Douglas L. Berger

Nietzsche Contra Schopenhauer:
  The Construel of EternalRecurrence

Several years after the completion of his chief work,Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and shortly before his final mentalcollapse, Nietzsche pinpointed in retrospect its central concern:"the fundamental conception of the work, the idea of eternalrecurrence, the highest form of affirmation which can possibly beattained" (6: 335). To have admitted that the most importantphilosophical project of his life was the construction of a formulawhich could overcome nihilism and affirm life, betrayed not onlywhat he believed to have been his greatest achievement. It alsoshows to what extent he was influenced by one of his idols and atthe same time one of his greatest philosophical enemies: thatphilosopher of the "denial of life," Schopenhauer.

It is clear that Schopenhauer remained for Nietzsche alasting object of admiration and profound ambivalence. The theoryof art propounded in The Birth of Tragedy was obviously, asNietzsche himself conceded, built on Schopenhauer's aesthetics,although it parted company with the latter on its idea of theultimate function of art. He dedicated one of his UntimelyMeditations to Schopenhauer, his "philosophical educator,"though he was later to reject Schopenhauer's epistemological andaesthetic doctrines. He came in the end to criticize Schopenhauer,along with Christianity, calling them "enemies of life" in theirfundamental pessimism. Although in his late writings Nietzschecalled Schopenhauer "nihilistic and decadent," he simultaneouslypraised him with the words: "he is the last German to be takenseriously...a European event, equal to Goethe, equal to Hegel,equal to Heinrich Heine" (6: 125). From all this we should be ableto see that Nietzsche’s attempt to construct a philosophy ofaffirmation through his idea of eternal recurrence was aimed inSchopenhauer’s general direction.

I wish in this short paper to carry this claim further andshow that it has more than merely general validity. The way inwhich Nietzsche construes his idea of recurrence in The JoyfulWisdom and Thus Spoke Zarathustra bears out well thatthe idea was, in all its details, directly influenced by andspecifically marshalled against some of the main arguments ofSchopenhauer. Nietzsche was thoroughly familiar with Schopenhauer'swritings and a comparison of some of Nietzsche's major publishedpassages on eternal recurrence and some of Schopenhauer's centralclaims will make clear both Nietzsche's indebtedness toSchopenhauer, and the way in which Nietzsche believed hisrefutation succeeded in creating what he held to be the "most nobleformula of the great affirmation."

"It is," writes Schopenhauer, "a total contradiction to wantto live without wanting to suffer" (1: 141). The contradiction ofwhich he speaks refers of course to his metaphysics of Will. Everyobject, every phenomenon in the world is a manifestation of Will,an undifferentiated, "blind," ceaseless impulse to existence, tolife. The particular, individual manifestations of Will are for theknowing subject the epistemological "objectifications" or"representations" in the Kantian sense. But the Will as ground ofthese manifestations can be experienced directly in the movementsand sensations of the body, for they are there supposedly notmediated by any cognitive synthesis. But once individuated intophenomena, each manifestation of Will fights against every otherfor the preservation or prolongation of its own existence. Thus, inthis endless Hobbsian war of "all against all," every individualwill inevitably suffer.

Schopenhauer does not argue that moments of contentment,even happiness, can be experienced in this situation; for whendesired objects come into grasp, wishes can be fulfilled. But inthe end, the search for lasting happiness is futile because theWill is essentially unceasing and insatiable.

This is also seen in all human striving and wishes,which convince us that their fulfillment is the final goal of theWill. But as soon as realized, they appear so to us no longer, andare hence quickly forgotten, antiquated, and actually, ifunsatisfying, are cast aside as deceptions. Lucky enough, whensomething else remains to be wished for and striven after, for thenthis play can continue from want to satisfaction and then to newwant, this painful river of happiness and boredom. To be stuck withmerely one satisfaction would leave us with terrible boredom and aflat yearning for no particular object. When knowledge enlightensthe Will, it may learn what it wills here and now, but never whatit wills in general; every individual act has a purpose, but theWill as a whole has none (1: 229-30).

The Will is here an absolute phenomenological datum of life, butwhile it remains constant, its objects do not. They are eitherhindered from grasp, taken away, boring, or simply transitory,coming and going.

