Eternal Recurrence: Nietzsche's Blunder?

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

The Eternal Recurrence seems at odds with a lot of Nietzsche’s thought. He was very critical of the concept of causes and the concept of sameness, which are based on errors, yet he embraces this physical hypothesis. From what I can recall from Nietzsche his eternal recurrence is not the repetition of difference as Deleuze interprets it, though I think Deleuze is more consistent with the creative aspect of Nietzsche’s thought; it is the recurrence of the same.

How do you philosophical workers deal with this?

2

I treat it as a metaphor. It’s Kant’s Categorical Imperative turned sideways. Kant was essentially a rationalist. The CI is an absolutist expression. Nietzsche’s ER is an “universal via particulars”. How this is so is curious, but it does serve a purpose.

Instead of acting as if your act would become universal law - that is, applying to everyone, forever, act as if it applied only to you, but forever. It’s a hypothetical - not to be taken literally. But it means that the “universe” of the act is the set of your own existence - of your every act, and not of Existence itself. Hence, the set over which these acts are universal is limited but infinite - it’s a straight line, and not every plane of existence. It raises the stakes, but limits them as compared to a true universal. It’s universality within a context.

(Okay, Saully. Have at me.)

3

I think now (following Lampert and Strauss) that it is meant as the highest value, not as the most elemental fact (that being the will to power). The highest value (or “highest good”, to speak with Aristotle) is the eternal recurrence of the-world-as-will-to-power. Or maybe rather: the highest value is the most ardent wish that the-world-as-will-to-power recur eternally. The one to whom the eternal recurrence is the highest value, the one whose most ardent wish it is, is the highest man, the Übermensch.

4

There are three interpretations of the eternal recurrence (that I know of).
1.The cosmological hypothesis (physical hypothesis) which claims that all possible phenomenological occurrences have already occured and so they “eternally recur”.
2. The “test”. The eternal recurrence is connected to the aphorism The Greatest Weight where one has to free oneself from all resentment and joyously embrace every occurrence in one’s life (linked to amor fati).
3. Nietzsche’s acceptance that the herd cannot be reformed and that the “higher man” is the only species possible to reinterpret appearance.

The “test” interpretation seems to be the most plausible. Nietzsche is very wary of making absolute claims about the nature of the universe, so the cosmological hypothesis seems to go against his philosophical style. Plus, if everything truly does recur then it null and voids his argument for “higher men” to decide the “What and Whither” for man after the death of Platonized-Christianity. Whereas the “test” approach fits in with several other Nietzschean themes - overcoming resentment and love of fate (amor fati). Supposedly, overcoming resentment frees us from the “knot of causes” which define the current age, or at least since the inception of Christianity. The 3rd interpretation would then take place after the overcoming of the “knot of causes”.

5

From an email I wrote some time ago:

About the dwarf and Zarathustra:

The dwarf’s account of the eternal recurrence [ER] is abstract. The doctrine of the ER may be understood as the teaching that the universe forms a ‘circle’ in time, i.e., that time is a ‘four-dimensional circle’. But we can only conceive of three-dimensional circles (leaving the fact that, in mathematics, a circle is two-dimensional out of account; you may want to read “ring” where I write “circle”). And Zarathustra says:

[list][size=95]God is a conjecture: but I do not wish your conjecturing to reach beyond your creating will.
Could ye create a God?—Then, I pray you, be silent about all gods! But ye could well create the Superman.
Not perhaps ye yourselves, my brethren! But into fathers and forefathers of the Superman could ye transform yourselves: and let that be your best creating!
God is a conjecture: but I should like your conjecturing restricted to the conceivable.
Could ye conceive a God?—But let this mean Will to Truth unto you, that everything be transformed into the humanly conceivable, the humanly visible, the humanly sensible! Your own discernment shall ye follow out to the end!
[In the Happy Isles.][/size]

This is exactly what Zarathustra does in Of the Vision and the Riddle. And I think the eternal recurrence follows from this. For it’s inconceivable that the stuff of which the universe consists be quantitatively infinite; and also that it be infinitely divisible. Therefore we must conceive of the universe as a finite (i.e., not infinite) number of finite (i.e., not infinitesimal) things. The amount of different possible configurations of these things is then finite, and the eternal recurrence must be a fact.[/list:u]

6

Nietzsche did try to understand the universe this way in his unpublished notebooks. However, his published works on the eternal recurrence do not seem to reflect a mathematical cosmological understanding of existence. The insight of the eternal recurrence, I believe, is meant to produce an attitude; an attitude that is to overcome the resentment deeply instantiated within human affairs.

