Abstract

The matter of difference appears at the moment in human thought, inaugurates debate and philosophical discussion in Western tradition, and becomes a significant and culminant point in the history of philosophy. From its origin the philosophical discourse lives on this perplexity, although it searches from its very origin to think identity as identity in the sinuosity of real differences, and in the power of its linguistic game, it assumes a position, which is essentially based on a logocentric illusion. It is about a position which expresses itself for being, against nothing, for synchrony against diachrony, and for sameness against alterity. Concerning this, it is not possible here not to inquire about this position towards multiplicity, in which reason tries to unite it in a whole. Would this not mean in the origin of philosophy itself a limitation and insecurity of what is rational? Would this attitude not reveal a symptom of weakness and an incipient decline, whose destiny is fulfilled along the Western tradition? Historically, and in spite of the most varied solutions and vicissitudes presented to this problem, it is possible to observe that the attempt to direct philosophical thought to totality continually prevails.