Eternal return

The eternal return of the same is a central idea in Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy, according to which all events repeat themselves infinitely often. For Nietzsche, this cyclical understanding of time is the basis of the highest affirmation of life.

Nietzsche's thought

Location of Nietzsche's inspiration: "near a mighty, pyramidal towered block not far from Surlei ".

Writing based on Nietzsche's mystical experience, "6000 feet above the sea and much higher above all human things".

Nietzsche himself described in his autobiography Ecce homo how this thought overwhelmed him in a moment of inspiration :

"The basic conception of the work [ Also Spoke Zarathustra ], the idea of eternal return , this highest formula of affirmation that can be achieved at all - belongs to August 1881: it is thrown on a sheet of paper with the signature: '6000 feet beyond man and time.' That day I was walking through the woods by the lake of Silvaplana ; I stopped at a mighty, pyramidal towered block not far from Surlei. Then this thought occurred to me. "

This description is confirmed by a corresponding fragment in Nietzsche's estate, which leads to further considerations there, in which the figure Zarathustra soon appears. Nietzsche then presented the idea for the first time in the penultimate aphorism of the (first edition of) Happy Science and thus directly before the beginning of Also sprach Zarathustra . This is the most detailed description of the idea outside the estate and, apart from the name, already contains all the elements of the teaching:

“ The biggest heavyweight . - As if, one day or night, a demon crept after you into your loneliest loneliness and said to you: 'This life as you are now living and having lived it, you will have to live again and countless times; and there will be nothing new about it, but every pain and every pleasure and every thought and sigh and everything unspeakably small and large in your life must come back to you, and everything in the same order and sequence - and also this spider and this moonlight between the trees , as well as this moment and myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned around again and again - and you with it, dust from the dust! ' - Wouldn't you prostrate yourself and grit your teeth and curse the demon who talked like that? Or did you once experience a tremendous moment when you would answer him: 'You are a god and I have never heard anything more divine!' If that thought got hold of you, it would transform you as you are and perhaps crush you; the question with everything and everyone 'do you want this again and countless times?' would be the biggest emphasis on your actions! Or how would you have to be good for yourself and life in order to ask for nothing more than this last, eternal confirmation and seal? "

Terms such as “the tremendous moment” and “the greatest heavyweight” have found approval in literature, as have “the great noon”, “ring of rings”, “wheel of being” and similar expressions by Nietzsche. The term “eternal return” (instead of return) used by many interpreters, on the other hand, is only found very rarely in Nietzsche and in remote places. Attention has only recently been drawn to this, as has the fact that the term “return” ( Parousia ) was in use in Christian theology even before Nietzsche . Of course, Acts 3.21  EU contains the term apokatastasis which is used by the Stoa for the return (in the non-Christian sense, see below) .

In So spoke Zarathustra

There is now broad consensus that the Eternal Coming is actually a very important, if not the central idea of Also Spoke Zarathustra . The “eternal return” is the “great affirmative mystical experience” that appears in this work in different variations. The figure Zarathustra is thought of by Nietzsche as the teacher of the eternal return. The teaching is "less proven, but rather proclaimed in the form of symbols". The possibility of exoteric (not mystical, not esoteric) teaching in general and its consequences for the teacher are also problematized. In the book of Zarathustra, for example, a speech breaks off when it leads to the thought; and he wrestles with himself at the prospect of becoming the “herald” of thought. When he finally depicts him for the first time, this is explicitly done in the form of a riddle or parable .

