ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the critical question is raised regarding whether Heidegger’s philosophical method of explorative confrontation achieves its pretension of a logic of difference, or whether this difference is in the end abolished by a logic of unity. To this end, the chapter reflects on Heidegger’s confrontation with the will in his first lecture course on Nietzsche. After the rejection of the communis opinio that Heidegger embraced the concept of the will in a non-critical manner at the beginning of the 1930s, the hypothesis will be defended that Heidegger’s embracement of the will is the result of his philosophical method of explorative confrontation with the concept of the will. Next, it will turn out that Heidegger’s method of confrontation is characterized by a circularity between the characteristics of his method of confrontation and its object (in this case the will), making it impossible to differentiate between his method and its object. After rejecting this circularity of Heidegger’s philosophical method, the logic of difference of philosophical method after Heidegger will be rehabilitated, based on a post-Heideggerian reflection on the concept of the will.
