The Flame of Eternity: An Interpretation of Nietzsche’s Thought by Krzysztof Michalski, and: Philosophy and Temporality from Kant to Critical Theory by Espen Hammer (review)

According to Krzysztof Michalski, Nietzsche’s intellectual project, from start to finish, has an overarching and unifying theme, namely a reflection on time, including the passing of human life, the emergence of new things, and the general finitude of existence. For him, then, it is possible to organize Nietzsche’s thought into a coherent whole around the concept of “eternity,” where eternity signifies a dimension of time, indeed, the core of it, its essence and engine. Typically, we think of eternity as a refutation of time and of becoming, signaling an infinite prolongation. The author, however, wishes to show that eternity is what can explain the transformation of the present into the past and that it comes to the fore not outside the flow of time but in it.

The book couples this meditation on time as eternity with incisive and original accounts of other great philosophical themes, such as love and death. Michalski is particularly illuminating on death, making use of texts from literature as well as from philosophy. As he notes, death is not the next step in life, but a step into the abyss since it is a radical interruption of the continuity of existence. As he writes in his preface, “Death does not fit what I know; our confrontation with death places us before a wall of incomprehension. Before a mystery” (vii). As a force of disruption, death and love are perhaps comparable: “Death and love reveal the fundamental discontinuity of our bodily presence in the world” (viii). The author locates a moment or an interval in time when everything we are and do is brought into suspense and, in the blink of an eye (the Augenblick), the chance of a new beginning arises. For him, this is what eternity essentially names. It is what allows for the world to pass and to become, and as such it can be said to characterize our lives in terms of their corporeal reality. Because of the eternity in time we are unable to unite any single moment of life into one, content-filled totality, so that it amounts to a fundamental diversification of a life. Michalski quotes Nietzsche when he writes that eternal life is not another transcendent life but the very life we live.

In short, the essential feature of a life is that it is marked by discontinuity, and is this not the essential challenge presented to a life? If it is, then why is it so common to regard the essential discontinuity of life as a sickness to be treated? According to Michalski, Nietzsche calls this pathology “nihilism,” locating it in history as science and in science in general, but also in morality and religion: morality seeks to provide a totalizing account of good and evil, while religion takes God for absolute truth. We seem to be creatures who want continuity in our lives but who also prize, on occasion, discontinuity (since we are offered the chance of a new beginning). To think and work through this conundrum we necessarily have recourse to metaphor and Michalski suggests that Nietzsche’s central metaphor is that of fire or the “flame of eternity,” which, as he rightly notes, is an ancient metaphor for comprehending an essential dimension of life, if not its most essential one. Recognition of this can lead to some far-reaching insights, as when the author contends that the desire for the superhuman or overman “is inscribed in the very act of life: it defines life, it is life itself, its constant disquiet, which cannot be quieted” (162).

As is perhaps evident to the reader, Michalski’s study is as...