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Adiós a la verdad
En este nuevo trabajo Gianni Vattimo nos demuestra como la verdad se ha transformado en la representación más encumbrada de la cultura contemporánea. La filosofía, la religión y la política pero también, y fundamentalmente, nuestra experiencia cotidiana están signadas por una particular valorización de la verdad. Sin embargo, la cultura de nuestra sociedad occidental es cada vez más pluralista. La información y la comunicación son un juego de interpretaciones, los políticos se permiten eludir los compromisos éticos -y por lo tanto también el deber de la verdad- sin que nadie se sorprenda. A pesar de todo, como lo demuestran cotidianamente los debates políticos, nuestra sociedad ""pluralista todavía cree en una idea ""metafísica"" de la verdad como correspondencia con los hechos objetivos y en la ilusión de un acuerdo basado en "hechos".
125 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2009
12 people are currently reading
156 people want to read
About the author
Gianni Vattimo
138 books93 followersGianteresio 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 7, 2013
more Grand Narrative debunking, but there's some really insightful and inspiring stuff re: religion, society, charity
ie.
"Nihilism = Christianity because Jesus came into the world not to demonstrate what the "natural" order was but to demolish it in the name of charity. Loving one's enemies is not exactly what nature prescribes, and more than that it isn't what "naturally" happens. So when the Church defends the natural order of the monogamous reproductive family against any act of charity whatsoever toward (naturally) gay persons. . .
it shows its preference for the God of natural order over the message of Jesus.
ie.
"Nihilism = Christianity because Jesus came into the world not to demonstrate what the "natural" order was but to demolish it in the name of charity. Loving one's enemies is not exactly what nature prescribes, and more than that it isn't what "naturally" happens. So when the Church defends the natural order of the monogamous reproductive family against any act of charity whatsoever toward (naturally) gay persons. . .
it shows its preference for the God of natural order over the message of Jesus.
May 17, 2020
Before reading this fascinating contribution from Vattimo, I'd recommend familiarizing oneself with Heidegger, Nietzsche, Husserl, Rorty, and some of the postmodernists. It's not requisite but Vattimo does presume a relatively specialized knowledge of philosophy from his readers.
A Farewell to Truth is a controversial book, as one might guess. Vattimo proposes that the idea of truth not only has limited value but tends to bend humans toward violence and totalitarianism. Democracy liberated from the notion of truth is what he recommends as a preferred alternative. It will shock those who haven't read much about pragmatism and especially neo-pragmatism of the postmodernist strain.
Reading it forced me to reflect on the keen cynicism I now feel toward many institutions. Nearly all of them have lied to me, corroding my trust: churches, schools, various levels of government, family, and employers, as well as various cultural institutions. Who can we trust? How do we cleanse ourselves and society of this cynicism? How do we restore our institutions?
As a Catholic thinker and former MP of the European Union, Vattimo holds a unique viewpoint in the intellectual landscape. He's new to me, but I found much to ponder. Here are a few highlights.
-"The conclusion toward which I am working is that the farewell to truth is the commencement, and the very basis, of democracy. If there were an objective truth to social and economic laws (economics is not a natural science), democracy would be an utterly irrational choice. It would be better to entrust the management of the State to experts, to Plato's philosopher-kings or all the Nobel Prize winners in every category."
-"Truth faces a challenge in the world of postmodern pluralism—the challenge of coming to grips with the fact that consensus on individual questions is above all a problem of collective interpretation, of constructing paradigms shared or, at any rate, explicitly recognized."
-"In the end, it boils down to understanding that truth is not encountered but constructed with consensus and respect for the liberty of everyone, and the diverse communities that live together, without bleeding, in a free society."
-"When the latter [the second Wittgenstein] talks about 'linguistic games,' within the bounds of which truth can arise only out of the observance of shared rules, never out of evidence of some correspondence with things, he is practicing hermeneutics without knowing it."
