring.)
2. A practical doctrine: that it is concerned not with whether eternal return actually happens or not but with our response to the suggestion that it does happen. (This interpretation is supported by quote 1, and seems to be more consistent with Nietzsche?s overall project.)
? Kundera gives an interesting background to how the practical approach works. He says that eternal return gives us ?a perspective from which things appear other than as we know them: they appear without the mitigating circumstance of their transitory nature?. This is what the heaviest of burdens is?to see things from a perspective in opposition to the ?splendid lightness? of our lives.
? Commentators have been increasingly willing to adopt this approach.
? Clark traces the progress of this line of interpretation:
i. Sol said that the mere possibility of recurrence is sufficient motivation for accepting it
ii. Magnus said that we don?t need to regard it as possible but only need to imagine it happening
iii. Clark says that she herself will go one step further by suggesting that it is used by Nietzsche as a kind of hypothetical test in order to evaluate our lives.
OR
1. A test of how to live one?s life?if we can affirm the eternal return, we?ve lived our live in the way Nietzsche suggests we should. This is tied in with the ubermensch, morality, and perspectivism (see second page).
2. A (Kantian) imperative for action, i.e. before taking any action, evaluate whether or not you?d want to repeat it eternally. Kaufmann argues that particular actions are ?much less important to Nietzsche than the state of being?.
[b]Significance of the Eternal Return in Nietzsche?s thought[/b]
{Relation to the Ubermensch}
The relationship between the Ubermensch and eternal return is mentioned explicitly by Nietzsche:
[q][b]Quote 3.[/b] ?You higher men, do learn this, joy wants eternity. Joy wants the eternity of all things, wants deep, wants deep eternity.?[/q]
Both doctrines are clearly responses to the ?ascetic ideal? in that they offer an alternative way of living life. Both involve affirming life, and it seems (especially in Thus Spake Zarathustra) that the highest possible affirmation is that of the eternal return. The extent to which they are expressions of the same doctrine is, however, less clear.
Magnus takes an interesting position on this issue. He claims that the traditional characterization of the ubermensch as a higher type of man having certain values/traits (e.g. creativity, giving style to one?s character, self-overcoming, control of the passions) is not right, and that the ?ubermensch is instead the representation only of a particular attitude toward life? that of a person who would have nothing more fervently than the eternal recurrence of each and every moment of his or her life?.
But is it right to separate having particular values and affirming eternal return? The quest for these values seem to be tied up inextricably with the quest for becoming an ubermensch.
? For example, deciding whether to affirm eternal return involves a period of self-reflection similar to the one which Zarathustra went through. Elsewhere Nietzsche says, ?In order to live, one must evaluate? (Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe, VII/2). In a similar way, in order to be an ubermensch we must be have complete self-awareness. Thinking about eternal recurrence thus seems to be a part of the process of becoming an ubermensch.
? Also, Nietzsche says that ?the majority of people are only piecemeal and fragmentary specimens of man?. This sort of characterisation seems to suggest that it is a process to acquire the ubermensch?s values and traits; presumably, this process would culminate in the affirmation of the eternal return.
So although Magnus may be right in saying that ?no neat or easy tablet of values or virtues or blessings appears to be inherent in the notion of ubermenshlichkeit?, I think he too easily divorces these values from the theory of eternal return. It is only someone who is able to do the sorts of things listed above that will be able to want to repeat his life eternally.
{Relation to Morality}
There are strong parallels between affirming/not affirming eternal return and master/slave morality, which are connected through the ubermensch. To be an ubermensch, we need to embrace the natural distinction of strong and weak rather than the unnatural one of good and evil. To go beyond good and evil, we need to realise that the value of our life is determined not by arbitrary morality or by conscience but rather by how we live it. (Interestingly, affirming eternal return also involves rejecting the Christian conception of life after death.)
{Relation to Perspectivism}
If we can know no truth except through perspectives, then we should use our perspective to cope with reality?that is, we should be artists for ourselves (think The Birth of Tragedy). Science, religion, etc., can offer us only perspectives and in order to affirm life the ubermensch must overcome these perspectives and create a world ourselves and for ourselves which we would be willing to relive for all eternity.
[b]Criticisms of the Eternal Return[/b]
In a social and practical context it is an undesirable way of living one?s life.
We discussed that nasty people may meet the criteria for being an ubermansch. The doctrine of eternal return doesn?t seem to be any better.
? If we consider the ubermensch and eternal return to be two separate doctrines, it looks even worse. This is because Nietzsche seems to give the ubermensch some redeeming qualities (e.g. self-discipline, ability to use one?s power to help others, etc.) but someone who affirms the eternal return needs no such qualities and I can think of very many nasty people who might want to live their lives again.
? If we consider them to be the same doctrine, things are almost as bleak. All of the nasty people who are ubermenschen may well pass the ?litmus test? of the eternal return.
Other criticisms
? It isn?t true.
? If it were true, why should I care?
? Why can?t I choose a different life?
? Why can?t I be indifferent? (see Nehamas, A., ?The Eternal Recurrence?, The Philsophical Review, vol. 89, issue 3, pg. 331)
? Why should I have to affirm my bad experiences?
? Why should I have to affirm experiences over which I have no control?
? How can all my experiences be as significant as each other?
[b]Bibliography[/b]
Kundera, M., The Impossible Lightness of Being, pub, locale, year, pg. 3.
Clark, M., Nietzsche on Truth and Philosophy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Kaufmann, W., Netzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1974.
Magnus, B., ?The Defication of the Commonplace?, in Solomon and Higgins ed., Reading Nietzsche, New York, Oxford, 1988.
