No More Learning

The second plan proceeds now to reverse the sequence of the princi- pal thoughts, inasmuch as ii begins with the thought of return. It runs (XII, 426):
I. The mightiest insight.
2. Opinions and errors transform mankind and grant it its drives, or: the
incorporated errors.
3. Necessity and innocence. 4. The play oflife.
This plan also provides directives in some other respects: "necessity" does not refer to any arbitrary kind of necessity but to that of being as a whole. "The play of life" reminds us immediately of a fragment of Heraclitus, the thinker to whom Nietzsche believed he was most close- ly akin, that is to say, fragment 52: Aion pais esti paidzon, pesseuon; paidos he basileie. "The aeon is a child at play, playing at draughts; dominion is the child's" (that is to say, dominion over being as a whole).
The suggestion is that innocence pervades being as a whole. The whole is aion, a word that can scarcely be translated in an adequate way. It means the whole of the world, but also time, and, related by time to our "life," it means the course oflife itself. We are accustomed to defining the meaning of aion thus: "Aeon" suggests the "time" of the "cosmos," that is, of nature, which operates in the time which physics measures. One distinguishes time in this sense from the time we "live through. " Yet what is named in aion resists such a distinction. At the same time, we are thinking of kosmos too cursorily when we represent it cosmologically.
78 THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE OF THE SAME
Nietzsche's use of the word life is ambiguous. It designates being as a whole and also the way in which we are "caught up in the melee" of the whole. The talk of "play" is correspondingly equivocal. "
The intimations in the direction of Heraclitus are not fortuitous, especially since Nietzsche in his notes of this period often touches on another thought which one customarily-and Nietzsche too follows custom here--designates as Heraclitus' principal thought: panta rhei ["everything flows"]. But this is a statement which for all we know does not even stem from Heraclitus. Far from characterizing his thought, it distorts his thought beyond recognition.
The second plan for the thought of eternal return which we have adduced here does not think primarily about the "impact" of the doc- trine on mankind or on the transformation of human "existence" with- in being as a whole. Rather, it thinks about being as a whole itself. Here it is more a question of catching a glimpse of the "metaphysical" character of the doctrine of return, whereas in the prior plan the doc- trine's "existentiell"t sense preponderated-if we may employ these designations that are still common today. Or does the distinction between "metaphysical" and "existentiell," if it is a clear and viable distinction at all, have as little to do with Nietzsche's philosophy as that other one which tried to distinguish between its theoretical-prosaic and its poetical character? We will be able to decide this question only later.
The plan projected next seems to assume yet another shape. t Of it the editors assert that it is "the sketch for the poetical idea" of the doctrine of return:
Midday and Eternity
Pointers Toward a New Life
Zarathustra, born on Lake Urmi, left his home during his thirtieth year, went to the province of Aria, and in the ten years of his mountain solitude composed the Zend-Avesta.
• Heidegger here adds a parenthetical reference to Nietzsche's poem "To Goethe," the first of the "Songs of the Outlaw Prince," published as an appendix to the second edition of The Gay Science in 1887. He also draws attention to Nil, 380f. , where that poem is presented and discussed. See Volume IV, Nihilism, pp. 235-37.
t On existentiell, as opposed to existenzial, see Martin Heidegger, Basic Writings (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), p. 55 n.
t See CM, II [195-96].
The Four Notes Dated August 1881 79 Once again the sun of insight stands at midday: and coiled in its light lies
the serpent of eternity-it is your time, ye brothers of noon!
The key word in this plan is midday. "Midday and Eternity": both are concepts and names for time-provided we are aware of the fact that we think eternity too solely in terms of time. Now that the thought of eternal return is thought, it is "midday and eternity" at one and the same time; we could also say that it is the Moment. Nietzsche's project chooses the highest determinations of time as the title of a work that is to treat of being as a whole and of the new life within such being. The way being as a whole is thought is also indicated by the imagery: the serpent, the most discerning animal, "the serpent of eternity," lies coiled in the midday sunlight of insight. A magnificent image-and it is not meant to be "poetical"! It is poetized, but only because it is
thought, and thought most deeply. And it is thought thus, because the project in which being as a whole is to be grasped and elevated to knowledge here ventures farthest-not into the vacuous, tenebrous space of idle "speculation," but into the domain at the midpoint of humanity's path. Concerning the time of midday, when the sun stands at its zenith and things cast no shadow, the following is said at the conclusion of Part One of Thus Spoke Zarathustra:
And that is the great midday when man stands at the midpoint of his path between beast and overman, when he celebrates his way to evening as his supreme hope: for it is the way to a new morning.
There and then the one who goes under will bless himself for being one who goes over in transition; and the sun of his insight will stand for him at midday.
"All gods are dead: now we will that the overman live"-at some great midday, let this be our ultimate will! -
Thus spoke Zarathustra.
