Nietzsche: A Selected Annotated Bibliography

Eternal Recurrence

The eternal recurrence, the belief that everything that has happened and will happen, will happen again, an infinite number of times, has been treated as a cosmological doctrine, while others have stressed its psychological aspect.

Lowith, Karl.  Nietzsche’s Philosophy of the Eternal Recurrence of the Same, trans. J. Harvey Lomax.  (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1997).  JFE 99-9334

A major interpretation of Nietzsche first published in Germany in 1935.  The eternal recurrence is the fundamental idea of Nietzsche’s philosophy, according to Lowith, who argues that with this idea Nietzsche hoped to overcome nihilism and return man to nature.

Magnus, Bernd.  Nietzsche’s Existential Imperative.  (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978).  JFE 78-2655

For Magnus, the eternal return is Nietzsche’s central idea, representing the highest affirmation of this life as embodied in the most life affirming person, the Übermensch.

Stambaugh, Joan.  Nietzsche’s Thought of Eternal Return.  (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1972).  JFE 02-3378

Stambaugh analyzes the idea of the eternal return by examining its conceptual parts, i.e., eternity, recurrence, and the same.  Like Heidegger, she sees the concepts of will to power and the eternal return as inseparable.