1st Edition
Nietzsche's Life Sentence Coming to Terms with Eternal Recurrence
In this book Lawrence Hatab provides an accessible and provocative exploration of one of the best-known and still most puzzling aspects of Nietzsche's thought: eternal recurrence, the claim that life endlessly repeats itself identically in every detail. Hatab argues that eternal recurrence can and should be read literally, in just the way Nietzsche described it in the texts. The book offers a readable treatment of most of the core topics in Nietzsche's philosophy, all discussed in the light of the consummating effect of eternal recurrence. Although Nietzsche called eternal recurrence his most fundamental idea, most interpreters have found it problematic or needful of redescription in other terms. For this reason Hatab's book is an important and challenging contribution to Nietzsche scholarship.
Biography
Lawrence J. Hatab is Louis I. Jaffe Professor and Chair of Philosophy at Old Dominion University. He is well known for his work in continental philosophy, and is a leading interpreter of Nietzsche. His best-known book is A Nietzschean Defence of Democracy (1995).
"In his latest book, Lawrence Hatab brings together several threads from his previous writing into an elegant expression that examines a wide range of Nietzsche's thought through the single prism of his notoriously obscure conception of 'Eternal Recurrence.'" --Anthony K. Jensen, Emory University, Journal of the History of Philosophy
"Hatab's new book on Nietzsche is a brilliant treatment of this seminal thinker's key idea of the eternal recurrence of the same. It is the fruit of a long engagement with the philosophy of Nietzsche, not merely in a propositional manner, but also in the form of an existential commitment." - Horst Hutter, NietzscheCircle.com