When Zarathustra here says, "All gods are dead," what he means is that contemporary man, the Last Man, is no longer strong enough for any one of the gods, especially since these can never simply be inherit- ed from tradition. A tradition takes shape as a power of Dasein only where it is sustained by the creative will, and only as long as it is so sustained.
Midday is a luminous midpoint in the history of humanity, a mo-
80 THE ETI! ~RNAL RECURRENCE OF THE SAME
ment of transition in the cheering light of eternity, when the sky is deep and fore-noon and after-noon, past and future, confront one an- other and thus come to decision. Indeed, the subtitle of the plan "Mid~ day and Eternity" reads "Pointers toward a New Life. " We might expect directives on how to achieve practical wisdom in our lives; but if we do so we will surely be deceived. For the "new life" meant here is a new way of standing in the midst of beings as a whole; it is a new kind of truth and thereby a metamorphosis of beings.
That we must understand the "new life" in this fashion is shown by a fourth projected plan which also stems from August, 1881. * It bears the title, "On the 'Projection of a New Way to Live,'" and is divided into four books. Here we will list only the characteristic titles of the four books:
I. On the Dehumanization of Nature. II. On the Incorporation of Experiences.
III. On the Ultimate Happiness of the Lonely One. IV. Annulus aeternitatis.
Books I and IV embrace II and III, which are to treat of humanity. Book I is to execute the dehumanization of nature. This implies that all the anthropomorphisms projected into being as a whole, such as guilt, purpose, intention, and providence, are to be expunged from nature, in order that man himself may be restored to nature (as homo natura). Such being as a whole is defined in Book IV as the "ring of eternity. "
What is striking about these four projected plans, all of them drawn up in a little less than a month, and what we can now grasp only in an approximate way, is the wealth of prospects offered by a few essential regions of inquiry, to which Nietzsche appeals again and again. This wealth of prospects constantly compels Nietzsche to introduce new sides of the question into the scope of his project. All this allows us to speculate that with the first unfolding of the thought of eternal return ofthe same-as with all great thoughts-everything essential was there already at daybreak, so to speak, although not yet in a developed form.
• See CM, II [197], dated Sils-Maria, August 26, 1881. Heidegger presents only the titles of the four books, omitting what one might call Nietzsche's "stage directions" or stylistic intentions for each book.
The Four Notes Dated August 1881 81
Wherever Nietzsche attempts an elaboration, he operates at first with the already available means, derived from the prior interpretation of beings. If there is something like catastrophe in the creative work of great thinkers, then it consists not in being stymied and in failing to go farther, but precisely in advancing farther-that is to say, in their let- ting themselves be determined by the initial impact of their thought, an impact that always deflects them. Such going "farther" is always fatal, for it prevents one from abiding by the source of one's own commencement. The history of Western philosophy will have to be assimilated in times to come with the help of this way of looking at things. The result could be some very remarkable and very instructive insights.
Yet if everything is there for Nietzsche in the summer of 1881, so far as his thought of thoughts is concerned, will the subsequent years bring anything new? That is a question that curiosity-seekers might pose. The principal quality of the curious is reflected in the fact that what- ever they are curious about ultimately and even from the outset means absolutely nothing to them. All curiosity thrives on this essential indif- ference. But the curious among us will be disappointed. Nietzsche ultimately produces nothing "new. " He gets bogged down-or so it seems-and wearies of his greatest thought. Or is the reverse the case? Did Nietzsche remain so faithful to his thought that he had to suffer shipwreck as a result of it-quite apart from what medical science is able to determine concerning his insanity?
We ask a different sort of question-not whether anything new eventuates, but whether and in what way the very first, the "old" mat- ters are developed and assimilated. And perhaps the most important thing in all this is not what we subsequently find as explicit observa- tions and sketches of the doctrine of return but the new clarity that radiates in Nietzsche's questioning as a whole and brings his thinking to new plateaus. Although some commentators have tried recently to convince us that Nietzsche's doctrine of return was later dislodged and swept aside by his doctrine of will to power, we would reply by demon- strating that the doctrine of will to power springs from nowhere else than eternal return, carrying the mark of its origin always with it, as the stream its source.
12. Summary Presentation of the Thought: Being as a Whole as Life and Force;
the World as Chaos
The four plans succeed in casting light on the three communications published by Nietzsche himself. Not only that. In them we catch sight of certain landmarks that will help us find our way through the entire stock of notes we are about to refer to.