7

Well, in TSZ “Of the Vision and the Riddle”, Zarathustra does present it rather ‘mathematically’, for a mock-Biblical work. (He does not mention one of the conditions there, by the way, namely the finiteness of the total amount of ‘power’: he mentions that in “Of the Three Evils”, 1).

I think the eternal recurrence is what the will to power must will in order to overcome ressentiment (see TSZ “Of Redemption”).

8

The Eternal Recurrence as an idea has the features of a high caliber thought: among the many other things that distinguish such thought, it is self-referential and transformative.

After that is accepted, is it not natural to notice also that there are scatterbrain-buckshot thoughts, and pea-shooter thoughts? An example of the latter might be any isolated thought of the form “such and such famed philosopher was mistaken”. Because while it’s certainly possible for anyone to be mistaken (in contradiction with how things actually are or are shown to be), for philosophers this matters least of all. It is not as if philosophers are in the same professional calling as all the doting parascientific investigators of “how things are”! Here the lover of wisdom is naturally at odds methodologically with the lover of mere knowledge.

A creative wiseman says: “things are so”, and then many users come, look, and become convinced that truly things ARE as he’d said. It is not betrayal if wiseman later changes his view - the disappointed cries of former adepts would merely illustrate their personal helplessness, lack of flexibility. For had they learned something of true (philosophical) value, any given error of their teacher would still constitute for them a sort of “sentimental” value-in-itself, perhaps as a reminder of wonderful times spent in the company of high caliber thoughts. What does it matter that now they are “disproved”, in some magazine or newspaper, or scientific journal, or even in the wiseman’s own handwriting? Very similarly, the hyped appearance of definite scientific confirmations related to a philosopher’s result is oftentimes the equivallent of telling a newly married man that his wife is “a good producer by all the metrics and signs visible to the naked eye” – while intended as a compliment, it will surely only make the lovers cringe.

Therefore I propose a modern interpretation of the Eternal Recurrence - as a weapon of mass destruction. We have every right today to speak of the “Bomb” of Eternal Recurrence, but it is not wholly clear what would constitute the greater blunder: exploding it and releasing the tension it holds, or leaving it alone?

-WL

9

N’s doctrine was aimed at establishment of a definitive Thing, versus the oblivion of the Real. Which he experienced all-too-close, as Dionysus, King of Hell. It’s like Hitler was born from his head. (“I had a splitting headache, from which the future’s born…”)

10

This is a good example, though fairly abstract (as you said), of why I always thought Nietzsche took to the idea of ER…

It is something conceivable, logically possible, and affirmed by the wishes of humanity – the difference being that we are not creating origins, or explanations by use of ‘conjecture’. We need not afford super-human qualities to an idea (ie. God) as a means to face our uncertainties; that is to say, there is never really a need to throw our hands up and say “Welp, this’n is beyond me. Must be God.”

Rather, perhaps one should afford such qualities to humanity instead – that is, the idea that we may promote an evolution, thus transcending what we perceive as the scope of human competency. Allow yourself the confidence of experience to affirm the basic assumptions we make, as humanity, to live and grow. These existential tenancies - our human assumptions - can be trusted far more than idolatry in every-day functions. So, why not trust our existential “proofs” to lead us to real, object possibilities of existential patterns; rather than trusting ‘conjecture’ about “God”?

We base our entire existences upon these material, object assumptions in order to distinguish ourselves from “nature” (ie. One might say we are the only moral animals, which can be supported or rejected based on evidence). That is to essentially say that our assumptions regarding nature are the groundwork from which human thought can/will evolve. By limiting ourselves with ‘conjecture’, we are also limiting ourselves in our ability to progress beyond it when the time comes.

