Conversazioni di Gianni Vattimo con Francesco Barone, Remo Bodei, Italo Mancini, Vittorio Mathieu, Mario Perniola, Pier Aldo Rovatti, Emanuele Severino e Carlo Sini.

The present paper gives a topological solution to representability problems related to multi-utility, in the field of Decision Theory. Necessary and sufficient topologies for the existence of a semicontinuous and finite Richter–Peleg multi-utility for a preorder are studied. It is well known that, given a preorder on a topological space, if there is a lower semicontinuous Richter–Peleg multi-utility, then the topology of the space must be finer than the Upper topology. However, this condition fails to be sufficient. Instead of search (...) for properties that must be satisfied by the preorder, we study finer topologies which are necessary or/and sufficient for the existence of semicontinuous representations. We prove that Scott topology must be contained in the topology of the space in case there exists a finite lower semicontinuous Richter–Peleg multi-utility. However, the existence of this representation cannot be guaranteed. A sufficient condition is given by means of Alexandroff’s topology, for that, we prove that more order implies less Alexandroff’s topology, as well as the converse. Finally, the paper is implemented with a topological study of the maximal elements. (shrink)

Having lost much of its political clout and theoretical power, communism no longer represents an appealing alternative to capitalism. In its original Marxist formulation, communism promised an ideal of development, but only through a logic of war, and while a number of reformist governments still promote this ideology, their legitimacy has steadily declined since the fall of the Berlin wall. Separating communism from its metaphysical foundations, which include an abiding faith in the immutable laws of history and an almost holy (...) conception of the proletariat, Gianni Vattimo and Santiago Zabala recast Marx's theories at a time when capitalism's metaphysical moorings--in technology, empire, and industrialization--are buckling. While Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri call for a return of the revolutionary left, Vattimo and Zabala fear this would lead only to more violence and failed political policy. Instead, they adopt an antifoundationalist stance drawn from the hermeneutic thought of Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, and Richard Rorty. Hermeneutic communism leaves aside the ideal of development and the general call for revolution; it relies on interpretation rather than truth and proves more flexible in different contexts. Hermeneutic communism motivates a resistance to capitalism's inequalities yet intervenes against violence and authoritarianism by emphasizing the interpretative nature of truth. Paralleling Vattimo and Zabala's well-known work on the weakening of religion, _Hermeneutic Communism_ realizes the fully transformational, politically effective potential of Marxist thought. (shrink)

Gianni Vattimo reexamines the roots of modernism and postmodernism in Nietzsche, Benjamin, and Heidegger. Exploring the links between concepts of nihilism and destiny in nineteenth-century humanism, Vattimo follows these trends in aesthetic and scientific theory from Benjamin to Bloch, Ricoeur, and Kuhn.

Elizabeth Taylor: The Queen and I is a remarkable collection of Gianni Bozzacchi’s photographs of Elizabeth Taylor, most of them previously unpublished, capturing her as a film star, a woman, and a personal friend.

La presente obra sobre El sentido de la existencia gira en torno a la figura y obra del filósofo Gianni Vattimo, el fundador de la posmodernidad filosófica y el maestro del «pensamiento débil» frente al pensamiento dogmático, violento o fundamentalista. Especial relevancia obtiene aquí el Encuentro sobre Posmodernidad y nihilismo entre Gianni Vattimo, su discípulo Santiago Zabala y Andrés Ortiz-Osés. Este último somete a debate su interpretación del ser-sentido como un daimon ambivalente, el cual presidiría simbólicamente nuestro mundo. (...) G. Vattimo, A. Ortiz-Osés y S. Zabala pertenecen al movimiento hermenéutico fundado por Heidegger y Gadamer. (shrink)

The article argues that in European public debates the Muslim Question is performed by and linked to the issues of Muslims' integration and recognition as political subjects. I suggest that, in order to defuse the performative negative effects of the Muslim Question on Muslims' democratic agency, we should address it without rendering them invisible in the public sphere and in enhancing their political agency. Drawing from an analysis of the Swiss case I show that integration because adjustment entails a depoliticization (...) and a normalization of Muslims' political agency. In this way, integration as a process acts as an alternative and as a way to empower Muslim political subjectivity and therefore the fairest way to tackle the undemocratic impact of the Muslim Question. (shrink)

