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One might wonder what could have contributed to the success of the terms “otherness” ( altérité) and “difference” ( différence), which have become essential elements of the avant-garde lexicon. This novel mode of expression owes much to the philosophers who played a key role in its creation and dissemination over the course of the 1960s. Beyond their internal functions of philosophical “dépassement,” these terms, used in an unusual fashion (intransitive, superlative), encapsulated, in a subtle way, a dualist socal philosophy opposing a humanity doomed to “identity” and a humanity open to “difference(s).”