Abstract

This thesis examines the problem of identity and difference in Lacan and Heidegger. One aspect of this problem is the meaning of the seemingly-tautological statement "A is A" as one cannot claim that sayings such as "war is war" do not have meaning. For Lacan and Heidegger, this indispensable repetition of the identical shows that it is entwined with another form of identity: the identity of A with the non-identical, with its other, appearing, for example, in Parmenides' statement: "For the same thinking as well as being". This interweaving is the starting point of their inquiry of the question of identity. For both thinkers, this problem is intimately bound with a critique of modernity and with the role language plays in the modern technological society. For Heidegger, the technological doctrine represents identity through the "A is A" statement, taken as a fundamental characteristic of Being. Understood in this way, Heidegger concludes that in the modern era, the identity of the object to itself is always-already given, symbolizing the total governing of the moderna. For Lacan, the Cartesian subject, who is transparent to itself, who finds its constitutive point within itself, is the exemplar of a characteristically modernist thought. Lacan calls this line of thought imaginary, which means that it leaves no place for what the subject cannot know, be it the cause of her/his actions or her/his position vis--vis the law and the Other of language. According to psychoanalytic thought, the imaginary identity of the subject present to himself, though essential to the constitution of the subject, leaves no room for further considerations of identity. Thus, the positioning of the question of identity in the modern era attempts to reveal the hidden meaning of the "A is A": if A is identical to A as they collapse to the same thing, as the technological era attempts to show, then why does this formula persist as one of the founding elements of modern thought? And what does emerge from the interweaving of the two forms of identity in this technological era? This thesis argues that the inquiry after this interweaving and after the hidden, distorted and forgotten meaning of "A is A" leads Lacan and Heidegger to search the un-thought element in this identity the element of difference. This is done via two paths of investigation: Lacan's path is that of approaching the question of identity through the subject's modes of identification; Heidegger's path is that of attempting to

overcome the experience of the technological identity by replacing it with poetically charged terms; that is, by finding inside language itself the key to uncover other concepts and meanings of identity. Part I of the thesis surveys the philosophical and psychoanalytical background with respect to the two thinkers' early writings: Lacan's Mirror stage and first seminar (stemming from Freud's writings on identification) and Heidegger's Basic problems of Phenomenology. Part II examines the major texts written on the identity / difference problem: The principle of Identity and The Onto-theo-logical constitution of Metaphysics by Heidegger; and Seminar IX: Identification by Lacan. This part shows the similarity of treatment given by the two thinkers to this problem. Both Lacan and Heidegger, positing the human being in the modern era, take him to be constituted in response to the demand of identity. Lacan grasps identification as a constitutive operation, occurring through the identification with the imago and through the notion of the unary trait, a particular sign that registers identity on the subject's very being. Heidegger sees the appropriation of man to Being, the way man is posited in its world and with respect to Being, as the way man is responding to the call of identity; a call that is made in and by language itself and is responded through it. And for both thinkers, the constituting response of man to the demand of identity is in some sense incomplete: there is no correct, proper response to this demand. Thus, this response is lacking: it contains difference. This difference is embodied in a unique event which, though being fundamental, always leaves a lack which demands that the event be repeated. Part III shows that what appeared to be similar between the two thinkers in the second part already contains the kernel of difference. It is shown that for Heidegger, the answer to the demand of identity always takes place within language and thus difference must always (re)appear in and through language; for Lacan, however, a total response of the subject to the demand of identity is possible. However, this occurs only where language has been evacuated from being, and thus difference fails to be exhibited. Therefore, whereas Heidegger never leaves language in order to uncover the different responses to the call of identity, Lacan must abandon it in order to do so: this is why one of Lacan's basic tools in approaching the problem of identity is topology and its mathemes.

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