Concept

Eternal return

Overview

In philosophy, eternal return (or eternal recurrence) is the concept stating that time repeats itself in an infinite loop, and that exactly the same events will continue to occur in exactly the same way, over and over again, for eternity.

In classical antiquity, the concept of eternal return was most prominently associated with Empedocles and with Stoicism, the school of philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium. The Stoics believed that the universe is periodically destroyed and reborn, and that each universe is exactly the same as the one before. This school of thought was fiercely criticized by Christian authors such as Augustine of Hippo, who saw it as a fundamental denial of the Christian ideas of sin, free will and salvation.

The concept was revived in the 19th century by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Having briefly presented the idea as a thought experiment in The Gay Science, he explored it more thoroughly in his novel Thus Spoke Zarathustra, in which the protagonist learns to overcome his horror of the thought of eternal return. It is not known whether Nietzsche believed in the literal truth of eternal return, or, if he did not, what he intended to demonstrate by it.

Nietzsche's ideas were subsequently taken up and reinterpreted by other writers, such as Russian esotericist P. D. Ouspensky, who argued that it was possible to break the cycle of return.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

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For all such historical philosophy, whatever airs it may give itself, regards _time_ just as if Kant had never lived, as a quality of the thing-in-itself, and thus stops at that which Kant calls the phenomenon in opposition to the thing-in-itself; which Plato calls the becoming and never being, in opposition to the being and never becoming; and which, finally, is called in the Indian philosophy the web of Mâya.
Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea
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For if they said that its happiness and misery ceaselessly alternate, they must say, further, that this alternation will continue for ever; whence will result this absurdity, that, though the soul is called blessed, it is not so in this, that it foresees its own misery and disgrace. And yet, if it does not foresee it, and supposes that it will be neither disgraced nor wretched, but always blessed, then it is blessed…
of Hippo Augustine, The City of God, Volume I
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Very true, he said. And this separation and release of the soul from the body is termed death? To be sure, he said. And the true philosophers, and they only, are ever seeking to release the soul. Is not the separation and release of the soul from the body their especial study? That is true.
Plato, Phaedo
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Philosophers who discussed Eternal return

Related ideas

Opposing perspectives

Will to power

Place in the tradition

Part of German philosophy.

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