Becoming in Heraclitus and Its Bearing on Nietzsche’s Philosophy

Abstract

The present dissertation is an inquiry into the affinity between Nietzsche and Heraclitus. More specifically, in section (1) I aim to establish one particular reading of the ‘doctrine of flux’ which emerges from a philological interpretation of the so-called ‘river fragments’ of Heraclitus. My claim in sections (2) and (3) is that Nietzsche’s reading of Heraclitus treads these same interpretative lines, namely a conception of the cosmos as absolute flux, governed by a reality of Becoming and measured by the concept of coincidentia oppositorum, the unity of opposites. I will analyse Nietzsche’s approach to the teachings of Heraclitus in passages of both his published and unpublished works, positing in section (4) the analogy between the Will to Power and Flux, as well as Heraclitean Logos and Nietzschean Necessity. Our final analysis (5) will turn to Nietzsche’s most troublesome doctrine, that of the Eternal Recurrence of the Same, as I will elucidate Nietzsche’s perplexing claim that Heraclitus could have been an early proponent of this theory as taught by Zarathustra. The structure of the following inquiry is historical in nature and follows intertextual parameters in the scrutiny of Nietzsche’s works, researching passages throughout Nietzsche’s philosophical corpus which are best elucidated with the reading of Heraclitus instituted in (1). Ultimately, I will demonstrate how two of Zarathustra’s fundamental teachings - the Will to Power and Eternal Recurrence – are both enrooted in Nietzsche’s understanding of the cosmos of Heraclitus in my present evaluation of the fragments. While I will not place a particular focus on it, I will also mention the final teaching of Zarathustra and make a connection to the Übermensch in passing, contextualizing each doctrine through the lens of Nietzsche’s project of life-affirmation.