"The same" has many senses: the same in form seems to occur as do spring and winter and the other seasons and periods similarly the same changes occur in form, for the sun performs its solstices and equinoxes and its other journeys. One might raise the problem whether the same time recurs, as some say, or not. In a fragment preserved by Simplicius, Eudemus writes: Eudemus of Rhodes also references this Pythagorean doctrine in his commentary on Aristotle's Physics. According to Porphyry, it was one of the teachings of Pythagoras that "after certain specified periods, the same events occur again" and that "nothing was entirely new". There are hints in ancient writings that the theory of eternal return may have originated with Pythagoras (c. 570 – c. 495 BC). Ouspensky, who argued that it was possible to break the cycle of return.Ĭlassical antiquity Pythagoreanism Nietzsche's ideas were subsequently taken up and re-interpreted by other writers, such as Russian esotericist P. It is not known whether Nietzsche believed in the literal truth of eternal return, or, if he did not, what he intended to demonstrate by it. Having briefly presented the idea as a thought experiment in The Gay Science, he explored it more thoroughly in his novel Thus Spoke Zarathustra, in which the protagonist learns to overcome his horror of the thought of eternal return. The concept was revived in the 19th century by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. The global spread of Christianity therefore brought an end to classical theories of eternal return. This doctrine was fiercely refuted by Christian authors such as Augustine, who saw in it a fundamental denial of free will and of the possibility of salvation. The Stoics believed that the universe is periodically destroyed and reborn, and that each universe is exactly the same as the one before. In ancient Greece, the concept of eternal return was most prominently associated with Stoicism, the school of philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium. For other uses, see Eternal Recurrence.Įternal return (or eternal recurrence) is a philosophical concept which states that time repeats itself in an infinite loop, and that exactly the same events will continue to occur in exactly the same way, over and over again, for eternity.
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