Abstract

Recent scholarship has seen a burgeoning interest in the young Nietzsche’s relationship towards theancient Greeks with the aim of catching a glimpse into the beginnings of his philosophicaldevelopment. With this in mind, I set out to gain an understanding of what I believe is a critical aspectin the beginning stages of Nietzsche’s thought: what he had learned not only from the pre-Platonicphilosophers in general, but also from Heraclitus of Ephesus in particular, and how he had synthesizedand 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, andmay perhaps even be considered the same concept as, Heraclitus’ Logos. And I attempt to reveal thisstrong association through a careful textual analysis and interpretation of his Basel lectures onHeraclitus that discuss these notions