A Shared Negation, Opposed Closures: Nietzsche, Eternal Recurrence, and Madhyamaka Buddhism
-
Cosimo Pastia
Abstract
This essay examines whether a shared anti-substantialist gesture yields comparable final commitments in Nietzsche and Madhyamaka Buddhism (prāsaṅgika reading). Both reject substantialist ontology and the presumed transparency of concepts; yet their trajectories diverge at the point of closure. Madhyamaka withholds any ultimate posit at the level of ultimate truth, returning normativity to the conventional domain; Nietzsche turns critique into an affirmative practice structured by will to power and the existential test of eternal recurrence. To diagnose – not to conflate – this divergence, the paper stages two controlled reconstructions: Nishitani to model ultimate-level suspension (śūnyatā) and Severino to model immanent necessity (recurrence). The analysis shows that a shared negation does not secure a shared “last step,” but issues in opposed closures. The two “stress-tests” – Nishitani’s suspension and Severino’s immanent necessity – serve only to sharpen the picture: they make the distance between Nietzsche’s affirmation and Madhyamaka’s suspension unmistakable.
References
Burton, David. 1999. Emptiness Appraised: A Critical Study of Nāgārjuna’s Philosophy. London: Routledge Curzon.Search in Google Scholar
Dreyfus, Georges B. J., and Sara L. McClintock, eds. 2002. The Svatantrika–Prasangika Distinction: What Difference Does a Difference Make? Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications.Search in Google Scholar
Garfield, Jay L. 1995. The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. New York: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oso/9780195103175.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Loeb, Paul S. 2010. The Death of Nietzsche’s Zarathustra. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511770821Search in Google Scholar
Lusthaus, Dan. 2002. Buddhist Phenomenology: A Philosophical Investigation of Yogācāra Buddhism and the Ch’Eng Wei–shih Lun. London: RoutledgeCurzon.Search in Google Scholar
McClintock, Sara L., and John D. Dunne. 2024. Nāgārjuna’s Precious Garland: Ratnāvalī. Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications.Search in Google Scholar
Morrison, Robert G. 1997. Nietzsche and Buddhism: A Study in Nihilism and Ironic Affinities. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Müller-Lauter, Wolfgang. 1999. Nietzsche: His Philosophy of Contradictions and the Contradictions of His Philosophy. Translated by David J. Parent. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press.Search in Google Scholar
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. 1980. “Nachgelassene Fragmente. Frühjahr 1884 – Herbst 1885.” In Sämtliche Werke: Kritische Studienausgabe, 11, edited by Giorgio Colli, and Mazzino Montinari. Berlin: de Gruyter.Search in Google Scholar
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. 1996. Human, all Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits. Translated by R. J. Hollingdale, with an introduction by R. Schacht. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (Original work published 1878).Search in Google Scholar
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. 1999 (repr. 2007). The Birth of Tragedy and Other Writings, edited and translated by Raymond Geuss, and Ronald Speirs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (Original work published 1872).Search in Google Scholar
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. 2001. In The Gay Science: With a Prelude in German Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs. Trans. Josefine Nauckhoff; poems trans. Adrian Del Caro, edited by Bernard Williams. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. 2003. Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future. Translated by R. J. Hollingdale, with an introduction by M. Tanner. London: Penguin Books.Search in Google Scholar
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. 2005. In The Anti-Christ, Ecce Homo, Twilight of the Idols and Other Writings. Translated by Judith Norman, edited by Aaron Ridley, and Judith Norman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (Original works published 1888–1908).Search in Google Scholar
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. 2006 In Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Translated by Adrian Del Caro, edited by Adrian Del Caro, and Robert B. Pippin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. 2013. On the Genealogy of Morals: A Polemic. Trans. Michael A. Scarpitti. Introduction and notes by Robert C. Holub. London: Penguin Classics.Search in Google Scholar
Nishitani, Keiji. 1982. Religion and Nothingness. Translated by Jan Van Bragt. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Search in Google Scholar
Norman, K. R. 2006. A Philological Approach to Buddhism. Oxford: Pali Text Society.Search in Google Scholar
Parkes, Graham. 1989. “Human/Nature in Nietzsche and Taoism.” In Nature in Asian Traditions of Thought: Essays in Environmental Philosophy, edited by J. Baird Callicott, and Roger T. Ames, 79–98. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Search in Google Scholar
Severino, Emanuele. 1999. L’anello del ritorno. Milan: Adelphi.Search in Google Scholar
Siderits, Mark, and Shōryū Katsura. 2013. Nāgārjuna’s Middle Way: Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications.Search in Google Scholar
Spinoza, Benedict de. 2018. Ethics: Demonstrated in Geometrical Order. Trans. Matthew J. Kisner and Michael Silverthorne, edited by Matthew J. Kisner. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Waldron, William. 2003. The Buddhist Unconscious: The Ālaya–Vijñāna in the Context of Indian Buddhist Thought. London: Routledge.10.4324/9780203451175Search in Google Scholar
Westerhoff, Jan. 2009. Nāgārjuna’s Madhyamaka: A Philosophical Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195375213.003.0001Search in Google Scholar
Williams, Paul. 2009. Mahayana Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations, 2nd ed. London: Routledge.10.4324/9780203428474Search in Google Scholar
Wirth, Jason M. 2019. Nietzsche and Other Buddhas: Philosophy After Comparative Philosophy. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.10.2307/j.ctvd58r9sSearch in Google Scholar
© 2025 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
