The responsibility of the philosopher

162 Pages·2010·0.996 MB·English, Italian

by  Gianni Vattimo, Franca D'Agostini, William McCuaig

Praise for V
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over the course of his career, gianni
“There is no better guide to Gianni Vattimo’s philosophy e
Vattimo has assumed a number of public
than Franca D’Agostini’s introduction to this book. One of r
e and private identities and has pursued mul-
Vattimo’s most skilled students, D’Agostini manages to s
present both the logic behind weak thought and the novelty p tiple intellectual paths. He seems to embody
o several contradictions, at once defending
of this text, which reveals the Italian master’s intuitions on
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and questioning religion and critiquing and
crucial problems of contemporary philosophy.” s
i serving the state. Yet the diversity of his life
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gianni vattimo is emeritus professor santiago zabala, Author of The Remains of Being: Hermeneutic il and thought form the very essence of, as
of philosophy at the University of Turin Ontology After Metaphysics it he sees it, the vocation and responsibility
and a member of the European Parliament. y of the philosopher. in a world that desires
His books with Columbia University Press “The Responsibility of the Philosopher is brilliant and o quantifiable results and ideological expe-
f diency, the philosopher becomes the vital
include Christianity, Truth, and Weakening entertaining without becoming overly conceptual, yet it

t interpreter of the endlessly complex.
Faith: A Dialogue; Not Being God: A Collab- makes no concessions to or falls into mediocrity or com- h
orative Autobiography; Art’s Claim to Truth; monplaces. The language is consistently rigorous, yet it e
as he outlines his ideas about the philoso-

After the Death of God; Dialogue with is incredibly clear and accessible to a philosophically p
h pher’s role, Vattimo builds an important
Nietzsche; The Future of Religion (with Rich- unsophisticated audience.”
i companion to his life’s work. He confronts
l
ard Rorty); Nihilism and Emancipation: Ethics,
silvia benso, Rochester Institute of Technology o questions of science, religion, logic, litera-
Politics, and the Law; and After Christianity. s
the responsibility ture, and truth, and passionately defends
o
p of the philosopher the power of hermeneutics to engage with
franca d’agostini is professor of phi- h life’s conundrums. Vattimo conjures a clear
losophy at the University of Turin. She is er Gianni Vattimo vision of philosophy as something sepa-
the author of, most recently, The Last rate from the sciences and the humanities
Fumes: Nihilism and the Nature of Philosoph- Columbia university press but also intimately connected to their pro-
ical Concepts. new york cesses, and he explicates a conception of
Franca D’Agostini William McCuaig
www.cup.columbia.edu truth that emphasizes fidelity and partici-
editor translator
jaCkET dESign: maRTin HinzE printed in the u.s.a. columbia pation through dialogue.
THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE PHI LOS O PHER

gianni vattimo
THE RESPONSIBILITY
OF THE PHI LOS O PHER
franca d’agostini
Edited with an Introduction by
william mccuaig
Translated by
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS NEW YORK
columbia university press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
Originally published in Italian as Vocazione e responsabilità del fi losofo
Copyright © 2000 Gianni Vattimo
Translation copyright © 2010 Columbia University Press
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Vattimo, Gianni, 1936–
[Vocazione e responsabilita del fi losofo. English]
The responsibility of the philosopher / Gianni Vattimo ; edited with
an introduction by Franca D'Agostini ; translated by William McCuaig.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-231-15242-6 (cloth : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-231-52712-5
(ebook)
1. Philosophy, Modern—20th century. 2. Philosophy, Italian—20th
century. I. D'Agostini, Franca, 1952– II. Title.
B3654.V383V6313 2010
190—dc22 2010003075
Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent
and durable acid- free paper.
This book is printed on paper with recycled content.
Printed in the United States of America
c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
References to Internet Web sites (URLs) were accurate at the time
of writing. Neither the author nor Columbia University Press is
responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the
manuscript was prepared.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION:
THE STRONG REASONS FOR WEAK THOUGHT(cid:2)1
Franca D’Agostini
Weakness 3
French Nihilism and Italian Nihilism 6
Nihilism and Diff erence 9
Diff erence and Dialectic 15
Nihilism, Hermeneutics, and Postmodernity 22
Verwindung 25
Argumentation and Provenance 29
This Book 32
Postscript (2009) 36
1. PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE(cid:2)47
After Kant, After Hegel 47
The Flash of the Ereignis 51
The Story of a Comma 56
Science and “Being– not beings” 59
The Edifi cation of Humanity 62
Cumulative Knowledges 64
2. PHILOSOPHY, HISTORY, LITERATURE(cid:2)69
Truth, Rhetoric, History 69
Are History and Ontology Compatible? 71
Mythization of the World 73
Fugues 75
Sciences of Nature and Sciences of the Spirit? 77
3. LOGIC IN PHILOSOPHY(cid:2)81
i Logic and the Logics 81
v
Logic and the History of Being 84
Philosophy of Logic and Logic of Philosophy 87
S Logic and Ontology 90
T
N
E
T 4. TO SPEAK THE TRUTH(cid:2)95
N
O Redemisti nos Domine Deus veritatis 95
C
The Endless Banquet 96
Do Vampires Exist? 98
5. THE VOCATION TO PHILOSOPHY AND THE
RESPONSIBILITY OF PHILOSOPHY(cid:2)101
Writing for the Newspapers 101
Writing in the First Person 102
The Dive Into Politics 104
Politics Philosopher- style 107
Losing your Soul 111
Filling In the Blanks 112
The Construction of Universality is Po liti cal 115
NOTES(cid:2)119
BIBLIOGRAPHY(cid:2)135
INDEX(cid:2)145
THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE PHI LOS O PHER

INTRODUCTION: THE STRONG
REASONS FOR WEAK THOUGHT
Franca D’Agostini
There exist thinkers— Kierkegaard and Hannah Arendt
come especially to mind— whose propensity for singularity
and antitheory is grounded in precise and rigorously theoreti-
cal reasons. This to a certain extent is Gianni Vattimo’s case
too, and the primary aim of what follows is to bring out the
strong reasons for Vattimo’s commitment to “weak thought”
(pensiero debole), and to an “attenuation” or “lightening” of
the structures of traditional philosophical discourse.1
Attenuation and lightening are not self- explanatory no-
tions when applied to philosophy. To lighten or pare down
a theory generally means strengthening the logical power
of the theory itself (a point made promptly by acute critics of
Vattimo like Carlo A. Viano and Enrico Berti). Actually, when
the formula was coined, it conveyed a meaning more associa-
tive than argumentative. The expression “weak thought” was
quite clearly a catchphrase meant to characterize, and render
historically intelligible, the aftermath of an unpleasantly
shallow and cruel climate that had come about in philosophy
and po liti cal thought in the second half of the 1970s.
At that time, the analyses of such neostructuralist think-
ers as Deleuze and Foucault were picked up in Italy and fused