If the human condition were fully explained with thisdescription, this condition would differ in no way from that whichexists for animals, but Schopenhauer never tired of claiming thathuman beings were the most pain-stricken animals. The reason forthis is that human beings have the particular ability toreconstruct the past through memory, and through the intellect to"replay" it.

We can make isolated episodes of the past present toourselves intuitively, but we are aware of the intervening time andits contents only in abstracto. This awareness is mediatedthrough concepts, which represent the contents of past days andyears. In contrast, the animal's memory, like its entire intellect,is limited to intuition And the only thing that can trigger ananimal's memory is a repeated impression which has already beenexperienced, a present appearance links with the trail of its lastoccurrence. The animal's memory is thus mediated solely through thepresent (2: 71).

The human memory is for Schopenhauer only possible through theformation of concepts. Therefore, human beings do not merely battleagainst present frustrations of their wills, but also with thosewhich are reconstructed from the past. The past frustrations causeindecision and deliberation in the present.

Above all, our capability to deliberate is one of thethings which makes human life so much more lamentable than animallife. For our greatest sufferings are not to be found in thepresent, as intuitive representation or unmediated feeling, theylie rather in reason, as abstract concepts, dreadful thoughts, fromwhich the animal is totally free in its enviable, carefree,absolute present.(1: 390).

These "abstract concepts" and "dreadful thoughts" can take theforms of represented fantasies or memories, which are both capableof effecting a psychological fear of action. The past can in factbe so painful that it can lead one to depression. Schopenhaueractually dedicates a whole section in his first volume of TheWorld as Will and Representation to a theory of insanity, inwhich he claims that it is characterized by a break in memory,which arises out of repression and causes schizophrenia (1:260-63).

But the most important characteristic of memory and the pastis for Schopenhauer what both reveal to the human being about himor herself. The "single thought" of the entire Schopenhaueriansystem is that "the world is the self-knowledge of the Will"(Atwell 25). The memory of the individual is here the counterpartof the history of humanity as a whole, both serving the function ofmediating the knowledge of individual and collective human natureas insatiable Will. The past thus yields for us a very disturbingknowledge, a knowledge of our own essence as the cause of allsuffering, which can bring the individual to want to obliteratethat very essence.

The reaction to this knowledge of the Will is forSchopenhauer the crucial point of life, where the Will is eitheraffirmed or denied. He recognizes both possibilities but a verypeculiar characteristic of both is that the successful affirmationor denial of the Will entails an elimination of the consciousnessof the past. Schopenhauer considers real affirmation to be "aself-sufficient willing, unfettered by the destructive effects ofreflection" (1: 425). In this sense, affirmation would be abackstep to the animal's "enviable, carefree, absolute present," apure and fully present willing, unhindered by the memories of pastfrustrations and fears of coming death. On the other hand, denialof the will to live is only possible for a true mystic or saint, inwhose case the knowledge of the Will as cause of all suffering hasbeen brought about for the specific purpose of being eliminated inthem.

We now realize how holy the life of such a person mustbe, for in him the world not only momentarily disappears, as in thepartaking of beauty, but is forever extinguished. Every lastglittering flame of the body is snuffed out, and with this, such aperson, after many bitter battles against his own nature, hascompletely triumphed; what is left over is a pure knowing being, anunspotted mirror of the world (1: 502).

With the Will, actively egoistic participation in the world isput aside, and with that all suffering and pain are overcome. ForSchopenhauer, redemption means the cessation of the Will, whichliberates the human being totally from the violent world. In thiscessation, the past and time are naturally to be eliminated, forthey create all the Will’s remorse and prompt it always to will forsomething else. But the past does reveal to us that this life isnot worthy of our desire nor our attachment, and Schopenhauer sumsup the point succinctly with a pronouncement that would ring inNietzche’s ears; "Perhaps no one at the end of their life, if theywere simultaneously enlightened and honest, would wish to livetheir life over again, in fact would much prefer completenonexistence to it." (1: 422)

In the first important passage dealing with eternalrecurrence in The Joyful Wisdom, Nietzsche gives theindividual the same choice just described by Schopenhauer.