Ask yourself this – Do you hold a stronger belief that you exist, or that “God” exists? Where does the proof lie?

Thus

11

WL!

Good to see you’re still up and around, shaking your baby maker.

The question remains: If…

12

Yeah, and that’s vintage WL.

Both of you guys - you oldtimers - sandy and WL. This place is much better with you than without you.

Sniff-sniff.

13

Don’t you just love that guy? And not in a, well, you know…

Goosebumps.

14

After re-reading sections of TSZ I agree that he does firstly try to argue it as a mathematically grounded cosmological thesis, (even though his argument for this proposition is not very convincing), and then affirms the eternal recurrence of the small and great man. Yet in book 5 of The Gay Science he will argue for “infinite interpretations” and for the world to be posited anew as the “unkown one”. “Infinite interpretations” would insinuate that there is not eternally recurring combinations of phenomena.
I am more inclined to believe the “infinite interpretations” arguement than the eternal recurrence of all things in light of Nietzsche’s numerous arguments in favour of “a new dawn” after the death of Platonized-Christianity.

15

Trying to understand Nietzsche through the lens of Lacan, Heidegger or really any metaphysical, psychoanalytic or critical-theoretical platform is a big mistake.

If anything it is his will to power which was his biggest “blunder”, but only because it has led so many far astray of understanding him. Note how rarely the will to power appears in his Zarathustra, his magnum opus, the greatest and highest presentation of his philosophy and vision (that is, according to Nietzsche himself - and I think we can take him at his word here). This work, his Zarathustra, is about many things, one of the first among them being the eternal recurrence, but certainly not one of the first among them is the will to power. Nietzsche would likely be horrified to see how his entire philosophy has been turned inside-out based on one small and peripheral part of his entire conceptual framework.

Hint: if you read anything more significant in his ‘will to power’ than “For I am that which must always overcome itself”, you’re trying too hard.

Want to understand Nietzsche, or the eternal recurrence? Just read his Zarathustra. Don’t read all these other idiots who “interpret” Nietzsche to their own ends. It’s much nicer to just think for yourself, isn’t it? …[size=85]isn’t it[/size]? :-k

16

Laurence Lampert disagrees with you. He provides reasons for why the appearance of the will to power in Nietzsche’s books (not just TSZ) is so rare even though it is his fundamental metaphysical concept (“metaphysical” in the true sense, of course). It’s no wonder that you think you’ve gone ‘beyond Nietzsche’ seeing as you’ve missed the importance of the will to power.

17

[size=95]If Nietzsche’s solitary account of the fundamental will of life, will to power, is ever to persuade and become as pervasive as Spinoza’s once solitary account [of “the fundamental life drive” as “self-preservation”, which Nietzsche’s account is to replace], it will, presumably, likewise depend on auditors with shared experiences.
[…] This [Joyous Science 349] is the only time Nietzsche names will to power in this whole Book [Book Five] addressed to science, but it is hardly a casual occasion: will to power is the rival of the view that took over modern science and grounded modern politics.
[…]
The Joyous Science Book Five is, in its own way, a repetition of the pattern of insight and affirmation present in Nietzsche’s two previous books [TSZ and BGE]. […] This most programmatic aphorism on will to power [BGE 36] sets the direction for the investigation of the fundamental phenomenon carried out most extensively in notes which Nietzsche’s breakdown left unorganized and unpublished. But Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche’s elaborate vehicle for reporting this fundamental discovery and its consequences, had already set out the issue in a way Nietzsche never abandoned—a way that explains the extreme economy of all references to the will to power in the post-Zarathustra books. After the poetic portrayal of Zarathustra’s preparation for the discovery of life’s secret (“The Dancing Song,” Z 2.10), “On Self-Overcoming” (Z 2.12) extends a private and urgent invitation to “you who are wisest”: they are to undertake with him the vast new set of investigations which test the truth of what life revealed to him, that it can be fathomed as will to power.* A fundamental philosophical teaching can only take root the way Spinoza’s did (JS 349): as the insight of a solitary, it can only become persuasive if the solitary can entice those whose kinship with it impels them to confirm it or refute it through their own investigations.
[Lampert, Nietzsche and Modern Times, pp. 334, 335, 338 and 351.][/size]

  • Lampert’s footnote: “I analyzed these crucial chapters in Nietzsche’s Teaching.”

