A Shared Negation, Opposed Closures: Nietzsche, Eternal Recurrence, and Madhyamaka Buddhism
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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.
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