Heidegger on Sameness and Difference

Abstract

Part i of the article outlines the basic structure of sameness and difference. part ii is a critical commentary on that structure. part i begins with a series of texts drawn from different sources in heidegger's works. these texts illustrate the range of the notion as applied in many diverse contexts. another series of texts follows, laying out the general structure of sameness and difference in abstract terms. the essential properties of this structure are then reconstructed and stated. part ii is a commentary in the form of five interrelated problems derived from the reconstruction of sameness and difference in part i. these problems concern, e.g., the nature of difference, the possible need for generic distinctions in order to justify different kinds of sameness, the apparently univocal meaning of sameness, and the historicist character of sameness. the article concludes with a general remark on sameness and difference in the context of heidegger's overall project of thinking.