Nietzsche's Functional Disagreement with Stoicism: Eternal Recurrence, Ethical Naturalism, and Teleology

History of Philosophy Quarterly 38 (2):175-195 (2021)
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Abstract

Several scholars align Nietzsche’s philosophy with Stoicism because of their naturalist approaches to ethics and doctrines of eternal re- currence. Yet this alignment is difficult to reconcile with Nietzsche’s criticisms of Stoicism’s ethical ideal of living according to nature by dispassionately accepting fate—so much so that some conclude that Nietzsche’s rebuke of Stoicism undermines his own philosophical project. I argue that affinities between Nietzsche and Stoicism belie deeper disagreement about teleology, which, in turn, yields different understandings of nature and human flourishing, so that Nietzsche’s objections to Stoicism support his commitments to ethical naturalism and to affirming life’s eternal recurrence.

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Author's Profile

James Mollison
Purdue University

References found in this work

Beyond Good and Evil.Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - 1886 - New York,: Vintage. Edited by Translator: Hollingdale & J. R..
On the genealogy of morality.Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - 1994 - New York: Cambridge University Press. Edited by Keith Ansell-Pearson & Carol Diethe.
Nietzsche and Philosophy.Gilles Deleuze & Michael Hardt (eds.) - 1983 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
The gay science.Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - 1910 - Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications. Edited by Thomas Common, Paul V. Cohn & Maude Dominica Petre.
Nietzsche, life as literature.Alexander Nehamas - 1985 - Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

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