What has been the fate of Christianity since Nietzsche's famous announcement of the "death of God"? What is the possibility of religion, specifically Christianity, thriving in our postmodern era? In this provocative new book, Gianni Vattimo, leading Italian philosopher, politician, and framer of the European constitution, addresses these critical questions. When Vattimo was asked by a former teacher if he still believed in God, his reply was, "Well, I believe that I believe." This paradoxical declaration of faith serves as (...) the foundation for a brilliant exposition on Christianity in the new millennium -- an age characterized by a deep uncertainty of opinion -- and a personal account of how Vattimo himself recovered his faith through Nietzsche and Heidegger. He first argues that secularization is in fact the fulfillment of the central Christian message, and prepares us for a new mode of Christianity. He then explains that Nietzsche's thesis concerns only the "moral god" and leaves room for the emergence of "new gods." Third, Vattimo claims that the postmodern condition of fragmentation, anti-Eurocentrism, and postcolonialism can be usefully understood in light of Joachim of Fiore's thesis concerning the "Spiritual Age" of history. Finally, Vattimo argues for the idea of "weak thought." Because philosophy in the postmetaphysical age can only acknowledge that "all is interpretation," that the "real" is always relative and not the hard and fast "truth" we once thought it to be, contemporary thought must recognize itself and its claims as "weak" as opposed to "strong" foundationalist claims of the metaphysical past. Vattimo concludes that these factors make it possible for religion and God to become a serious topic for philosophy again, and that philosophy should now formally engage religion. (shrink)

With Western cultures becoming more pluralistic, the question of "truth" in politics has become a game of interpretations. Today, we face the demise of the very idea of truth as an objective description of facts, though many have yet to acknowledge that this is changing. Gianni Vattimo explicitly engages with the important consequences for democracy of our changing conception of politics and truth, such as a growing reluctance to ground politics in science, economics, and technology. Yet in Vattimo's conception, (...) a farewell to truth can benefit democracy, exposing the unspoken issues that underlie all objective claims. The end of absolute truth challenges the legitimacy of policies based on perceived objective necessities—protecting the free market, for example, even if it devastates certain groups or classes. Vattimo calls for a truth that is constructed with consensus and a respect for the liberty of all. By taking into account the cultural paradigms of others, a more "truthful" society—freer and more democratic—becomes possible. In this book, Vattimo continues his reinterpretation of Christianity as a religion of charity and hope, freeing society from authoritarian, metaphysical dogmatism. He also extends Nietzsche's "death of God" to the death of an authoritarian God, ushering in a new, postreligious Christianity. He connects the thought of Martin Heidegger, Karl Marx, and Karl Popper with surprising results and accommodates modern science more than in his previous work, reconciling its validity with an insistence that knowledge is interpretive. Vattimo's philosophy justifies Western nihilism in its capacity to dispense with absolute truths. Ranging over politics, ethics, religion, and the history of philosophy, his reflections contribute deeply to a modern reconception of God, metaphysics, and the purpose of reality. (shrink)

In lines 9, 5-6 Turner [=9, 9-10 Burn]) of Nicetas of Remesiana’s De uigiliis seruorum Dei the Author suggests reading, in accordance with the majority of relevant manuscripts and with the passage as a whole, ne cruditatem ructantes et crapulam, against the text established by the pamphlet’s most recent editor on the sole basis of codex R. The re-use in the passage of a locus of Cyprian supports the restitutio textus and is a significant example of the imitational method employed (...) by Nicetas. (shrink)

The first book-length philosophical study on the Presocratic influences in Plotinus’ Enneads.

