Editing Friedrich Nietzsche (section)

=== Eternal return ===
{{Main|Eternal return}}

"Eternal return" (also known as "eternal recurrence") is a hypothetical concept that posits that the universe has been recurring, and will continue to recur, for an infinite number of times across infinite time or space. It is a purely [[physics|physical]] concept, involving no supernatural [[reincarnation]], but the return of beings in the same bodies. Nietzsche first proposed the idea of eternal return in a parable in Section 341 of ''[[The Gay Science]]'', and also in the chapter "Of the Vision and the Riddle" in ''[[Thus Spoke Zarathustra]]'', among other places.{{Sfn |Nietzsche |1961 |pp=176–180}} Nietzsche considered it as potentially "horrifying and paralyzing", and said that its burden is the "heaviest weight" imaginable ("'' das schwerste Gewicht''").<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kundera |first=Milan |title=The Unbearable Lightness of Being |year=1999 |page=5}}</ref> The wish for the eternal return of all events would mark the ultimate affirmation of life, a reaction to [[Arthur Schopenhauer|Schopenhauer]]'s praise of denying the will-to-live. To comprehend eternal recurrence, and to not only come to peace with it but to embrace it, requires ''[[amor fati]]'', "love of fate".<ref name="dudl">{{Cite book |last=Dudley |first=Will |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4dLeWFK6qp0C&pg=PA201 |title=Hegel, Nietzsche, and Philosophy: Thinking Freedom |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-521-81250-4 |page=201 |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref> As [[Martin Heidegger]] noted in his lectures on Nietzsche, Nietzsche's first mention of eternal recurrence presents this concept as a [[Thought experiment|hypothetical ''question'']] rather than stating it as fact. According to Heidegger, it is the burden imposed by the ''question'' of eternal recurrence – the mere possibility of it, and the reality of speculating on that possibility – which is so significant in modern thought: "The way Nietzsche here patterns the first communication of the thought of the 'greatest burden' [of eternal recurrence] makes it clear that this 'thought of thoughts' is at the same time 'the most burdensome thought.'"<ref>See Heidegger, ''Nietzsche. Volume II: The Eternal Recurrence of the Same'' trans. [[David Farrell Krell]]. New York: [[Harper and Row]], 1984. 25.</ref>

[[Alexander Nehamas]] writes in ''Nietzsche: Life as Literature'' of three ways of seeing the eternal recurrence:

# "My life will recur in exactly identical fashion:" this expresses a totally [[Fatalism|fatalistic]] approach to the idea;
# "My life may recur in exactly identical fashion:" This second view conditionally asserts [[cosmology]], but fails to capture what Nietzsche refers to in ''The Gay Science'', p.&nbsp;341; and finally,
# "If my life were to recur, then it could recur only in identical fashion." Nehamas shows that this interpretation exists totally independently of physics and does not presuppose the truth of cosmology.

Nehamas concluded that, if individuals constitute themselves through their actions, they can only maintain themselves in their current state by living in a recurrence of past actions.{{sfn|Nehamas|1985|p=153}} Nietzsche's thought is the negation of the idea of a history of salvation.<ref name="Tongeren2000">{{Cite book |last=Van Tongeren |first=Paul |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TqxrlA9Qxg0C&pg=PA295 |title=Reinterpreting Modern Culture: An Introduction to Friedrich Nietzsche's Philosophy |publisher=Purdue University Press |year=2000 |isbn=978-1-55753-157-5 |page=295 |access-date=18 April 2013}}</ref>