Nietzsche’s Aphorism 341 Essay Example
Nietzsche’s Aphorism 341 Essay Example

Nietzsche’s Aphorism 341 Essay Example

Available Only on StudyHippo
  • Pages: 3 (600 words)
  • Published: November 27, 2017
  • Type: Essay
View Entire Sample
Text preview

Aphorism 341 An important underlying assumption of discovering that one’s life is stuck in a cyclical eternal recurrence is that one will not be able to carry over one's memory in any way from one cycle to the next.

Thus the revelation of the demon is only pertinent in shaping one's behavior and thinking for the rest of the current life; one in which man becomes his own God, while the Christian God vanishes into non-existence. The demon’s revelation does not change the external reality of one’s life; the outside events will continue on as normal.What will change is both an understanding of one’s place in the metaphysics and theology of current life and that of the afterlife. While not stating that there is no God outright to guide and direct the happenings of everyday life, the e

...

ternal recurrence of events essentially kills off the threat of the Christian God by eliminating divine retribution. No longer is the threat of eternal damnation or the reward of a life in heaven a factor necessary to consider in the ethics of one’s own life.

What has to be considered is what the self wants above all.In fact, the arbiter for how eternal life will look, although cyclically not linearly, is man himself, so in fact God is not relevant anymore. Nietzsche certainly is gleeful in declaring the end of divinely set morality; he implies that this revelation allows one to become a god oneself by calling the knowledge divine "' I have never heard anything more divine,'" (a 341) and by suggesting that one now is confronted with the prospect of forming one's own eternal reality alone,

View entire sample
Join StudyHippo to see entire essay

"The question in each and every thing 'Do you desire this once more and innumerable times more? " The challenge posed by the demon is the story of the Ring of Gyges applied in a different way. While the myth of the Ring of Gyges is concerned with how a person's sense of justice is determined by the threat of human retribution, the revelation of this demon is the theoretical consideration of what life would look like with the removal of divine retribution. Just as Plato examines how a human being would act if he could never get caught, the demon is asking the human being to consider how differently he would live is life, if God no longer exists, and that only man himself can shape his life from now on.

The demon’s suggestion takes on the nature of temptation, much as the serpent in the Book of Genesis, as the aphorism has no logical attempt, no reasoned argument for why time should be cyclical, but only a seductive appeal to the desire for a divine power over one’s life. While the appeal of emotion in rhetoric is often legitimate, it would behoove the victim of the demon’s temptation to consider the proposition more deeply, given what is at stake.If the demon is found to be right, than one can launch into a life of basing all decisions on what one wants to experience endlessly. But if the demon is wrong, there is a quite likely specter of a painful eternal damnation to face. Thus, it is best that one should examine the legitimacy of this demonic claim, especially since something similar has been

seen in the Book of Genesis that turned out to be lie, and base one’s actions with honesty in regards to the difference between what one knows to be true and what one wants to be true.

Get an explanation on any task
Get unstuck with the help of our AI assistant in seconds
New