Identity and difference: Severino and Heidegger

Abstract

The concept of identity represents one of the most significant concepts through which to measure the philosophies of Severino and Heidegger. For Severino, identity cannot be the identity of the different, because the identity of the different, or of the non‐identical, is exactly the concept of becoming, which leads to the idea that wood becomes ash, and thus is ash, or, in general, that the subject is the predicate, that A is B, or not‐A (which is a contradiction). Unlike Severino, Heidegger conceives of identity as a “synthesis of the different”, as is clear in his interpretation of Parmenides’ Fragment 3 in Identity and Difference: the same (das Selbe) is not the identical (das Gleiche). The problem of the relation between identity and difference can be traced back to the debate between Monists and Pluralists in Plato’s Sophist: this discussion will be the focus of the conclusion, where I try to show that the different (ἕτερον) is not the condition of the contradiction, but what prevents it.