The most detailed treatment of the “eternal return” in Also Spoke Zarathustra can be found in the chapter “The Convalescent”, which follows the central section “Of the old and new tablets”. Again it is described in detail how the “most profound thought” fills Zarathustra with disgust. Only his animals are with him, and it is they who ultimately describe the "eternal return":

“Everything goes, everything comes back; the wheel of being rolls forever. Everything dies, everything blossoms again, the year of being runs forever.
Everything breaks, everything is rebuilt; the same house of being is built forever. Everything part, everything greets each other again; the ring of being remains true to itself forever.
Being begins in every moment; the ball there rolls around every here. The center is everywhere. The path of eternity is crooked. "

To which Zarathustra answers:

"[...] how well you know what had to come true in seven days: -
- and how that monster crept into my throat and choked me! But I bit his head off and spat it away from me.
And you - you've already made a lyre song out of it? "

This entire section is also related to the philosophical reflections mentioned. But Zarathustra explains why the thought arouses such disgust. According to the thought, even the smallest person returns forever: "Everything is the same, it's not worth it, knowledge is choking." And:

“I had once seen both naked, the tallest person and the smallest person: all too similar to each other - all too humanly also the tallest!
Too small the biggest! - That was my sickness with people! And the eternal return of even the smallest! - That was my sickness of all existence! "

At the end of the chapter, the animals say again that they know what Zarathustra would say when he died:

“Now I am dying and fading, if you would speak, and in no time I am nothing. The souls are as mortal as the bodies.
But the knot of causes returns, in which I am entwined - it will create me again! I myself belong to the causes of the eternal return.
I will come again, with this sun, with this earth, with this eagle, with this snake - not to a new life or a better life or a similar life:
- I will forever come back to this same and same life, in the greatest and also in the smallest that I again teach the eternal return of all things -
- that I again speak the word of the great earth and human noon, that I again proclaim the people to the superman.
I spoke my word, I break because of my word: so will my eternal lot - as a preacher I perish! "

The cosmological hypothesis

Nietzsche was not the first to propose the hypothesis of the eternity of the world - see parallels . The attempt of scientific proof of the eternal return, which is also varied in Nietzsche's notes, proceeds roughly as follows: It is assumed that time extends infinitely into the past as well as into the future, the entire “force”, matter or energy, and consequently the number of possible “combinations” or states of the world, but finite. From this it is concluded that every possible state of the world must have already occurred infinitely often and still occur infinitely often.

Nietzsche himself never published these attempts at proof; they only became known when his estate was published. It cannot be said with certainty whether he himself believed in these subsequent attempts to justify his intuitively acquired thought: in his notebooks, doubt and certainty alternate, “but without ever arriving at a formulation that is as persuasive as that with which he Describes the consequences of that 'mightiest thought'. "

Already in the earliest Nietzsche interpretation at the beginning of the 20th century there was a dispute about whether the physical-cosmological concept of the Second Coming itself or the thought as a mystical experience and its ethical consequences are more important. In the context of this somewhat confusing dispute, the mathematician, astronomer and Nietzsche expert Felix Hausdorff, under the pseudonym Paul Mongré, gave the first refutation of Nietzsche's attempts at cosmological evidence. Hausdorff especially doubted Nietzsche's premises . From a purely logical point of view , Hausdorff did not consider the Second Coming to be refutable, but noted that physics contradicts it with the principle known today as the Second Law of Thermodynamics . However, this argument is not valid, as Ludwig Boltzmann found in 1896 in a discussion with Ernst Zermelo about the physical interpretation of the recurrence theorem by Henri Poincaré . Georg Simmel gave an example in 1907 to show that the hypothesis does not necessarily follow even under Nietzsche's assumptions. Other elements of Nietzsche's different proof sketches have also been questioned several times in the literature. Initially, the concept of the Second Coming found hardly any support in modern science. In modern cosmology, however, the idea of ​​the return itself now returns, albeit under different premises than Nietzsche's; Numerous - albeit speculative - cosmological scenarios and hypotheses imply a temporal, spatial or spatiotemporal recurrence of everything in all variations.

Interpretations

According to many interpreters, the Eternal Coming of the Same is related to some of Nietzsche's other thoughts. Above all, the connection to the concept of the “ superman ” has been highlighted and examined in the more recent Nietzsche interpretation.