What if, someday or night, a daemon stole into yourloneliest loneliness, and said to you; "This life, which you’velived up to now, you must live once again and countless times, andnothing new will come of it. Every pain and every joy and everythought and sigh, and everything inexpressibly small and great inyour life must return to you, all in the same order and series. Theeternal hourglass of time will be turned over again and again, andyou with it, pebble of sand." Would you not cast yourself down,with gnashing of teeth, and curse the daemon who spoke thus? Orhave you ever experienced one tremendous moment, which would causeyou to answer him; "You are a god, and never have I heard acommandment so holy!" If such a thought were to gain power overyou, it would transform you, maybe even crush you. The question putto everyone; "Do you want this again, and countless times?" wouldbecome the heaviest weight upon your actions! For how good wouldyou have to become to yourself and your life to long after nothingmore than this final confirmation and seal? (3: 570)

Despite Nietzsche's later ad hoc attempts to defend eternalrecurrence as a "scientific" doctrine, it is clear from this andthe other published passages dealing with it that Nietzsche'semphasis is not on the structure of the cosmos, rather solely onaffirming life. In this, his first expression of the idea ofeternal recurrence, Nietzsche offers us no promise of redemption insome future life, nor a greatly improved future for this one;rather our own life, to be lived again just as it has been lived,once more and "countless times" more. But how could redemptionarise from such a situation? First of all, one must reconcileoneself with one’s past, for if the past eternally recurs,one must not only accept it, but will to have it do so, inorder to hold the daemon’s pronouncement at all bearable. But thekey to such an affirmation in this passage is a certain "tremendousmoment," which could empower one to see the whole order and seriesof pain and suffering in life as justified because of it. As ErichHeller puts it, this passage suggests "ecstasy as the solecondition in which existence may be tolerable" (77). The ecstasy ofthis one moment occurs in a series of events, every one of whichnecessarily reoccurs, and therefore must be sufficiently intense toredeem the entire series.

In certain senses, this formula of the "great affirmation"is not so different from the saving catharsis which comes at theclimax of a Greek tragedy. "With their choir, these Greeks,singularly capable in the most profound, deep and difficultsuffering, consoled themselves. With the most penetrating look intothe awful destructiveness of so-called world history, as well asthe cruelty of nature, in danger of longing after a Buddhist denialof the Will,... they are saved by art; through art, life has savedthem" (1: 19-20). A certain, incomparable moment is the savior. Butnot a Schopenhauerian aesthetic moment, which prompts theresignation of the Will; for Nietzsche, only life itself, the Willitself, can produce such a moment which has the power to redeem,and not condemn, life.

In his major work, Zarathustra, Nietzschefundamentally reworks the idea of eternal recurrence. In the abovesection from The Joyful Wisdom, the past is not reallyessentially redeemed, but is rather compensated for. Theaffirmation of life, that is here the affirmation of the past, mustbe compelled by this "one tremendous moment," which gives theindividual the "metaphysical comfort" to say yes to this"confirmation and seal," which renders life eternally affirmable.The decisive passages on eternal recurrence in Zarathustracharacterize affirmation as the acceptance and willing back thepast as it is, with or without any compensating moment.

In the section "On Redemption" in Thus SpokeZarathustra, Nietzsche argues: "‘It was;’ this is the Will’sgnashing of teeth and loneliest darkness. Powerless against whathas already been done...he sits before the past like a furiousaudience. The Will cannot will backwards, cannot break the rule oftime--this is the Will's loneliest darkness" (142-3). Nietzschethus agrees with Schopenhauer that what makes the affirmation oflife so difficult are the effects of the past on the Will. However,Nietzsche calls the Will a "prisoner," because it is not capable of"unwilling" what it has already willed; contemplating its own past,it finds that it can neither change nor negate itself and itsactions. This is simply not possible. He believes thatSchopenhauer’s fundamental error was believing that the simpleresignation of the Will, that is elimination of what one is, is nota genuine redemption. On the contrary, the denial of the Will toLive is tantamount to a self-imposed sentence of capitalpunishment. Nietzsche thus characterizes Schopenhauer's entiresystem of ethics, dominated by the notion of the cessation of theego's willing:

