Della realtà: Fini della filosofia

by Gianni Vattimo

Della realtà è un saggio filosofico che documenta un percorso di conoscenza e che alla riflessione sul pensiero di Heidegger unisce una costante attenzione alle trasformazioni della società contemporanea. È al tempo stesso il romanzo di un imprevedibile ribaltamento di prospettiva: un cambiamento che ci riguarda tutti, perché è profondamente radicato nella storia di questi ultimi decenni. Alla metà degli anni Ottanta, quando Gianni Vattimo diede spessore filosofico al postmoderno, fu accusato di essere il cantore del neocapitalismo trionfante e delle sue illusioni. La critica radicale alle ideologie e l'accento sull'interpretazione sembravano funzionali al nuovo orizzonte, sempre più dominato dal virtuale e dalla liquidità immateriale - a cominciare da quella del denaro e della finanza. In questi decenni, dopo che le ideologie sono state scardinate e abbandonate anche sull'onda del «pensiero debole», a dominarci sono stati il principio di realtà e la presunta oggettività delle leggi economiche. Oggi, mentre il capitalismo attraversa una delle crisi più gravi della sua storia, il richiamo alla realtà, in apparenza innocente e intriso di buon senso, diventa uno strumento per imporre il conformismo e accettazione dell'ordine vigente. Contro questa ideologia autoritaria, rivendica Vattimo, l'ermeneutica - ovvero la costante pratica dell'interpretazione - diventa uno straordinario strumento conoscitivo, proprio perché ci consente di superare la dittatura del presente. In questo senso, può diventare la base di un progetto di trasformazione e di liberazione che ha immediate ricadute politiche.

Genres: Italy

250 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 1, 2012

About the author

Gianteresio Vattimo, also known as Gianni Vattimo (born January 4, 1936) is an internationally recognized Italian author, philosopher, and politician. Many of his works have been translated into English.

His philosophy can be characterized as postmodern with his emphasis on "pensiero debole" (weak thought). This requires that the foundational certainties of modernity with its emphasis on objective truth founded in a rational unitary subject be relinquished for a more multi-faceted conception closer to that of the arts.

Reviews

[Brandt · Rating 2 out of 5]

“There are no facts, only interpretations…this too is an interpretation.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

As I begin the review of this book, this is the one quote; or better, an amalgamation of a quote, that persistently haunts my attempt at considering how to accurately describe, and question, the thinking present in this culmination of lectures and essays. There should be no doubt that Gianni Vattimo possesses a keen intellect and an advanced understanding of the philosophical thought that emanates through his exposition of Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, et al. Nevertheless, to think about the prefaced quote from Nietzsche, and to consider the consequences of such a belief, could “change you as you are or perhaps crush you” (Nietzsche, The Gay Science §341).

It is curious that Vattimo’s understanding of Nietzsche should be used in such a way as to put the reader into a vexed state of worry. Perhaps this is just what Vattimo is alluding towards when he further examines the Nietzschean doctrine of Eternal recurrence. Hence, this exact change of your belief viz., your interpretation of the world, could very well be the interpretation that Nietzsche is alluding towards. But still, isn’t it impossible to change the attitudes, the comportment, we have towards our life? Aren’t these all the outcomes of prior history?

This is where Vattimo’s understanding of Being qua Heidegger plays the crucial role. The embracement of nihilism from Nietzsche, through Heidegger, and beyond, represents the paradoxical thinking of the common tendency to associate nihilism with relativism. The belief is that this will consequentially lead to a rejection of all values. To overcome this criticism, Vattimo describes that this fear of nihilism is actually a specific interpretation of the world (Western) that we live in. This, for Vattimo, is “metaphysics;’ metaphysics, as the enlightened schema which argues for [T]ruth (with a capital “T”); metaphysics as the science of Mathematics, Biology, Psychology, etc. Through this metaphysics, we are supposedly brought to the actuality of the thing in itself; to the “real”.

Yet, in order to comprehend this conception of the concrete actuality, that is “real,” it needs to be thought of as an “event” on, or better, in the horizon. Enter Heidegger. Through a clever interpretation of Heidegger’s understanding of Being, Vattimo takes the reader on a voyage of understanding intent behind the various presentations of the Heideggerian thought evolution. The reader has now arrived at the event of nihilism, in a historical sense, where the power of truth is fixed only through a Nietzschean congruence of interpretation. Vattimo sees this as so obvious that today it is commonplace for the truth to be thought of as relative. However, in this quagmire of relativity, there is a longing for truth that can never reach a climax because of the constant unfolding of historical contingencies.

Over, and again (do you will it?), the reader is forced to confront interpretations of Nietzsche’s and Heidegger’s text. Therefore, if you really want to appreciate the text, you must have a basic understanding of Nietzsche and Heidegger. Not to mention some groundwork of various other thinkers would be helpful viz., Plato, René Descartes, Immanuel Kant, Karl Marx, Theodor Adorno, Edmund Husserl, et al. This is the main problem with reading a work like this. That is, you must return to the text of other philosophers and ask: does Vattimo’s interpretation hold a correspondence with the way – and the what – you understand the other thinking to be intending?

Anyone who has tried this will see the great amount of effort that goes into interpreting exactly what the intent behind the text was. Is it really possible for Vattimo to lay claim that how he is interpreting the texts is the true (and what is truth? A mobile Army of metaphors?) intention behind these thinkers? It seems probable that Nietzsche would conclude that Vattimo’s understanding was only an interpretation… and this whole review is also, only an interpretation.

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[Pavlogreen]

Tengo mis diferencias con Vattimo, pero si voy a leer a un filósofo con el que disienta en muchas cosas (lo cual es natural y deseable en este oficio) que sea uno con la claridad e inteligencia del italiano, que no solo expone y escribe sus ideas con maestría, sino que se dota de un armazón argumentativo sólido para defenderlas. Sus tesis sobre que la verdad, la objetividad, la realidad son conceptos obsoletos, violentos y peligrosos y que es el acuerdo de las comunidades a través del tiempo lo que nos dota de "verdad", "falsedad" o "realidad" (creo que a él le gustarían estas comillas) me parecen muy cogidas con pinzas. No es que sean falsas, más bien incompletas. Asimismo, tiene una concepción muy posesiva de la hermenéutica, como si esta solo pudiera emplearse como él la emplea y solo diese los resultados filosóficos que a él le dan, pero algunas de sus críticas, siempre de la mano de Heidegger, a la tradición metafísica son certeras y necesarias para cualquier discurso ontológico contemporáneo, sea o no tan "posmoderno" como el suyo.

[Ruslanas Baranovas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Last up-to-date Vattimo book serves as a good summary of his thought. You will find all his themes (weak thought, hermeneutics as nihilism, Verwindung of metaphysics and so on) here. Probably not the best book to start with Vattimo, as some arguments could only be fully understood having entire oeuvre in mind. Maybe more than ever, Vattimo builds his case on ethico-political arguments and reading of the contemporary situation in terms of "history of being" (sometimes balancing somewhere on the edge of "end of history" thesis). If this is the remark to "new realists", the debate should really be about, whether we live in same "epoch" as post-war societies, or if our time is different time altogether. Perhaps new "epoch of being".

[Daisy Dandelion · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was just genius ☺️