A daring marriage of philosophical theory and practical politics, this collection is the first of Gianni Vattimo's many books to combine his intellectual pursuits with his public and political life. Vattimo is a paradoxical figure, at once a believing Christian and a vociferous critic of the Catholic Church, an outspoken liberal but not a former communist, and a recognized authority on Nietzsche and Heidegger as well as a prominent public intellectual and member of the European parliament. Building on his (...) unique position as a philosopher and politician, Vattimo takes on some of the most pressing questions of our time: Is it still possible, long after Nietzsche proclaimed the death of God, to talk of moral imperatives, individual rights, or political freedom? Are these values still relevant in today's world? Tackling these crucial issues, Gianni Vattimo argues that nihilism is not the absence of meaning but a recognition of a plurality of meanings; it is not the end of civilization but the beginning of new social paradigms. Commonly associated with the pessimistic belief that all of existence is meaningless, nihilism, as a philosophical principle, is far less sensational--it is the ethical doctrine that there are no moral absolutes or infallible natural laws, that "truth" is inescapably subjective. Because the conditions for equality and liberty are not "naturally" given, society must actively create these ideals or it will inevitably fall prey to irrationality, prejudice, and oppression. Vattimo contends that the infighting, timidity, and confusion that have overtaken contemporary liberal thought and politics are the products a prolonged and indulgent mourning over the loss of the transcendental father figure--any institution or power structure that defines truth, knowledge, and reality. Until humanity overcomes its need for external authority--whether it be organized religion, the nation-state, or free-market capitalism--emancipation will remain unattainable. Collecting fourteen of Vattimo's most influential essays on ethics, politics, and law, _Nihilism and Emancipation_ is a provocative reevaluation of meaning, values, and the idea of freedom in Western culture. (shrink)

Gianni Vattimo, one of Europe's foremost contemporary philosophers and most famously associated with the concept of weak thought, explores theoretical and practical issues flowing from his fundamental rejection of the traditional Western understanding of Being as an absolute, unchanging, and transcendent reality. The essays in this book move within the surroundings of Being without constructing a systematic, definitive analysis of the topic. In Being and Its Surroundings, Vattimo continues his career-long exploration of the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, in particular (...) his repudiation of metaphysics with its presupposition of the existence of permanent, universal truth, and that of Friedrich Nietzsche, with its promotion of nihilism. One consequence of problematizing the idea of an attainable truth is the relativization of values and cultures. In the face of the death of God – or the absence of a transcendent guarantor of the validity of human judgments – we have the postmodern tendency to see all value systems and assertions of truth as purely subjective, and to suggest that "anything goes," which Nietzsche called passive nihilism. Vattimo advocates a more active response as he challenges all forms of authoritarianism in the world today. He brings his intellectual acumen to bear on such urgent issues as globalization, the clash of civilizations and terrorism, the crisis of democracy, and the relevance of orthodox religion. Rather than endorse dogmatism or indifference and detachment from social engagement in the name of relativism, Vattimo opts for the path of meaningful dialogue and a search for a mediated consensus based on reason, with all its limitations. (shrink)

Though coming from distinct intellectual traditions, Richard Rorty and Gianni Vattimo are united in their criticism of the metaphysical tradition. The challenges they put forward extend beyond philosophy and entail a reconsideration of the foundations of belief in God and the religious life. They urge that the rejection of metaphysical truth does not necessitate the death of religion. Instead it opens new ways of imagining what it is to be religious. This unique collaboration fuses pragmatism and hermeneutics and recognizes (...) the limits of both traditional religious belief and modern secularism. Rorty discusses Vattimo's work Belief and argues that the end of metaphysics paves the way for an anti-essentialist religion. Vattimo explores the surprising congruence between Christianity and hermeneutics in light of the dissolution of metaphysical truth. In a concluding dialogue, both philosophers analyze the future of religion together with the political, social, and historical aspects that characterize our contemporary postmodern, postmetaphysical, and post-Christian world. (shrink)

Translators’ Abstract: In this introduction to his Italian translation of Reiner Schürmann’s, Gianni Carchia offers a short yet incisive interpretation of the compelling originality of Schürmann’s reading of Heidegger. Carchia points out that, contrary to much Heidegger literature, Schürmann insists on a three-tiered temporal difference rather than on a simple dichotomy between beings and being as the driver of the deconstruction of metaphysics, and it is only through this distinction that the an-archic as the evental and ahistorical origin of (...) being comes into view. What this displacement affords is a certain historicization of Heideggerian philosophy that brings out the anarchic, polymorphous, and protean nature of being and restores to acting its spontaneity and innocence. Observing that this anti-humanist naturalization of an-archy may indeed be closer to Eugen Fink’s cosmology, which grants autonomy to the extra-human, than to Heidegger’s history of Dasein, which confines us to “the prison of the human,” Carchia locates the contribution of Schürmann’s work in its deconstruction of the Idealist remnant in Heidegger. (shrink)

