| Abstract [eng] |
Thinking of difference in this dissertation is presented by a philosophical reconstruction of the notion of “ontological difference” in the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, and of the notion of ethical difference in the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas. It is shown that while in Western philosophy even before Heidegger there was research and intellectual developments regarding difference, difference itself was not considered a philosophical problem. It is in Heidegger’s philosophy that one first finds formulated the problem of difference or the philosophical problem of difference as the founding principle of philosophy and Western spirituality itself. Through an analysis of Dasein (“being there”), temporality, and the two different ways of being of entities, as found elaborated in his early work Being and Time, it is shown that the notion of ontological difference is first of all the perspective of thinking from which Heidegger raises the question of the meaning of being. Further, by discussing other fundamental problems of philosophy, such as those which arise with the concepts of time, truth, ground, and identity, it is shown how in Heidegger’s philosophy the problem of ontological difference is formulated. The latter problem opens the possibility of rethinking the essence of metaphysical thinking, which is seen by Heidegger as a forgetfulness of being and difference. The dissertation shows that there is an ambiguity in Heidegger’s conception of ontological difference: on the one hand, it is the premise or background of metaphysics, and on the other hand, it is the very possibility of overcoming metaphysics. Turning to the notion of difference in Levinas, the dissertation shows that the thinking of difference at once links these two thinkers and at the same time most separates them. In the dissertation it is also shown in which meaning Heidegger’s ontological difference might be the origin of the thinking of difference in Levinas, and how the problem of difference is reformulated. Levinas radicalizes and transforms the difference between Being and entities, the separation between existence and existent, leading to his original analyses of the existent. The dissertation proceeds to elaborate how the absolute difference between self and other person, unlike the difference between Being and entities, requires going beyond the ontological difference altogether to ethical difference. This new ethical perspective enables Levinas to interrogate the Western philosophical tradition no longer as forgetful of being but as allergic to the otherness of the other person. |