The first group (XII, 51-69) derives from the period immediately subsequent to August, 1881, up to the publication of The Gay Science a year later. The editors have divided the lot into two sections, the first (51-63) entitled "Presentation and Grounding of the Doctrine," the second (63-69) entitled "Impact of the Doctrine on Humanity. " This division of the notes is based on criteria that do not stem from Nietz- sche himself. "' By means of this procedure of supplying titles, a procedure that ostensibly shuns every form of manipulation, the doctrine of return is stamped in advance as a "theory," which in addition is said to have "practical effects. " Such a division of the stock of notes does not allow what is essential in the doctrine of return to assert itself, even in the form of a question. What is essential is the fact that it is neither a "theory" nor a piece of practical wisdom for our lives. The apparently harmless and well-nigh obvious division of the materials has contributed principally to the miscomprehension of the doctrine of return. The misinterpretation of the thought of return as a
• However, to be fair, one should note that the editors were doubtless following the "plan" taken up as aphorism number 1057 in The Will to Power. The four-point plan from winter 1883-84 (CM, Mp XVII 16 [4]) employs such turns of phrase as "presenta- tion of the doctrine," "its theoretical presuppositions," and "presumable consequences. "
Summary Presentation ofthe Thought 83
"theory" with practical consequences seemed all the more plausible inasmuch as Nietzsche's notes, which are said to provide a "presentation and grounding," speak the language of the natural sciences. Indeed, Nietzsche reverts to the scientific writings of his era in physics, chemistry, and biology; and in letters written during these years he speaks of plans to study mathematics and the natural sciences at one of the major universities. All this demonstrates quite clearly that Nietzsche himself also pursued a "scientific side" to the doctrine of return. At all events, the appearances speak for that fact. The question, of course, is whether appearances, even when they are conjured by Nietzsche himself, dare serve as a standard of measure for interpreting the thought of thoughts in his philosophy. Such a question becomes unavoidable the moment we have grasped Nietzsche's philosophy and our confrontation with it-this is to say, with all of Western
philosophy-as a matter for this century and the century to come.
So far as the division of fragments is concerned, we shall in our provisional characterization deliberately follow the lead of the available edition, even though that division is dubious. Perhaps in this way we
will most readily perceive that in these fragments it is not a question of "natural science" that is being treated. The context of the particular fragments is by no means immediately evident. Above all, we must be aware of the fact that the sequence of notes numbered 90 through 132, as we encounter them in the available edition, is nowhere to be found as such in Nietzsche; these fragments, which the edition strings to- gether, are to be found in the manuscript bearing the catalogue num- ber M III 1, but in altogether disparate places. For example, number 92 appears on page 40 of the manuscript, number 95 on page 124, number 96 on page 41; number 105 appears on page 130, number 106 on pages 130 and 128, number 109 on page 37; number 116 appears on page 33, while number 122 is on page 140. Thus even in the sequential ordering of the fragments the editors-surely without in-
tending to do so-have misled us.
We shall try to avoid being misled. Nevertheless, Nietzsche's manu-
script offers no secure guidelines. Such a guideline can be found only in an understanding of the collective content of the whole. We shall try to set in relief the principal thought contained in the fragments that
84 THE ETERl\AL RECURREI'\CE OF THE SA:VH:
are pieced together here. What is most important in this regard is that we make clear what Nietzsche generally has in view and the way it stands in view. We could perform such a task with thoroughness only if we analyzed meticulously every single fragment. This lecture course is not the place for such a task. However, in order to be able to follow Nietzsche's lead, to move in the direction he is headed, in order to have present to our minds that principal, intrinsic node of questions on the basis of which Nietzsche speaks in these individual fragments, we elect to go the way of a summary presentation. This way too is exposed to the charge of arbitrariness. For we are the ones who are outlining it, and the question remains: From what sort of preview does our pro- jected outline originate, how comprehensive is the inquiry from which that outline arises? The essential import of our summary presentation may be articulated in ten points; we shall also have to make clear the way in which they cohere.