“The Dancing Song” is the 32nd chapter of TSZ’s 66 chapters (not counting Part Four, and counting “The Seven Seals” as seven chapters); “On Self-Overcoming” is the 34th. And though Lampert does not tend to put much emphasis on it, the 33rd is “The Grave-Song”, in which Zarathustra rediscovers his will. So in the 32nd, Life implies to him that she can be fathomed; in the 33rd, Zarathustra fathoms himself (discovering his will as his deepest ground); and by the 34th, he has found this ground to be the deepest ground of all life. So the ‘generalisation’ from personal truth to universal truth occurs between the 33rd and 34th chapters, i.e., exactly in the middle of the book.

[size=95]Nietzsche’s method, his way in to the fundamental problem of “the way of all beings” (Z 2.12), begins with one’s own being—as unknown but as more knowable: “Many drives struggle to predominate in me. In this I am the image of everything living and I explain this to myself.” Nietzsche explains this to others in the methodological rigor of Beyond Good and Evil §36, a lengthy Versuch [attempt, experiment, or essay] which begins with the unknown self, and by a strict “conscience of method” moves to what must be posited about oneself, about “our entire instinctual life,” and from there to what must be posited about “all organic functions,” and finally about “all efficient force univocally.”
[Lampert, ibid., pp. 350-51.][/size]

18

As I said, learn to think for yourself, rather than regurgitate what other people say.

19

The two do not preclude one another. But whatever. One question, though. Do you think what I wrote in that post (i.e., the only paragraph that was not a quote) is coincidence?

For the record: I once lived through the Grave-Song (and Nietzsche says that to live through six sentences of TSZ raises one to a higher level of the mortal). My experience was in perfect agreement with what Claudia Crawford writes about that song (which she calls “The Tomb Song”):

[size=95][It] parallels the second dance of Siva.

[list][/size][size=85]The second well known dance of Siva is called the Tandava, and belongs to his tamasic aspect as Bhairava or Vira-bhadra. It is performed in cemeteries and burning grounds […]
(Coomaraswamy, “Dance of Siva,” p. 57)[/size][size=95]

In his most destructive aspect Rudra (Siva) becomes Bhairava, the fearful destroyer, who takes pleasure in destruction. […] This is not the universal destruction and recreation of heavens and earths as in the first dance. Then what does Siva destroy? And what are the burning grounds?

[/size][size=85]It is not the place where our earthly bodies are cremated, but the hearts of His lovers, laid waste and desolate. The place where the ego is destroyed signifies the state where illusion and deeds are burnt away: That is the crematorium, the burning-ground where Sri Nataraja dances, and whence he is named Sudalaiyadi, Dancer of the burning ground. (ibid. p. 61)[/size][size=95]

[…] So Nietzsche’s dance in the “The Tomb Song” is a battle for his heart and the divine loves of his youth. It is a battle for the freedom of dance itself. […] Zarathustra’s will, which is the necessary movement of the will to power, is what killed his enemies (those who would tie him to dismal and gloomy ideas, ideas of “little reason”) and revived the tombs of his youth (reawakening the parables of the highest things). To his will to power Zarathustra says: “What in my youth was unredeemed lives on in you: and as life and youth you sit there, full of hope, on yellow ruins of tombs. Indeed, for me, you are still the shatterer of all tombs. Hail to thee, my will! And only where there are tombs are there resurrections” (Z 225).
[Crawford, “Nietzsche’s Dionysian arts”.][/size][/list:u]

20

Sitting around smoking dope isn’t, I am sure, what Nietzsche was referring to in those passages of his.

Getting high on drugs and Heidegger, and the genuine experience of lived elevation in one’s self-knowledge and its 'euphoria of reason’, as I call it, are not the same thing.