Abstract

This paper examines the article “L´Hypothèse du Retour Éternel devant la science moderne” published by the Swiss philosopher Georges Batault in Revue philosophique de la France et de L'Etranger (1904). We intend to show that a scientific approach to the Nietzschean notion of eternal recurrence without its philosophical context turns it into a metaphysical concept.  We can not understand properly the eternal recurrence without the project of the transvaluation of all values. The Nietzschean eternal recurrence is not a scientific theory, but a thought experiment, whose goal is to overcome the prevailing interpretation, namely the Christian-metaphysical interpretation.

Keywords: Eternal recurrence, metaphysics, Nietzsche, revue philosophique de la France et de l´Étranger, transvaluation of all values.