Chaos and Contradiction: On Nietzsche’s Conception of Nature

Abstract This article offers an interpretation of Nietzsche’s designation of the “total character of the world” as chaos in The Gay Science (GS). First, the article draws attention to a mostly overlooked aspect of Nietzsche’s “chaos,” namely that it is unengendered (ungeworden) and eternally returning, by linking Nietzsche’s association of nature with chaos in GS 109 to initial sketches of the same from his 1881 notebook. Second, the article contributes to the discussion of the influence of the pre-Socratics on Nietzsche’s early work by demonstrating that influence extends to his later conception of nature. With Nietzsche’s understanding of chaos in better view, this article attends to his reading of Anaxagoras in Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks to make a case for the importance of examining Nietzsche’s engagement with other early Greek philosophers besides Heraclitus. Finally, in unfolding the uniquely Anaxagorean inflection of Nietzsche’s chaos, this article illustrates how elements of this conception of chaos return in other key moments of Nietzsche’s later reflections on the character of the world.