Genealogy of Difference. The Discontinuities of Postmodern Thought

Abstract

According to the classical approaches of difference, on one hand, the origin of the discourse of difference was found in a new way of thinking that pursued the overcoming of metaphysics (Vattimo), and on the other hand, the discourse of difference was construed as another version of the problem of the One and the Many, which has remained a constant throughout the history of thinking (Laruelle). However, the post-metaphysical approaches to difference can be legitimated neither by understanding them as an absolutely new discourse with no relation to the previous philosophical conceptions, nor by reducing them to a classical problem of philosophy. The unilaterality of such conceptions can be cancelled by understanding difference as a new answer to a philosophical problem that preoccupied Western thinking ever since the Ancient times. Such an approach to difference starts from Hans Blumenberg's theory according to which we should understand the unfolding of ideas as being marked by discontinuities. From this point of view, the post-metaphysical theories of difference (Heidegger, Derrida, Deleuze) should be understood starting from the discontinuities between the old discourse of metaphysics where difference is subordinate to identity and the new space of thinking open after the acceptance of multiplicity as an essential characteristic of the Being.