Salomé

In her book on Nietzsche, Lou Andreas-Salomé interpreted the "eternal return" as a reversal of Schopenhauer's philosophy. In Buddhist language Nietzsche saw the affirmation of samsara , the eternal cycle of suffering, as the highest goal, while Schopenhauer, like Buddhism, strived for nirvana as the end of samsara. This interpretation refers to an aphorism Nietzsche from Beyond Good and Evil :

"Anyone who, like me, has long endeavored with some enigmatic desire to think deeply into pessimism and to redeem it from the half-Christian, half-German narrowness and simplicity with which it last presented itself in this century, namely in Shape of Schopenhauer philosophy; Anyone who has really once looked into the most world-negative of all possible modes of thought with an Asian and supra-Asian eye - beyond good and evil, and no longer, like Buddha and Schopenhauer, under the spell and delusion of morality - may have just that, without that he actually wanted it, opened his eyes to the opposite ideal: to the ideal of the most exuberant, most lively and world-affirming person, who has not only come to terms with what was and is, but has learned to get along with it as it was and is , wanting to have it again, out into all eternity, insatiable calling out da capo , not only to himself, but to the whole play and drama, and not just to a drama, but basically to him who needs just this drama - and makes necessary: ​​because he is necessary again and again - and makes necessary - - How? And this would not be - circulus vitiosus deus? "

Simmel

As described above, Georg Simmel doubted the cosmological hypothesis and, on the other hand, emphasized the ethical aspect of the idea, which he brought close to Kant's categorical imperative . Nietzsche conceived the idea as a “regulative idea”, but not sufficiently thought through in several respects.

Heidegger

Martin Heidegger's idiosyncratic and systematically complex interpretation has become known . This has u. a. reinterpreted this idea in his lecture from the summer semester of 1937 and related it to his concept of “reason”. In his opinion, he criticized falsifying interpretations, in particular by Ernst Bertram and Alfred Baeumler .

Rejection of the "second coming"

In his construction of a "Nietzsche system", which was decisive for the National Socialist Nietzsche interpretation , Baeumler had declared the "eternal return" on the one hand to be incompatible with the " will to power " and the Germanic heroic "superman" (in Baeumler's interpretation) on the other therefore the second coming was eliminated as an "erratic block".

A criticism of Nietzsche that resonates with some interpreters was perhaps most consistently presented by Josef Hofmiller . Accordingly, Nietzsche's idea of ​​the eternal return falls under the metaphysical ideas that he himself strongly criticized elsewhere. Nietzsche himself had made the fallacy, which he also criticized: "The thought that so lifts me up is carried away [...] - the thought must be true!" Hofmiller speculates that frequent or haunting déjà vu experiences with Nietzsche are the basis for his inspiration ; and the fact that he was not capable of rational against the the craze to fight expectant thoughts, was the first sign of Nietzsche's mental illness. In addition, the concept serves as a substitute for metaphysical and religious, including Christian ideas, from which he has never been able to break free. Ultimately, however, the "Second Coming" is an insignificant and inadequate part of Nietzsche's teachings:

“This theory, as important as it seemed to Nietzsche himself, as deep as it was shocked, as grandiose shudder as it gave him, isn't it nonetheless something of secondary importance in his philosophy? Couldn't she just as easily be absent? Will a stone fall from Nietzsche's thought structure if we take it away? For Nietzsche, however, something else coincides with his teaching: the illumination of the hereafter, the metaphysical background, the eternal accent of Zarathustra [...] This thought seems strange, eerie, absurd to us. […] However, if we disregard the biographical, we cannot help but reject his two main ideas, that of the superman and that of the Second Coming, as foreign bodies. "

As evidence for the thesis that the idea of ​​eternal return is a sign of Nietzsche's mental illness, consistent testimonies by Franz Overbeck , Lou Andreas-Salomé and Resa von Schirnhofers have been cited, according to which Nietzsche shocked them in an eerie manner, speaking softly and deeply has "initiated" into this secret.