l. What stands in view? W e reply: The world in its collective char- acter. What all pertains to that? The whole of inanimate and animate existence, whereby "animate" encompasses not only plants and ani- mals but human beings as well. Inanimate and animate things are not juxtaposed as two separate regions. Nor arc they laminated one on top of the other. Rather, they are represented as interwoven in one vast nexus of Becoming. Is the unity of that nexus "living" or "lifeless"? Nietzsche writes (XII, number ll2): "Our whole world is the ashes of countless living creatures: and even if the animate seems so miniscule in comparison to the whole, it is nonetheless the case that everything has already been transposed into life-and so it goes. " Apparently opposed to this is a thought expressed in The Gay Science (number 109): "Let us guard against saying that death is the opposite of life; the living creature is simply a kind of dead creature, and a very rare kind. " In these passages lies the suggestion that in terms of quantity the living creature is something slight, in terms of its occurrence something rare, when we cast a glance toward the whole. Yet this rare and slight some- thing remains forever the firebrand that yields an enormous quantity of ashes. Accordingly, one would have to say that what is dead constitutes a kind of living existence, and not at all the reverse. At the same time, however, the reverse also holds, inasmuch as what is dead comes from
Summary Presentation ofthe Thought 85
the animate and in its preponderance continues to condition the ani- mate. Thus the animate is only a kind of metamorphosis and creative force of life, and death is an intermediate state. To be sure, such an interpretation does not capture perfectly Nietzsche's thought during this period. Furthermore, a contradiction obtains between these two thoughts, which we can formulate as follows: What is dead is the ashes of countless living creatures; and life is merely a kind of death. In the first case, the living determines the provenance of the dead; in the second, the dead determines the manner of life of the living. The dead takes preeminence in the second, whereas in the first it becomes subor- dinate to the living. "'
Perhaps two different views of the dead are in play here. If that is the case, then the very possibility of contradiction becomes superfluous. If the dead is taken with a view to its knowability, and if knowing is conceived as a firm grasp on what is permanent, identifiable, and un- equivocal, then the dead assumes preeminence as an object of knowl- edge, whereas the animate, being equivocal and ambiguous, is only a kind-and a subordinate kind-of the dead. If, on the contrary, the dead itself is thought in terms of its provenance, then it is but the ashes of what is alive. The fact that the living remains subordinate to the dead in quantitative terms and in terms of preponderance does not refute the fact that it is the origin of the dead, especially since it is proper to the essence of what is higher that it remain rare, less com- mon. From all this we discern one decisive point: by setting the lifeless in relief against the living, along the guidelines of any single aspect, we do not do justice to the state of affairs-the world is more enigmatic than our calculating intellect would like to admit. (On the preemi- nence of the dead, cf. XII, number 495 and ff. , especially number 497). t
• A reminder that "the dead," das Tote, is not to be read as a plural, in the sense of Gogol's Dead Souls. The nominalized neuter singular adjective refers to the whole of inanimate nature, to the "billiard ball universe" of classical mechanics. Hence the con- nection with knowledge (Erkenntnis), to which Heidegger draws attention in what fol- lows.
t GOA, XII, numbers 495 ff. stress the anorganic basis of human life. The fragment to which Heidegger draws special attention, number 497, begins: "Fundamentally false evaluation in the world of sensation with regard to what is dead. Because that is what we
86 THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE OF THE SAME
2. What is the pervasive character of the world? The answer is: "force. " What is force? Nobody would presume to say straightforward- ly and with an air of finality what "force" is. Just this one point can and must be made here at the start: Nietzsche does not-and cannot- conceive of "force" in the way that physics does. Physics, whether mechanistic or dynamic in style, thinks the concept of force always and everywhere as a quantitative specification within an equation; physics as such, in the way it takes up nature into its representational frame- work, can never think force as force. Given its frame of reference, physics always deals with sheer relations of force with a view to the magnitude of their spatia-temporal appearance. The moment physics conducts nature into the domain of the "experiment," it co-posits in advance the calculative, technical relation (in the broader sense) be- tween sheer magnitudes of force and effects of force, and with calcula- tion it co-posits rationality. A physics that is to be technically useful and yet would also like to be irrational is nonsense. What Nietzsche designates and means by the term "force" is not what physics means by it. If one wished to call Nietzsche's interpretation of beings "dynamic," inasmuch as the Greek word for force is dynamis, one would of course also have to say what that Greek word means; in any case, it does not mean the "dynamic" as opposed to the "static," a distinction that stems from a mode of thought which at bottom remains mechanistic. It is not fortuitous that "dynamics" and "statics" are names of two physical- technical domains of thought. *
are! We belong to it! " Inasmuch as the world of sensation is one of pain, superficiality, and falsehood, the "dead" world promises a veritable feast to the intellect. The note concludes:
Let us see through this comedy [of sensation], so that we can enjoy it. Let us not conceive of the return to what lacks sensation as a regression! We shall become altogether true; we will perfect ourselves! Death is to be reinterpreted! Thus we recon- cile ourselves to the real, that is, the dead world.
In CM see M Ill I [70].
• This paragraph reflects Heidegger's early interest in physics and mathematics-an
interest that perdured up to the time of the Nietzsche lectures. For example, in his 1935-36 lecture course Heidegger devoted considerable time to the notion of force in Newtonian physics. See Martin Heidegger, Die Frage nach dem Ding (Tiibingen: M. Niemeyer, 1962), esp. pp. 66--69; English translation in Martin Heidegger, Basic Writ- ings, pp. 262-66. In his inaugural lecture of 1915 at the University of Freiburg, "The
Summary Presentation of the Thought 87
Whoever transposes the representational modes of "dynamics" and "statics" to being as a whole only introduces measureless confusion into thought. Because Nietzsche was everywhere sure of the funda- mental aims of his intellectual life-however much his utterances and formulations inevitably remained impacted in contemporary entangle- ments--our thinking requires a kind of rigor that far surpasses the precision of the mathematical and natural sciences, not only in degree but in essence, whenever it tries to follow Nietzsche's thought. What Nietzsche calls "force" becomes clear to him in later years as "will to power. "
3.
