Books & Chapters

1. (1935) Karl Löwith: Nietzsches Philosophie der ewigen Wiederkehr des Gleichen (entire book)
   (Interprets Eternal Return as Nietzsche’s central thought, with a metaphysical and cosmological weight that grounds his philosophy.)
2. (1936) Karl Jaspers: Nietzsche: Introduction to the Understanding of His Philosophizing — “The Affirmation of the Conception of Being” in the chapter Limits and Origins (chapter)
   (Sees Eternal Return as a boundary-concept, a radical affirmation of being that pushes thought to its limits.)
3. (1950) Walter Kaufmann: Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist — chapter 11: overman and eternal recurrence (chapter)
   (Treats Eternal Return less as a cosmological doctrine and more as an existential challenge — a thought experiment to test one’s affirmation of life.)
4. (1961) Martin Heidegger: Nietzsche I, Part Two (The Eternal Recurrence of the Same) (chapter/part)
   (Reads Eternal Return together with Will to Power as Nietzsche’s fundamental metaphysical position, marking the consummation of Western metaphysics.)
5. (1962) Gilles Deleuze: Nietzsche and Philosophy — chapter The Eternal Return (chapter)
   (Reinterprets Eternal Return not as the return of the identical but as the return of difference — the selective principle of affirmation.)
6. (1969) Pierre Klossowski: Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle (entire book)
   (Presents Eternal Return as Nietzsche’s obsessive thought, a vicious circle of intensities, linking philosophical insight with physiological and psychological forces.)
7. (1972) Joan Stambaugh: Nietzsche’s Thought of Eternal Return (entire book)
   (Provides a systematic analysis of Eternal Return, weighing its ontological, existential, and logical implications.)
8. (1978) Bernd Magnus: Nietzsche’s Existential Imperative (entire book)
   (Understands Eternal Return as an existential imperative: to live in such a way that one could will the eternal repetition of one’s life.)
9. (1985) Richard Schacht: Nietzsche — chapter 4: The World and Life, subsection The Eternal Recurrence (subsection)
   (Places Eternal Return within Nietzsche’s overall philosophy of life, highlighting its existential rather than cosmological force.)
10. (1997) Rüdiger Safranski: Nietzsche: Biographie seines Denkens (Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography) — chapter 11 (chapter)
    (Treats Eternal Return as Nietzsche’s most enigmatic thought — both metaphysical and existential — but emphasizes its role in testing affirmation of life.)
11. (2005) Lawrence J. Hatab: Nietzsche’s Life Sentence: Coming to Terms with Eternal Recurrence (entire book)
    (Conceives Eternal Return as Nietzsche’s “life sentence”: an inescapable existential challenge demanding affirmation.)
12. (2021) Bevis E. McNeil: Nietzsche and Eternal Recurrence (entire book)
    (Revisits Eternal Return from multiple angles — cosmological, metaphorical, poetic — and critiques Heidegger’s reduction of the doctrine.)