Defense Date

11-8-2023

Graduation Date

Fall 12-15-2023

Availability

One-year Embargo

Submission Type

dissertation

Degree Name

PhD

Department

Philosophy

School

McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts

Committee Chair

Jay Lampert

Committee Member

Jennifer Bates

Committee Member

Daniel Selcer

Keywords

Difference, Alterity, Ontology, Deleuze, Hegel

Abstract

This dissertation is a study in ontology. Its central question is: can we think difference without alterity and still think of difference as an essential determination of what something is? I answer that it is possible to ontologically disambiguate difference from alterity. The central thesis of my dissertation is that thinking difference without otherness not only produces meaningful differences, but if we are committed to a complete understanding of what difference is and how it functions, then it is necessary to account for this determination. Thus, I find two cases in the history of philosophy which do think difference without alterity, namely, in the philosophies of G.W.F. Hegel and Gilles Deleuze. I demonstrate how Hegel’s Science of Logic proposes to think difference without otherness with the articulation of absolute difference. I argue that Hegel ultimately think absolute difference is an incomplete form of difference, and thus demonstrate that a full understanding of difference entails a thinking of difference as alterity. The concept of contradiction is this full understanding of difference for Hegel. By contrast, I demonstrate that for Deleuze the articulation of unilateral difference in Difference and Repetition is a thinking of difference without otherness insofar as it involves asymmetrical relations of distinction. Thus, I argue that while Hegel’s account of absolute difference inaugurates the possibility of thinking difference without otherness, it is not until Deleuze’s account of unilateral difference that we find a full and complete thinking of difference without otherness.

Language

English

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