Is force limited or boundless? It is limited. Why? Nietzsche ascer- tains the reason in the very essence of force; it is the essence of force to be finite. Presupposing that force is "infinitely waxing" (XII, number 93), on what should it "feed"? Because force is always expended, with- out thereby dwindling to nothing, it must be nourished by some sort of surplus. What might the source of such a surplus be? "We insist that the world as force dare not be thought of as being unbounded-we forbid ourselves the notion of an infinite force as incompatible with the very concept 'force'" (XII, number 94). Does Nietzsche then simply decree his conception of the essential finitude of force as such? He also calls this proposition a "belief' (ibid. ; cf. WM, 1065). On what is "belief' in the essential finitude of force founded? Nietzsche says that infinitude is "incompatible with the very concept 'force'. " This means that "force" is in essence something determinate, something firmly defined in itself; hence it is necessarily and inherently limited. "Any- thing ill-defined about force, anything undulating, is altogether un-
thinkable for us" (XII, number 104). This implies that the asserted essential finitude of force is not some sort of blind "belief' in the sense of a groundless supposition. It is rather a taking-for-true on the basis of the truth of knowledge concerning the correct concept of force, that is
Concept of Time in Historiography," Heidegger treated questions of "dynamics" in modern physics. Sec Martin Heidegger, Friihe Schriften (Frankfurt am Main: V. Klos- termann, 1972), pp. 360-63. Finally, for corroboration of Heidegger's identification of Rationalitat with calculation (Rec/men) in post-Galilean physics, see Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, I, 4-5, which equates ratiocinatio with accounting and defines "Reason" as "nothing but reckoning. "
88 THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE OF THE SAME
to say, on the basis of its thinkability. Yet Nietzsche neither says nor asks what kind of thinking it is that thinks the essential concept; nor docs he say or ask whether and in what way thought and thinkability may serve as the court of jurisdiction for the essence of beings. But perhaps he does not need to ask such a thing, seeing that all philos- ophy prior to him never asked such things, either. Of course, this is more an excuse than a justification. Yet at present it is a matter of setting our sights on Nietzsche's thought.
4. What results as an intrinsic consequence of the essential finitude of force? Because force, which is essentially finite, is the essence of the world, the totality ofthe world itselfremains finite, indeed in the sense of a firm confinement within boundaries, a confinement that derives from being as such. The finitude of the world does not consist in colliding against something else which the world is not and which would function as an obstacle to it. Finitude emerges from the world itself. Cosmic force suffers no diminution or augmentation. "The amount of universal force is determinate, nothing 'infinite': let us guard against such extravagant interpretations of the concept" (XII, number 90).
5. Does not the finitude of being as a whole imply a limitation of its durability and duration? The lack of diminution and accretion in uni- versal force signifies not a "standstill" (XII, number 100) but a perpetu- al "Becoming. " There is no equilibrium of force. "Had an equilibrium of force been achieved at any time, it would have lasted up to now: hence it never entered on the scene" (XII, number 103). We must grasp "Becoming" here quite generally in the sense of transformation or-still more cautiously--change. In this sense passing away is also a becoming. "Becoming" here does not suggest genesis, much less devel- opment and progress.
6. From the finitude of the world we necessarily conclude to its surveyability. In reality, however, being as a whole is not surveyable; hence it is "infinite. " How does Nietzsche define the relationship of essential finitude with such infinitude? We must pay special heed to Nietzsche's response to this question, since he often speaks of the "infi- nite" world when he is expressing his thoughts in less rigorous fashion, thus appearing to reject his fundamental assertion concerning the cs-
Summary Presentation ofthe Thought 89
sential finitude of the world. Precisely because the world is perpetual Becoming, and because as a totality of force it is nonetheless inherently finite, it produces "infinite" effects. The infinitude of effects and ap- pearances does not controvert the essential finitude of beings. "Infi- nite" here means as much as "endless" in the sense of "immeasur- able," that is to say, virtually innumerable. "The number of positions, alterations, combinations and concatenations of this force [is], to be sure, quite enormous and in practical terms 'immeasurable,' but in any case it is still determinate and not infinite" (XII, number 90). When therefore Nietzsche elsewhere (XII, number 97) rejects the pos- sibility of an "innumerable quantity of states," thus asserting their countability, what he means is that the determinate cosmic force "has only a 'number' of possible properties" (XII, number 92). The impossi- bility of such an innumerable quantity is by no means incompatible with its actual uncountability in practice.