"Punishment," this is what revenge calls it, and withthis lie it wins itself a good conscience. And because suffering iscaused by willing beings, the Will and all of life, because itcannot will backwards, must be a punishment! And then cloud uponcloud rolls over the spirit, until insanity preaches; "Everythingpasses away, because everything deserves to pass away!" "And timeis thus brought to justice, and sentenced to devour its children."This is what insanity preaches. "Things are ordered by revenge andpunishment. How can redemption exist in this river of things andpunishment?" This is what insanity preaches. "Can there beredemption, if there exists eternal justice? Oh, immovable is thestone 'It was.' Punishment must be eternal too." This is whatinsanity preaches. "No deed can be negated, how can it be undone bypunishment? This is the eternity of Being's punishment, for Beingis always merely deed and guilt!" So then, the Will must in the endredeem itself, and willing become not-willing-yes my brothers, youknow this fairy tale of insanity (Zarathustra144).

Nietzsche's project in Zarathustra is the creation of theUbermensch, who can justify and redeem life as it is, notmerely as it is judged by this or that moral doctrine. Schopenhaueris thus classified among Nietzsche's philosophical opponents whoplace moral judgements upon existence. When the Will prefersresignation of life over its affirmation, existence condemns itselfwith a moral principle, which runs: "The Will causes all suffering:it is evil to cause suffering: the Will is therefore evil anddeserves to be punished. It must as punishment be negated, eitherthrough eventual death or resignation. The whole Schopenhauriansystem was for Nietzsche the newest in a long line of Westernphilosophies which subordinated existence to morality, and,therefore, he called Schopenhauer, along with Plato andChristianity, "decadent."

Since it is not possible to eliminate the consciousness ofthe past, as Schopenhauer thought was necessary, there was forNietzsche but one more option: "To redeem the past, and transformevery 'It was.' into an 'I willed it so.' To me, this is whatredemption is" (141). Redemption is here not a liberation from theWill, rather a liberation of the Will from its terror when facingits own past. One cannot change, condemn, or negate what one haswilled or done, and thus the past is psychologically bearable onlywhen the Will has reconciled itself with it ("I willed it so.").Redemption with Nietzsche can come only through the Will itself;the very source of the endless striving of human beings, and alltheir suffering, is the only thing which can call it back to theworld, affirming what it had once so wished to deny.

There is indeed in Zarathustra a moment ofredemption, but not such a moment as would compensate for the restof life, but rather a moment of complete, fatalistic acceptance.The type of fatalism created by an eternal recurrence does,however, have another side to it, for if everything eternallyreoccurs, every deed in human life gains an eternal, absolutesignificance (Volkmann Schluck 125). The eternal recurrence worksas a "mathematical magic" giving each moment of life a sort ofinfinite intensity (Heller 185). It is also worthwhile noting thatthe language that Nietzsche uses in his various formulae of lifeaffirmation is thoroughly theological. Words like "redemption" and"justification" give his tone the sound of Luther. But Nietzscheuses this terminology as part of his "reevaluation of all values"project, and its attempt to deify and mythologize this world andthis life, rather than some other world, as Christianity might.

But can it be done? To be sure, the eternal recurrence hassome dire consequences for Zarathustra himself, for if everythingeternally reoccurs, the counterpart of the Ubermensch, the"small man" (der kleine Mensch ) will also, and Zarathustramust take up arms in the same battle for eternity, must againteach, again suffer the same nausea of nihilism, and, perhaps,nothing will be achieved. Heller writes: "It is a terrifyingexperiment, for although it has been undertaken for the sake of theuninhibited fullness of life, it is terrifyinglyself-defeating...and (would) frustrate the intention to articulateanything" (179). But Nietzsche sets it up so as to makeZarathustra's affirmation of this situation the only way to hisself-redemption: "Thus ended Zarathustra's descent" (224). Clarksummarizes these issues well:

Whatever he achieves will come undone, and he will needto redo it. As he imagines it, eternal recurrence is incompatiblewith ever establishing the overman or overcoming the small man...Ifone values life only as a means to something beyond the processitself--heaven, nirvana, the rock sitting on top of the mountain,the existence of the realm of right and justice or any other kindof utopia--...(that) deprive(s) life of intrinsic value...(But)whatever (Zarathustra) accomplishes in this regard, the small manwill return and Zarathustra will have to resume the fight againsthim. The unrealistic model of recurrence makes Zarathustra'sposition like Sisyphus', and makes..."metaphysical comfort"impossible...This unrealistic construel of eternal recurrence givesNietzsche a formula...to value the process of living as an end andnot merely as a means...to an end beyond the process(272).

