Single Idea 20124

[catalogued under 23. Ethics / F. Existentialism / 8. Eternal Recurrence]

Full Idea

"Is this something I want to do countless times?" ....Let us etch the image of eternity onto our own lives! This thought embodies more than all religions, which taught us to disdain life as something ephemeral and to look toward an unspecified other life.

Gist of Idea

Reliving life countless times - this gives the value back to life which religion took away

Source

Friedrich Nietzsche (Works (refs to 8 vol Colli and Montinari) [1885], 9.496,503), quoted by Rüdiger Safranski - Nietzsche: a philosophical biography 10

Book Reference

Safranski,Rüdiger: 'Nietzsche: a philosophical biography' [Granta 2003], p.231


A Reaction

You can't get away from eternal recurrence being an imaginative trick, to focus value onto our choices. For a while Nietzsche tried to persuade himself that the recurrence actually occurred, but we all know it doesn't.