Karl Löwith , according to Heidegger, spoke out most clearly against the elimination of the "eternal return" from Nietzsche's work, as demanded by interpreters such as Baeumler and Hofmiller - who, by the way, gave very contradicting Nietzsche interpretations . Mazzino Montinari later recognized, despite criticism of Löwith's attempt to systematize, the "central position of this teaching in all of Nietzsche's thinking".

Löwith

Löwith interpreted Also sprach Zarathustra as an "anti-Christian Sermon on the Mount". The “eternal return” is the unifying thought in Nietzsche's entire work. Nietzsche dared the seemingly absurd attempt to repeat an ancient cosmology at the top of modernity: with it, nihilism , the "death of God" was to be overcome. Löwith sees it as an alternative to Christian teleology , a "replacement for belief in immortality" and a "physical metaphysics". Nietzsche's attempt ultimately failed because he wanted to unite the irreconcilable with the eternal return, namely a pagan cosmology with a belief in progress that was not completely overcome by Nietzsche and originated from secularized Christianity, as well as an attempt to give the highest meaning to human existence with an absolutely senseless cycle of the world. It remains questionable how the fatality willed, the amor fati can be achieved.

Klossowski

The phrase “circulus vitiosus deus”, or “the vicious circle as God”, was chosen by Pierre Klossowski as the title of his Nietzsche interpretation, which focuses on the Eternal Second Coming; just as it received a lot of attention in the entire French reception of Nietzsche, which had its peak in the 1960s and 1970s. Klossowski, who also included Nietzsche's pathology in the philosophical interpretation, paid special attention to the political explanations that can be found in Nietzsche's estate. Here, the idea of ​​the Second Coming serves as a “selective teaching” that serves to create a ruling caste. Klossowski combined this with a consideration of the real industrialized world and the mechanisms of capitalism, which in turn relates to Georges Bataille's “Abolition of the Economy”. What is very unusual is Klossowski's interpretation of the Second Coming as a doctrine that abolishes the ego identity by, as it were, allowing the subject to pass through an infinite number of different identities.

Skirl gives the content of the thought succinctly as follows: “that everything has already been there, but new things are created in every moment, that every moment is new and unspent, is innocent. With this, N [ietzsche] wants to achieve a synthesis of ancient (circular) Heraklite-Pythagorean teachings and the modern arrow of modern physics [...] - so that this reconciliation of ancient and modern times gets into people's world and values ​​”.

Römpp

According to Georg Römpp , there is absolutely no doctrine of the eternal return in Nietzsche. He justifies this initially with reference to Nietzsche's epistemological and scientific-critical philosophy, which excludes a cosmological thesis, as well as Nietzsche's moral criticism, which does not allow an ethical interpretation.

In addition, a philologically precise and context-related interpretation of the corresponding passages in 'Also sprach Zarathustra' (Part Three, From Face and Riddle 1–3, and The Convalescent 2) shows that Nietzsche sharply criticizes the conception as a 'doctrine'. Nietzsche's thought is only transformed into a “doctrine” by his animals, whom he calls “rogue fools” and “barrel organs” because they make a “lyre song” out of his thoughts.

In interpreting the thought itself, the context of the speaking must be taken into account. Zarathustra talks about the eternal return with a 'dwarf', whom he also describes as the 'spirit of gravity', which is not good for a philosopher who took 'dance' as a metaphor for his thinking. Immediately afterwards, however, the scene is transformed into the image of a shepherd with a snake crawling into his mouth, from which, on Zarathustra's advice, he can free himself with a strong bite.

According to Römpp, Nietzsche is thus commenting on the idea of ​​the eternal return as a linguistic figure that the philosopher uses in contextual dependence on a specific way of thinking (the 'spirit of gravity'). But he can free himself from it by radically turning away from such linguistic figures. In their entirety, they correspond to the structure of 'metaphysics', which Nietzsche said 'crawled' into language like the snake from which the philosopher can only break free with a 'good bite'. Only then is' laughter 'achieved', which finally makes that 'spirit of heaviness' and the language figures dependent on it disappear.