7. Where is this cosmic force as finite world? In what space? Is it in space at all? What is space? The supposition of an "infinite space" is according to Nietzsche "false" (XII, number 97). Space is bounded and as bounded is merely a "subjective form," in the same way as is the notion of "matter": "Space first emerged by virtue of the supposi- tion of an empty space. There is no such thing. All is force" (XII, number 98). Space is therefore an imaginary, imaginative bit of imag- ery, formed by force and the relations of force themselves. Which forces and relations of force it is that instigate the formation of space, that is to say, the self-formation of a representation of space, and how they do so, Nietzsche does not say. The assertion that space "first emerged by virtue of the supposition of an empty space" sounds dubi- ous, inasmuch as space is already represented in the notion of "empty space," so that the former cannot suitably be said to originate from the latter. Nevertheless, with this remark Nietzsche is on the trail of im essential nexus, one that he never thought through, however, and nev- er mastered. That is the fundamental phenomenon of the void, which of course does not necessarily have to do merely with space, or with time either, insofar as time is thought in accord with the traditional concept. In contrast, the essence of Being could include the void. We simply hint at the matter here, in order to show that in spite of its
90 THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE OF THE SAME
initial apparent lack of sense Nietzsche's remark on the genesis of space may make sense, presupposing that space is engendered by the essence of world. "
8. How is all this bound up with time, which is usually designated together with space? In contrast to the imaginary character of space, time is actual. It is also-in contrast to the bounded character of space -unbounded, infinite. "But, of course, the time in which the uni- verse exercises its force is infinite; that is, force is eternally the same and eternally active" (XII, number 90). In note number 103 Nietzsche speaks of "the course of infinite time. " We are already familiar with the image employed in note 114, "the eternal hourglass of existence. " t About the time this note on eternal return was written, Nietzsche says pointedly, "To the actual course of things an actual time must also correspond" (XII, number 59). Such actual, infinite time Nietzsche grasps as eternity. Viewed as a whole, Nietzsche's meditations on space and time are quite meager. The few thoughts concerning time that inch beyond traditional notions are desultory-the most reliable proof of the fact that the question concerning time, as a means of unfolding the guiding question of metaphysics, and the guiding question itself in its more profound origin remained closed to him. In the earlier, immensely important essay, "On Truth and Lie in ah Extra-Moral Sense" (summer 1873), Nietzsche, still perfectly in tune with Schopenhauer, writes that we "produce" representations of space and time "in us and out of us with the necessity of a spider spinning its web" (X, 202). Time too is represented subjectively and is even defined "as a property of space~' (WM, 862).
9. We must now conjoin in thought all these designations of the world which we have merely listed-force, finitude, perpetual Becom- ing, the innumerability of appearances, the bounded character of
• Die Entstehung des Raumes . . . gesetzt, dass der Raum aus dem Wesm von Welt ent-steht. In modern German entstehen means "to become, originate. " But from the Middle Ages through the epoch of Goethe and Schiller the word meant literally the negation of "to stand," hence, "to withdraw, be missing. " Heidegger here apparently wishes to think the origins of empty space in terms reminiscent of Ent-femung, "un- distancing," that is to say, nearing or approaching, as analyzed in Being and Time, section 23.
t See J11e Gay Science, number 341, discussed in section 3, above.
Summary Presentation of the Thought 91
space, and the infinity of time-and refer them back to the major determination by which Nietzsche defines the "collective character of the world. " With that major determination we will attain solid footing for our concluding interpretation of the world, to be established in the tenth and final section of our present discussion. Here we will refer to a statement by Nietzsche found in the important and roughly contem- poraneous passage numbered l09 in The Gay Science: "The collective character of the world is, on the contrary, to all eternity--chaos. "
The fundamental representation of being as a whole as chaos, a notion that guided Nietzsche even before the doctrine of return took shape, has dual significance. In the first place, it aims to capture the guiding representation of perpetual Becoming in the sense of the cus- tomary notion of panta rhei, the eternal flux of all things, which Nietz- sche too, along with the tradition in general, falsely took to be a kind of notion such as Heraclitus might have had. We do better to call the notion pseudo-Heraclitean. In the second place, the guiding represen- tation chaos is to allow matters to stand with perpetual Becoming, not deriving it as a "many" out of "one," whether the "one" be represented as creator or demiurge, as spirit or prime matter. Chaos is accordingly a name for that representation of being as a whole which posits being as a manifold of necessitous Becoming, and in such a way that "unity" and "form" are excluded ab initio. The exclusion often seems to be the major determination of the representation of chaos, insofar as the ex- clusion is to be applied to everything that in any way tends to introduce anthropomorphisms into the world totality.
