Mochkin, A. N. Friedrich Nietzsche about Time and Eternity

Abstract: In his article Mochkin analyzes Friedrich Nietzsche’s attempt to create the theory of the ‘eternal return’. This ‘positive’ philosophy (in Nietzsche’s interpretation) was opposed to the liberal and socialistic theories of social development or so called ‘theories of the future’ or ‘progressive development’ that dominated in the XIX century. Being a sort of anti utopia and a conservative traditional response to the challenges of those times, the concept of eternal return was taken by the philosopher as a ‘gift’ and ‘prophecy’ and became the central topic of late Nietzsche’s philosophy. This is an esoteric concept that can’t be verified or demonstrated. The concept of eternal return has the two levels: the ontological (cosmological or physicalized) level that was described by the philosopher only in his draft papers and the social-political or existential level that was presented in his books ‘Thus spoke Zarathustra’ (1883) and ‘Beyond Good and Evil’ (1886). As a ‘mental experiment’ the concept of eternal return is opposed to the moral and ethic values of the European civilization. The concept of eternal return re-interprets and re-phrases Kant’s categorical imperative into an existential law of the future society of ‘Great policy’, the theory of ‘superman’, ‘reassessment of values’, ‘nihilism’ and ‘will to power’. The theory of eternal return was popular during the crisis of the conservative revolution in Germany in the 20th – 30th of the XX century and had an influence on the society and the artistic elite of those times.

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