Eternal Recurrence and the Limits of Critical Analysis

Abstract

AbstractNietzsche’s concept of overcoming and his analysis of traditional disembodied thinking patterns and values stand in an uneasy tension. How can anything be overcome, if it is analysed? Nietzsche himself not only seems sceptical about this possibility, but outright pessimistic. His concept of the eternal recurrence undercuts the possibility of overcoming our habituated ways of thinking, behaving and acting. Therefore, the overhuman as a concept itself needs to be overcome, as Zarathustra sees clearly in his most silent hour. This paper strives to show that feminist and phenomenological approaches are able to pick up where Nietzsche’s thinking stopped and went no further. These approaches involve a shift from an analytical to a transformational mode of thinking. This means that one not only thinks about, but is with the body. In order to explain what this method involves I turn to Judith Butler, Luce Irigaray, Claire Petitmengin, and Eugene Gendlin.