Although Nietzsche distinguishes his concept of chaos from the no- tion of a fortuitous and arbitrary jumble, a sort of universal cosmic porridge, he nonetheless fails to liberate himself from the transmitted sense of chaos as something that lacks order and lawfulness. Here the guiding experience, along with a number of essential guiding concepts, are already in eclipse. Chaos, khaos, khaino means "to yawn"; it signi- fies something that opens wide or gapes. W e conceive of khaos in most intimate connection with an original interpretation of the essence of aletheia as the self-opening abyss (cf. Hesiod, Theogony"'). For
• Hesiod, born at the beginning of the eighth century, B. c. in Boeotia, traces in his Theogony the genealogy of the Greek gods and titans. Line 116 of his poem begins:
92
THE ETERI'\AL RECURRE! \CE OF THE SAME.
Nietzsche the representation of the totality of the world as "chaos" is to engineer a defense against the "humanization" of being as a whole. Humanization includes both the moral explanation of the world as the result of a creator's resolve and the technical explanation pertaining to it which appeals to the actions of some grand craftsman (the demiurge). But humanization also extends to every imposition of order, articulation, beauty, and wisdom on the "world. " These are all results of the "human aesthetic habit. " It is also a humanization when we ascribe "reason" to beings and aver that the world proceeds rationally, as Hegel does in a statement which, to be sure, says a great deal more than what common sense is able to glean from it: "Whatever is rational, is real; and whatever is real, is rational. "(From the Preface to Hegel's Foundations of the Philosophy of Right. "') Yet even when we posit irrationality as the principle of the cosmos, that too is a humanization. Equally unacceptable is the notion that a drive to self-preservation inheres in being: "To attribute a feeling of self-preservation to Being [meant is being as a whole] is madness! Ascribing the 'strife of pleasure and revulsion' to atoms! " (XII, number
101). Also the notion that beings proceed according to "laws" is a moralistic-juridical mode of thought, and hence is equally anthropo- morphic. Nor are there in beings any "goals" or "purposes" or "inten- tions"; and if there are no purposes, then purposelessness and "acci- dent" as well are excluded.
E toi men protista Khaos genet', "And in the very beginning Chaos came to be. " The gap of Chaos is usually interpreted as resulting from the separation of earth and sky- even though both Gaia and Ouranos are explicitly said to emerge after Chaos came to be. The confusion is intensified by Hesiod's use of the verb to become, rather than any form of to be. For Hesiod, differentiation seems to come to be prior to all and sundry beings; its very genesis suggests that differentiation is prior. Yet such priority is given no name. For a presentation of the basic sources, see G. S. Kirk and ). E. Raven, The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts (Cambridge, En- gland: Cambridge University Press, 1966), pp. 24-37. I know of no detailed discussion of Hesiod in Heidegger's works, but suggest that khaos might be interpreted along the lines of the Timaean khora, the "receptacle" of "space," namely, as the open region in which all beings can first appear and be in being, in Einfiihrung in die Metaphysik (Tiibingen: M. Niemeyer, 1953), pp. 50-51. See Martin Heidegger, An Introduction to Metaphysics, tr. Ralph Manheim (New York: Doubleday Anchor, 1961), pp. 53-54.
• See G. W. F. Hegel, Werke in zwanzig Biinden, Theorie-Werkausgabe (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1970), 7, 24.
Summary Presentation ofthe Thought 93
Let us guard against believing that the universe displays a tendency to achieve certain forms, that it wants to become more beautiful, more perfect, more complex! All of that is humanization! Anarchy, deformity, form- these concepts are irrelevant. For mechanics, nothing is imperfect. (XII,
111)
Finally, the notion of the collective character of the world as an "organism" is out of the question, not only because it is a special case that dare not be taken to represent the whole, and not only because human notions about what an organism is are modeled on human beings themselves, but above all because an organism always necessari- ly requires something other than itself, something outside itself, for sustenance and nourishment. Yet what could subsist outside the world as a whole, understood as "organism"? "The supposition that the uni- verse is an organism is belied by the essence of the organic" (XII, number 93; The Gay Science, number 109).
How essential it is for Nietzsche to bar these humanizations from his projection of being as a whole, and how absolutely determinative the guiding notion of the world as chaos remains for him, is betrayed most clearly by the phrase that recurs again and again even when he is discussing the doctrine of return: "let us guard against," that is to say, let us shield ourselves from the tendency to project any fortuitous no- tion about ourselves, any human capacity, onto beings. Indeed, the crucial passage from The Gay Science which contains the statement concerning the collective character of the world as chaos (number 109) bears the explicit title "Let us be on guard! " Inasmuch as these human- izations for the most part simultaneously involve notions in which a cosmic ground-in the sense of a moral Creator-God-is represented, the humanization proceeds in tandem with a deification. Accordingly, the notions that suggest some sort of wisdom in the world's proces~, some sort of "providence" in real events, are but "shades" which the Christian interpretation of the world leaves behind to haunt beings and our grasp of them, when actual faith has vanished. To turn matters around, then, the dehumanizing of beings-keeping that which rises of itself, physis, natura, "nature" clear of human admixtures of every kind~amounts to a de-deification of beings. With a view to this inter- connection, passage 109 of The Gay Science thus concludes:
94 THE ETERNAL RECURREf'\CE OF THE SAME
When will all these shades of God cease to darken our paths? When will we have a nature that is altogether undeified! When will we human beings be allowed to begin to naturalize ourselves by means of the pure, newly discov- ered, newly redeemed nature?
