Book contents
- Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra
- Cambridge Critical Guides
- Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra
- Copyright page
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Note on Texts, Translations, and References
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Laughter As Weapon
- Chapter 2 Philosophy As a Way of Life in Thus Spoke Zarathustra
- Chapter 3 What Makes the Affirmation of Life Difficult?
- Chapter 4 Zarathustra’s Response to Schopenhauer
- Chapter 5 Nietzsche’s Naturalism and Thus Spoke Zarathustra
- Chapter 6 Nietzsche’s Solution to the Philosophical Problem of Change
- Chapter 7 Zarathustra’s Moral Psychology
- Chapter 8 Zarathustra’s Great Contempt
- Chapter 9 The Great Politics of Thus Spoke Zarathustra
- Chapter 10 Joyful Transhumanism
- Chapter 11 Nietzsche on the Re-naturalization of Humanity in Thus Spoke Zarathustra
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Critical Guides
Chapter 4 - Zarathustra’s Response to Schopenhauer
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 June 2022
- Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra
- Cambridge Critical Guides
- Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra
- Copyright page
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Note on Texts, Translations, and References
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Laughter As Weapon
- Chapter 2 Philosophy As a Way of Life in Thus Spoke Zarathustra
- Chapter 3 What Makes the Affirmation of Life Difficult?
- Chapter 4 Zarathustra’s Response to Schopenhauer
- Chapter 5 Nietzsche’s Naturalism and Thus Spoke Zarathustra
- Chapter 6 Nietzsche’s Solution to the Philosophical Problem of Change
- Chapter 7 Zarathustra’s Moral Psychology
- Chapter 8 Zarathustra’s Great Contempt
- Chapter 9 The Great Politics of Thus Spoke Zarathustra
- Chapter 10 Joyful Transhumanism
- Chapter 11 Nietzsche on the Re-naturalization of Humanity in Thus Spoke Zarathustra
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Critical Guides
Summary
The problem, according to Janaway, is that the unchangeable past appears to overwhelm the future in such a way that it is impossible for us to create anything new. This is the meaning of that key moment in TSZ where Zarathustra is devastated by the pessimistic teaching that all is empty, all is the same, all has been (ZII: “The Soothsayer”). If he cannot creatively transform the present-day human into his envisioned future superhuman, Zarathustra loses his reason for living. But then he awakens his dormant thought of eternal recurrence and realizes that he can in fact create the past from the perspective of the present moment. Given the thought of eternal recurrence, the past is no longer closed and hence the future remains open too.
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- Nietzsche's ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra'A Critical Guide, pp. 83 - 103Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022
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