Elija Perrier

This thesis examines how beings can be both same and different – arguing that the being same/not-same of any being marks a problematic. It traces the meaning, etymology and relation of sameness and non-sameness, arguing that it seems impossible for either of these two phenomena to ‘be’ without implying the other. The central focus of this text is an examination of the ontology of Martin Heidegger. We speculate that a whole series of Heideggerian dissertations – such as logos, aletheiea, Dasein, care, temporality, ontological difference, the unique word, the event of appropriation – essentially reiterate the same problematic – necessarily manifesting differently - which we attempt to outline, and that furthermore this same problematic forms the horizon to which much of Heidegger’s work taken as a whole (if such a thing is possible) tends. We interrupt our discussion on Heidegger to articulate the phenomenal (im)possibility we denote by the term non-being towards which, it will be argued, the ideas of ‘sameness’ and ‘not-sameness’ tend. The final part of this essay attempts to further examine this problematic as that which Derrida names différance, and concludes by speculating on the relationship between Heidegger’s ontology, différance and Parmenides epochal pronouncement that “ . . . for the same thing is for conceiving as being.” (Fr. 4 (3DK); Coxon 54) In this regard it must also be stated that this text is composed predominantly of readings from primary sources, with peripheral commentary where deemed necessary. This is, however, because we seek to approach our analysis in a specific way. Our focus on the problem of sameness/not-sameness – of how they seem to be and not-be at once – leads us to our fundamental analysis and speculation of the meaning of and relationship between being and non-being (variously designated as nothingness, nothing, not, negation). This essay can only remain a sketch of the problem it seeks to outline – its insight belongs to showing how various conceptions of Heideggerian discourse seem to reiterate the same problem, concluding with a speculation upon ‘what’ that problem might be in terms of sameness and difference.