Parallels discussed

"The past bites the tail of everything that is to come" noted Nietzsche. The Eternal Coming is illustrated with the Ouroboros and similar symbols.

Nietzsche was not the first to advocate the cosmological doctrine of return. The religious scholar Mircea Eliade showed in his comparative study “Cosmos and History: The Myth of Eternal Return” in 1949 that cyclical cosmologies can be found in almost all mythological traditions worldwide.

Jorge Luis Borges - who, apparently without knowing Hausdorff's work, tried to refute Nietzsche's proof with very similar arguments from Georg Cantor's set theory - has compiled a number of parallel passages from antiquity to the present in which the same or similar thoughts are discussed .

The oldest European evidence for the thought is only indirectly handed down information from two students of Aristotle , Dikaiarchos and Eudemos of Rhodes , from which it emerges that no later than the 4th century BC. The idea of ​​the eternal return was widespread among Pythagoreans . Heraclitus should also be mentioned :

“And it is always one and the same thing that dwells in us: living and dead and awake and sleeping and young and old. Because this is reversing that and that back and reversing this. "

Nemesius von Emesa (4th century AD) reports in his work On the Nature of Man (Chapter 38) that Stoics took this view and associated it with an astrological fatalism : They said that after a certain time (“Great Year ”) all planets reach their starting positions again in the sky and then, just like the circles of the stars, the human destinies have to start again from the beginning: There will then be a Socrates and a Plato again . In Ecce homo Nietzsche referred to these "traces of it" in the Stoa and described Heraclitus as the possible originator of the Stoic doctrine. In his second out-of- date consideration ( On the benefits and disadvantages of history for life ) from 1874, he had already mentioned the relevant tradition of the Pythagoreans, but without granting it any justification. Even in the notes of one of his philological lectures at the University of Basel in the early 1870s, the idea can be found when discussing the Pythagoreans.

Augustine opposed the teaching in book 12 of his De civitate Dei (chapter 11 (some editions: 12) and 13 (14)). Lucilio Vanini attributed it to Plato (although his “great year” in Timaeus is probably thought of, but which is only similar to the hypothesis meant here, possibly also to the sequence of the four elements of fire, air, water, earth, Tim. 49 bf), but rejected it. In his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, David Hume presented precisely the supposed proof of Nietzsche, but apparently considered the idea to be absurd. John Stuart Mill mentioned the possibility of a periodic course of the world in his A System of Logic (Book III, Chapter V, § 8), but casually denied it without giving a reason.

"Nietzsche knew that Eternal Return belongs to those fables, fears or distractions that keep cropping up [...] To derive his revelation from a collective text or from the Historia philosophiae graeco-romana of the extraordinary professors Ritter and Preller, was out of the question for Zarathustra […] The prophetic style does not allow the use of quotation marks, nor does it allow the instructive citation of books and authors […]. "

- Jorge Luis Borges

There is another possible source of Nietzsche's inspiration: just at the time when Nietzsche was formulating his idea, scientific and philosophical authors were discussing this hypothesis, among other things. The discussion had already sparked years earlier because of the principles of thermodynamics advocated by Lord Kelvin and Rudolf Clausius . Nietzsche read Eugen Dühring's Cursus of Philosophy as a Strictly Scientific Weltanschauung and Lifestyle (1875) and Otto Caspari's The Connection of Things (1881) with great certainty . The latter work, in which the idea is marginally rejected with an unscientific argument, may have contributed significantly to Nietzsche's "inspiration". Starting from this book, Nietzsche wanted to get an overview of the current discussion in the following period; he even considered studying science. Among the writings he has read are JG Vogts Die Kraft. A real-monistic worldview (1878) and writings of Otto Liebmann should be mentioned. Like a lecture by Carl von Nägeli that Nietzsche read in 1884, Dühring's work contains objections to the hypothesis. Friedrich Engels later dealt with Nägeli's lecture . In Auguste Blanqui L'éternité par les astres (1872), which contains almost the same hypothesis, probably an acquaintance Nietzsche after reading the Gay Science noted. Finally, there are similar thoughts in Gustave Le Bon's L'Homme et les societés (1881). Nietzsche's theory was based on a scientific hypothesis that was current at the time.

