Abstract

The theory of "eternal recurrence of the same" has been the most confusing aspect of Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy. By most readers eternal recurrence has been ignored, dismissed or rendered so weak in explanatory power that Nietzsche's own emphasis on the thought has been hard to understand; Nietzsche declares it to be his main doctrine and the theme of Thus Spoke Zarathustra. ;In lectures held half a century ago, however, Martin Heidegger broke with the prevailing view of Nietzsche and presented a most startling claim. With eternal recurrence together with the doctrine of will to power, Nietzsche has concluded Western philosophy. ;Eternal recurrence, Heidegger explains, is metaphysics, and solves the most fundamental of metaphysics questions of the Western tradition: the dualism between being and becoming-- or constancy and change--a dualism expressed by Plato in his separation of realms and radicalized by Kant in the distinction between the noumenal and phenomenal. With Nietzsche's solution, the Western philosophical tradition is put to an end. ;This dissertation takes off from Heidegger's hypothesis about the significance of eternal recurrence. The essay hopes to explain Heidegger's and Nietzsche's weight on eternal recurrence and show that, indeed, it is the core of Nietzsche's thought and provides a powerful answer to the ancient riddle of being and becoming. ;The study goes beyond Heidegger in describing the actual meaning of eternal recurrence, something Heidegger apparently found impossible. The delineation of Nietzsche's metaphysics provides a novel context for the analysis of his work on Greek tragedy, on the "Overman's" role in "Great Politics", on war, on religion, and on the concepts of nature, of chaos, as well as on of the "metaphysical need" for truth