Eternal recurrence has been seen by Nietzsche commentatorsas everything from a cosmological hypothesis to a Heideggerianrefutation of Western metaphysics to a model for overcomingnihilism. But the key to understanding this strange doctrine is notnecessarily to find a positive argument in it, but, strangelyenough, to find a negative one. Nietzsche very seldom makespositive, systematic arguments, and so in reading him, one mustalways ask: "What is he critiquing, what is he arguing against?" Itseems to me that these passages make clear that Nietzsche wasmarshalling the idea of eternal recurrence, an exaggerated,"unrealistic" legend imploring a fatalistic affirmation, againstSchopenhauer's equally exaggerated presentation of theirredeemability of suffering, seeking a fatalistic resignation.Schopenhauer argues, if the Will is to be affirmed or denied, theconsciousness of the past, that is the knowledge of all thesuffering one has caused and undergone, must somehow be negated.The past serves only as a pedagogical device; it gives usself-knowledge, but only as a means to teach us that we mustovercome our willful egoism. Nietzsche's recurrence is a fullymythologized attack on Schopenhauer's suggestions here, for themyth insists that the past must be fully accepted, cannot benegated and therefore must be affirmed. The past is not a pedagogyurging us to deny ourselves, but rather a means by which we realizethe eternal validity of the individual ego's worth, who couldwill even a painful life again.

Nietzsche believed he had created the greatest model oflife-affirmation with the eternal recurrence, and this should makeus aware that he is fighting a completely Schopenhaurian battlewith it. And some of the doctrine’s critiques of Schopenhauer areprofound. His criticism of Schopenhauer prioritizing ethics overmetaphysics, supposing the later to be governed by the former,seems on the mark. He also exposed Schopenhauer’s pessimism, whichheld that no evil or pain could be seen as at all justifiable or ashaving a redemptive character in the world in which we live.Nietzsche wished, as Clark points out, to accord the utmost valueto the process of life itself, and in this sense, his formula ofrecurrence was an experiment with unqualified affirmation

But Nietzsche saw Schopenhauer as making resignation acategorical imperative (which was in no way the case, as I havementioned), and, therefore, he believed he had to compel anaffirmation which was equally as fatalistic and necessary asSchopenhauer’s denial of the Will. But it is perfectly easy toimagine persons who would in no way be able to will the recurrenceof their lives eternally, victims of natural and social cruelty,oppression, poverty, disease; indeed it would be quite preposterousto "diagnose" human beings who endure much lesser degrees ofsuffering as "decadent" merely because they would be unwilling toeternally recur. In fact, asking that these people affirm theseconditions eternally as their only hope of redemption might seemmore the demand of a sadistic elitist than anÜbermensch. It is thus apparent that the eternalrecurrence fails as a redemptive formula for life, for all livingbeings; it only works for those lucky few who can answer the daemonaffirmatively in the first place, and thus pass the test.

Works cited

• Atwell, John, E. Schopenhauer on the Character of the World:The Metaphysics of Will. Berkeley: U of California P, 1995.
• ---. Schopenhauer: The Human Character. Philadelphia:Temple UP, 1990.
• Clark, Maudmarie. Nietzsche on Truth and Philosophy.Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990.
• Heller, Erich. The Importance of Nietzsche: Ten Essays.Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1988.
• Nietzsche, Friedrich. Sämliche Werke. 15 vols.Dünndrück-Ausgabe. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyan,1988.
• ---. Also Sprach Zarathustra. Insel, 1990.
• Schopenhauer, Arthur. Werke in Fünf Bänden.Leipzig: Hoffmann-Ausgabe,1994.
• Volkmann Schluck, Karl Heinz. Die Philosophie Nietzsches:Der Untergang der abendlandischen Metaphysik. Ed. BernardHeimbüchel. Würzburg: Königshauser & Neumann,1991.

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Doug Berger is a doctoral candidate in Philosophy at Temple University. Doug's essay "Subjectivity and Language in Contemporary Language: Themes in Zhang Zao," as well as his translations of Zao's poetry, appeared in the inaugural issue of Schuylkill.

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