The echoes of Buddhist symbolism that Nietzsche picked up through Arthur Schopenhauer's mediation have already been presented above. Finally, there are passages in Nietzsche's posthumous Zarathustra notes that remind us of the old symbol of Ouroboros .

When discussing the cosmological hypothesis, however, it should not be forgotten that Nietzsche did not publish his attempts at proof, did not turn to natural science and, with Also Spoke Zarathustra , chose a completely different form of representation. Giorgio Colli has denied the deeper value of the search for sources and parallels by interpreting Also sprach Zarathustra as an attempt to grasp the "immediate", prelinguistic experience:

“As the root of the vision of the eternal return, one looks less for the reverberation of doxographic reports on an old Pythagorean doctrine or scientific hypotheses of the 19th century than for the reappearance of culminating moments of pre-Socratic speculation, which have pointed to an immediacy that occurs again in time can be found, but leads out of it and thus abolishes its irreversible single track. If one goes back to what is no longer representable, one can only say that the immediate outside of time - the 'presence' of Parmenides and the 'aion' of Heraclitus - are woven into the fabric of time, so that in what really appears before or after, every before an after and every after a before and every moment a beginning. "

The Bergsonian Milič Čapek pointed out that similar considerations can also be found in the ideas of time in Charles Sanders Peirce and the French science historian Abel Rey .

literature

• Mircea Eliade (1949): Cosmos and History. The myth of the eternal return , v. a. Cape. III 2: The cosmic cycles and history , Insel, Frankfurt 2007
• Paolo D'Iorio : Cosmologie d'éternel retour in: Nietzsche Studies 24 (1995), pp. 62–123. (Overview of the discussions of the cosmological theorem, especially among philosophical and scientific authors in Germany in the second half of the 19th century. Evidence of Nietzsche's interest in these discussions.); engl. Translation, "The Eternal Return: Genesis and Interpretation" , in The Agonist, vol. III, issue I, spring 2011.
• Pierre Klossowski : Nietzsche and the Circulus vitiosus deus . With an afterword by Gerd Bergfleth. Matthes and Seitz, Munich 1986, ISBN 3-88221-231-4 . (French first edition 1969)
• Karl Löwith : Appendix to Nietzsche's philosophy of the eternal return of the same. On the history of the Nietzsche interpretations , in: All Writings, Vol. 6 . Stuttgart 1987 (1955)
• Oskar Becker : Nietzsche's evidence for his doctrine of the eternal return in: ders: Dasein und Dawesen, Pfullingen 1963
• Volker Gerhardt : Summit of Internity. On Günter Abel's reconstruction of return , in: Nietzsche Studies 16 (1987), 444–466
• Miguel Skirl: Eternal Coming . In: Ottmann, Henning: Nietzsche manual . Metzler, Stuttgart-Weimar 2000, pp. 222-230
• Gerd Harders: The straight circle - Nietzsche and the story of Eternal Return . Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-428-12499-2 ( content ; PDF; 126 kB)
• Georg Römpp : Nietzsche made easy. An introduction to his thinking . UTB 3718, Böhlau, Cologne a. a. 2013, ISBN 978-3-8252-3718-9

Web links

• Lars Bergström: Death and eternal recurrence (PDF; 226 kB)
• Literature on the Eternal Return of the Same in the Weimar Nietzsche Bibliography

Individual evidence

Nietzsche's works are cited according to the Critical Study Edition (KSA).