To be sure, elsewhere we read: "To 'humanize' the world, that is to say, to feel ourselves increasingly as masters in it-" (WM, 614; cf. WM, 616). Yet we would lapse into terrible error if we were to label Nietzsche's guiding representation of the world as chaos with cheap slogans like "naturalism" and "materialism," especially if we were to think that such labels explained his notion once and for all. "Matter" (that is, tracing everything back to some elemental "stuff') is as much an error as "the god of the Eleatics" (that is, tracing it back to some- thing immaterial). * The most fundamental point to be made about Nietzsche's notion of chaos is the following: only a thinking that is utterly lacking in stamina will deduce a will to godlessness from the will to a de-deification of beings. On the contrary, truly metaphysical thinking, at the outermost point of de-deification, allowing itself no subterfuge and eschewing all mystification, will uncover that path on which alone gods will be encountered-if they are to be encountered
ever again in the history of mankind.
Meanwhile we want to heed the fact that at the time when the
thought of eternal return of the same arises Nietzsche is striving most decisively in his thought to dehumanize and de-deify being as a whole. His striving is not a mere echo, as one might suppose, of an ostensible "positivistic period" now in abeyance. It has its own, more profound origin. Only in this way is it possible for Nietzsche to be driven directly from such striving to its apparently incongruous opposite, when in his doctrine of will to power he demands the supreme humanization of beings.
In Nietzsche's usage, the word chaos indicates a defensive notion in consequence of which nothing can be asserted of being as a whole. Thus the world as a whole becomes something we fundamentally can-
• The Gay Science, number 109, explicitly refers to "matter" and "the god of the Eleatics. " Nietzsche is surely alluding to the famous "Battle of Giants," the gigan- tomachia described in Plato's Sophist, 242c-243a and 246a-c.
Summary Presentation ofthe Thought 95
not address, something ineffable-an arreton. * What Nietzsche is practicing here with regard to the world totality is a kind of "negative theology," which tries to grasp the Absolute as purely as possible by holding at a distance all "relative" determinations, that is, all those that relate to human beings. Except that Nietzsche's determination of the world as a whole is a negative theology without the Christian God.
Such a defensive procedure represents the very opposite of despair concerning the possibility of knowledge, the very opposite of an un- mitigated predilection for denial and destruction. The procedure there- fore becomes a salient feature in every instance of great thought, appearing again and again under different guises; nor can it be directly refuted, so long as it perseveres in its style and refrains from leaping over the barriers it has established for itself.
How do matters stand in the present case?
W e have elaborated a series of determinati9ns concerning the world totality in Nietzsche's view, reducing them to eight points. All eight are brought home in the principal determination contained in point nine: "The collective character of the world . . . into all eternity is chaos. " Must we now take this statement to mean that it is properly incumbent on us to revoke the earlier determinations and to utter no more than "chaos"? Or are all those determinations implied in the concept of chaos, so that they are preserved within this concept and its application to the world totality as the sole determination of that world? Or, on the contrary, do not the determinations and relations pertaining to the essence of chaos (force, finitude, endlessness, Becoming, space, time), as humanizations, also scuttle the concept of chaos? In that case we dare not propose any determinations at all; all we can say is noth- ing. Or is "the nothing" perhaps the most human of all humaniza- tions? Our inquiry must push on to these extremes if it is to catch sight of the uniqueness of the present task, the task of determining being as a whole.
At this juncture we must remember that Nietzsche not only defines
• Arretou, the negation of rhetou, is found in Homer, Hesiod, and throughout the Classical Age. It means what is unspoken, inexpressible, unutterable, shameful, not to be divulged. Ta arreta are irrational numbers or surds.
96 THE ETER 1\A L RECURRE! \CE OF THE SAME
the world totality as chaos but also ascribes to chaos itself a thorough- going trait-and that is "necessity. " In section l09 of The Gay Science Nietzsche says explicitly: "The collective character of the world is . . . chaos, not in the sense that it lacks necessity, but in the sense that it lacks order. " The coming to be of the bounded world, which is with- out beginning or end (and here that means that it is eternal), is of course without "order" in the sense of an intentional arrangement- intended by someone somewhere. All the same, such Becoming is not without necessity. We know that since antiquity in the Western intel- lectual tradition necessity designates a particular trait of beings; and that necessity, as a fundamental trait of beings, has received the most variegated interpretations: Moira, fatum, destiny, predestination, dia- lectical process. *
10.