THE PROBLEM OF BECOMING: NIETZSCHE AND THE APPROPRIATION OF ANAXIMANDER AND HERACLITUS

Abstract

In Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, Nietzsche highlights the figure of Anaximandro as a philosopher who introduces moral questions into ontology, by problematizing the Becoming. Nietzsche characterizes Heraclitus as the philosopher who answers Anaximander. In this article, we intend to a) describe Nietzsche's methodology for reading the ancient philosophers, through the combination of philosophy and personality. b) Present the Anaximandrian arkhé, the apeiron, through a rapprochement with Schopenhauer's pessimism, carried out by Nietzsche himself; c) show how Heraclitus' opposition to Anaximander reflects Nietzsche's own reaction to Schopenhauer, so that Heraclitus ' presence in Nietzsche's philosophy is configured simultaneously as an influence and as a mask of Nietzsche's own thought. We argue that Nietzsche's aim, above all through the notions of "play", “necessity” and "agonism", is to provide an aesthetic response to the problem of becoming.