1. ↑ Ecce homo , Also sprach Zarathustra, Section 1 (KSA 6, p. 335).
2. ↑ KSA 9, 11 [141], p. 494 ff .; see picture in article.
3. ^ The happy science , fourth book, aphorism 341 (KSA 3, p. 570).
4. ↑ Skirl, p. 223 f.
5. ^ Giorgio Colli : Epilogue to Also sprach Zarathustra (KSA 4, pp. 411-416).
6. ^ Mazzino Montinari : Friedrich Nietzsche: an introduction . de Gruyter, Berlin and New York 1991, ISBN 3-11-012213-8 , p. 89.
7. ↑ ^{a b} Josef Simon : Epilogue to Also sprach Zarathustra , Reclam, Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 3-15-007111-9 , pp. 347–368, especially pp. 351–357.
8. ↑ Thus spoke Zarathustra , Part Two, “From Redemption” (KSA 4, p. 181).
9. ↑ Thus spoke Zarathustra , Part Two, “The quietest hour” (KSA 4, pp. 187–190).
10. ↑ Thus spoke Zarathustra , Part Three, “From the face and riddle” (KSA 4, pp. 197–202).
11. ↑ Thus spoke Zarathustra , Part Three, “The Convalescent” (KSA 4, pp. 270–277).
12. ^ Mazzino Montinari: Friedrich Nietzsche: an introduction . de Gruyter, Berlin and New York 1991, ISBN 3-11-012213-8 , p. 90.
13. ↑ See especially aphorisms 405 and 406 in "Mongré's" Sant 'Ilario (1897) and revised arguments in the book Das Chaos in kosmischer Auslese (1898), especially p. 193 f., As well as Nietzsche's doctrine of the return of the same (1900). All three writings can be found in Hausdorff's Collected Works , Volume VII, ISBN 978-3-540-20836-5 . Compare the comments on this and the introduction to the volume (PDF; 546 kB). It is very likely that these considerations prompted Hausdorff to study set theory intensively . Compare the introduction (PDF; 2.1 MB) to the basics of set theory , Volume II of the same edition, ISBN 978-3-540-42224-2 .
14. ↑ Ludwig Boltzmann : Response to the heat theoretical considerations of Mr. E. Zermelo , Wied. Ann. 57, pp. 773-784 (1896). In: Scientific papers by Ludwig Boltzmann , ed. by Fritz Hasenöhrl, III. Volume , Johann Ambrosius Barth , Leipzig 1909
15. ^ Georg Simmel: Schopenhauer and Nietzsche . In: Georg Simmel Complete Edition, Volume 10, ISBN 3-518-57960-6 , here p. 393 ff. Compare full text on the Internet (read π instead of p).
16. ↑ Rüdiger Vaas: "The wheel of being rolls forever": The 'Eternal Second Coming Thought' and its relevance in modern physical cosmology . In: Helmut Heit, Günter Abel, Marco Brusotti (Hrsg.): Nietzsche's philosophy of science . de Gruyter: Berlin, New York 2012, pp. 371–390. ISBN 978-3-11-025937-7 Contents
17. ^ Lou Andreas-Salomé: Friedrich Nietzsche in his works . Leipzig 1894. (New edition Insel Verlag, Frankfurt 1983).
18. ↑ Beyond Good and Evil , Third Main Part, Aphorism 56 (KSA 5, p. 74 f.).
19. ^ Georg Simmel: Schopenhauer and Nietzsche . In: Georg Simmel Complete Edition, Volume 10, ISBN 3-518-57960-6 . Compare also Simmel's article Nietzsche and Kant in the Neue Frankfurter Zeitung, January 6, 1906 ( Internet ).
20. ↑ Martin Heidegger: Nietzsche's metaphysical basic position in occidental thought: The eternal return of the same ( GA 44).
21. ^ Alfred Baeumler: Nietzsche the philosopher and politician , Leipzig 1931, quoted from Mazzino Montinari: Nietzsche between Alfred Baeumler and Georg Lukács . in: ders .: Nietzsche read , pp. 169–206, here p. 183 f.
