ancient greece

Essays
Same as It Ever Was?: Eternal Recurrence in Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy

Same as It Ever Was?: Eternal Recurrence in Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy

While Friedrich Nietzsche popularised the notion of an “eternal return” — in which one’s life would occur again, forever, exactly as it did before — the concept was itself a repetition. Claire Hall explores various shades of this idea in ancient philosophy, from Pythagorean metempsychosis to Stoic predictions about a cosmological reset. more