Abstract

Recent scholarship has seen a burgeoning interest in the young Nietzsche’s relationship towards the ancient Greeks with the aim of catching a glimpse into the beginnings of his philosophical development. With this in mind, I set out to gain an understanding of what I believe is a critical aspect in the beginning stages of Nietzsche’s thought: what he had learned not only from the pre-Platonic philosophers in general, but also from Heraclitus of Ephesus in particular, and how he had synthesized and internalized what he learned from him, and made use of for his own philosophical agenda. Throughout this paper, I argue that his earliest conception of the Will is directly influenced by, and may perhaps even be considered the same concept as, Heraclitus’ Logos. And I attempt to reveal this strong association through a careful textual analysis and interpretation of his Basel lectures on Heraclitus that discuss these notions.