22. ^ Josef Hofmiller: Nietzsche in: Süddeutsche Monatshefte , 29th year, Issue 2 (November 1931), pp. 74–131, here especially pp. 74–79.
23. ^ Franz Overbeck: Memories of Friedrich Nietzsche in Neue Rundschau 17 (1906), p. 215; Lou Andreas-Salomé: Friedrich Nietzsche in his works . Leipzig 1894, p. 222 (new edition Insel Verlag, Frankfurt 1983, p. 254 f.); Resa von Schirnhofer: Vom Menschen Nietzsche in: Hans Lohberger : Friedrich Nietzsche and Resa von Schirnhofer in Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung 22 (1969), p. 259 f. The “inaugurations” of Schirnhofer and Overbeck date back to spring and summer 1884. Reprints in various standard works.
24. ^ Mazzino Montinari: Friedrich Nietzsche: an introduction . de Gruyter, Berlin and New York 1991, ISBN 3-11-012213-8 , p. 85.
25. ^ Karl Löwith: Nietzsche's philosophy of eternal return (from 2nd edition: return ) of the same in: the same: all writings, volume 6, ISBN 3-476-00511-9 .
26. ↑ Pierre Klossowski: Nietzsche and the Circulus Vitiosus (see literature ). For a less philosophical, critical consideration of this aspect of the "return" in Nietzsche see also Erich Podach: The political return theory in: the same: A look in notebooks Nietzsches , Heidelberg 1963, pp. 28-37.
27. ↑ Skirl, lc, 222
28. ↑ Georg Römpp , Nietzsche made easy. An introduction to his thinking, UTB 3718, Cologne a. a .: Böhlau 2013, pp. 221–295, especially pp. 271–283
29. ↑ Mircea Eliade (1949): Cosmos and History. The myth of the eternal return , v. a. Cape. III 2: The cosmic cycles and history , Frankfurt a. M .: Insel Verlag 2007, ISBN 978-3-458-72004-1
30. ↑ Jorge Luis Borges: History of Eternity , especially the essays The Doctrine of the Cycles and The Circular Time in: the same: wickedness and eternity . Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main ²2003, ISBN 3-596-10579-X , pp. 151-169.
31. ↑ Heraklit: Fragment 22 [12] B 88, in Hermann Diels, Walther Kranz (ed. And transl.): The fragments of the pre-Socratic Greek / German. 3 volumes, Berlin 1912, reprint Weidmann, Zurich 1996, volume 1, 170
32. ↑ Ecce homo , The Birth of Tragedy, Section 3 (KSA 6, p. 313).
33. ↑ On the benefits and disadvantages of history for life , Chapter 2 (KSA 1, p. 261). Lou Andreas-Salomé pointed this out first: Friedrich Nietzsche in his works . Leipzig 1894, p. 259.
34. ↑ Jorge Luis Borges: History of Eternity , especially the essays The Doctrine of the Cycles and The Circular Time in: the same: wickedness and eternity . Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main ²2003, ISBN 3-596-10579-X , p. 157.
35. ↑ Lit .: Paolo D'Iorio. See also: Representation by Mazzino Montinari: Friedrich Nietzsche: an introduction . de Gruyter, Berlin and New York 1991, ISBN 3-11-012213-8 , pp. 86-88, and Josef Hofmiller: Nietzsche in: Süddeutsche Monatshefte , Volume 29, Issue 2 (November 1931), p. 77.
36. ↑ KSA 10, 2 [9], p. 45; 4 [85], p. 139.
37. ^ Giorgio Colli: epilogue to Also sprach Zarathustra (KSA 4, p. 416).
38. ↑ Milic Capek: The Theory of Eternal Recurrence in Modern Philosophy of Science, with Special Reference to CS Peirce, in: The Journal of Philosophy 57, No. 9 (April 28, 1960), 289-296