The ethical problem of privacy lies at the core of computer ethics and cyber ethics discussions. The extensive use of personal data in digital networks poses a serious threat to the user’s right of privacy not only at the level of a user’s data integrity and security but also at the level of a user’s identity and freedom. In normative ethical theory the need for an informational self-deterministic approach of privacy is stressed with greater emphasis on the control over personal (...) data. However, scant attention has been paid on a virtue ethics approach of information privacy. Plotinus’ discussion of self-determination is related to ethical virtue, human freedom and intellectual autonomy. The Plotinian virtue ethics approach of self-determination is not primarily related to the sphere of moral action, but to the quality of the self prior to moral practice. In this paper, it is argued that the problem of information privacy should be reconsidered in the light of Plotinus’ virtue ethics and his notion of self-determination. (shrink)

Gianni Paganini addresses the question of Hobbes's relationship to the skeptical tradition, both ancient and modern. If Hobbes borrows from ancient skepticism the idea that it is impossible to distinguish between dreams and waking perceptions, he owes to Montaigne the idea that our sensations, although they can be misleading, are our only access to knowledge. Gianni Paganini gives a systematic account of Hobbes's skeptical arguments, showing how those arguments are included in a more general dogmatic framework, resting upon (...) the assumption that reason can infer the existence of bodies beyond the appearances or phantasms which are given in perception. Although Hobbes tends to insert skeptical elements in a causal and materialist approach to reality, he nevertheless remains, from De principis to De corpore, indebted to old and new skeptical arguments. To put it in another way, phenomena or appearances are for him our unique access into the real world. Beyond Leviathan, it is therefore Hobbes's whole work which is here presented, along the way opened by Richard Popkin, in the perspective of skepticism. (shrink)

At the center of this book is the enigma of belief.

We show that modal logics characterized by a class of frames satisfying the insertion property are suitable for Reiter's default logic. We refine the canonical fix point construction defined by Marek, Schwarz and Truszczyński for Reiter's default logic and thus we addrress a new paradigm for nonmonotonic logic. In fact, differently from the construction defined by these authors. we show that suitable modal logics for such a construction must indeed contain K D4. When reflexivity is added to the modal logic (...) used for the fix point construction then we come to the Marek Schwarz and Truszczyński framework for Reiter's default logic. Our framework, in fact, is appropriate also to the family of modal logics in between S4 and S4f. If, instead, reflexivity is dropped, then we show that a new family of modal logics is gained, namely the modal logics in between KD4 and KD4Z. The upper bound can be extended to the modal logic KD4LZ whenever the propositional language taken into account is finite. (shrink)

Seneca's Medea carries out a plan of revenge that follows a retaliation mechanism inspired both by fury and by an established principle of reciprocity. This principle follows the rules, described in Seneca's De ira, of revenge aroused by anger. Medea had earlier been guilty of crimes against her own family, in order to assist Jason; she now maintains that she has fallen victim to the very same offenses. Therefore she now resolves to perpetrate similar crimes upon the husband who has (...) decided to leave her. In retaliation for the loss of her father's kingdom, of her brother Absyrtus, and of her own virginity she now kills Creon and his daughter, as well as her own children. Medea can thus create a fictitious link between the parts of her identity that have been thrown into disarray by her separation from Jason. In fact, the crimes she commits as a wife, in order to get rid of Jason, are just the inexorable consequence of the crimes she had committed as a girl, in order to join him. The separation which thus comes about conforms to the rules of a normal Roman divorce: the wife leaves her husband's home as well as her children, but her dowry is returned to her. Towards the end of the tragedy, Medea goes so far as to say that she has retrieved the "dowry" of crimes she paid in order to become Jason's wife, since she has recovered her father's kingdom, her brother, and her virginity as well. This is no more than a wild illusion, but in considering its elaborate rhetorical form we gain an idea of the kind of balance which is the aim of Seneca's Medea as she accomplishes her revenge. (shrink)