-"But the drive to find out the objective truth about countless deeds of this kind would make no sense if it weren't inspired by the necessity of rendering justice, in other words prioritizing not objectivity as such but the rights of the many who suffered and still suffer and the very right of the community to remake itself into a place of shared civic life, of true political amity. The freedom of everyone has no need of truth-as-correspondence except as a means to better achieve reciprocal comprehension, that realm of the spirit in which, as Hegel put it, humanity will one day be able to feel at one with itself, 'at home.'"
-"If the church continues to think of faith as a deposit of truths more certain than those ascertained by science, continues to profess a more or less literal creationism, and continues to try to impose its own biblical anthropology on the State, it is fated to dwindle away, in a world where science and human rights are becoming universal."
-"When the Church feels weak it talks about freedom, and when it feels strong it talks about truth."
-"A God 'different' from metaphysical Being can no longer be the God of definitive and absolute truth that allows no doctrinal variation. That is why he may be called a 'relativistic' God. A 'weak' God, if you will, who does not show us our weakness as a way of asserting (against rational expectation, as a mystery to which we must submit, as the ecclesiastical discipline we must accept) that he is luminous, omnipotent, sovereign, and awesome, that he bears all the traits of the threatening and reassuring personage of natural-metaphysical religiosity."
-"Nihilism equals Christianity because Jesus came into the world not to demonstrate what the 'natural' order was but to demolish it in the name of charity. Loving one's enemies is not exactly what nature prescribes, and more than that it isn't what 'naturally' happens."
-"Can we really do without biblical mythology, New Testament or Old? I don't believe so. I wouldn't want a Church without saints or Christmas and Easter rituals. But I don't want to be compelled to accept an elaborate doctrine like transubstantiation just so I can go to Mass. To take Christian mythology as though it were a description of a reality alternative to that of science is an authoritarian abuse that the church ought to abandon, because it scandalizes the faith."
-"If I have an idea that leads to a successful experiment, that doesn't mean that I gained exhaustive, objective knowledge of that aspect of reality. What I did—and the philosophy of science backs this up—was to make the experiment work, on the basis of certain expectations and premises. When I do an experiment, I already dispose of a set of criteria and instruments that make it possible for me, and for anyone whose ideas differ from mine, to tell whether the experiment worked or not. The criteria and the instruments are already in place and undisputed when I start. No scientist studies all of physics from scratch; they all learn from textbooks and build on that. This is universally accepted. So I don't want to hear any more of this talk about how scientists describe the world objectively. They describe it with rigorous instruments, which are nonetheless determined and historically qualified."
-"Not all metaphysicians have been violent, but I would say that almost all large-scale perpetrators of violence have been metaphysicians. If Hitler had merely hated the Jews in his neighborhood, he would have set fire to their houses, and that would have been it. But he worked up a general theory to the effect that they were an inferior race and that it would be better to eliminate them completely. In other words, he reached the point of holding a theory that he believed to be true."
-"Objectivity, the fact that that which is true is that which is verified on the basis of received criteria, is always preferred by the dominant classes."
-"We never experience an absolute origin of society, because we always find ourselves in conditions established prior to us."
-"A statement that 'works' always works for someone and in view of some goal."
A Farewell to Truth is a controversial book, as one might guess. Vattimo proposes that the idea of truth not only has limited value but tends to bend humans toward violence and totalitarianism. Democracy liberated from the notion of truth is what he recommends as a preferred alternative. It will shock those who haven't read much about pragmatism and especially neo-pragmatism of the postmodernist strain.
Reading it forced me to reflect on the keen cynicism I now feel toward many institutions. Nearly all of them have lied to me, corroding my trust: churches, schools, various levels of government, family, and employers, as well as various cultural institutions. Who can we trust? How do we cleanse ourselves and society of this cynicism? How do we restore our institutions?
As a Catholic thinker and former MP of the European Union, Vattimo holds a unique viewpoint in the intellectual landscape. He's new to me, but I found much to ponder. Here are a few highlights.
-"The conclusion toward which I am working is that the farewell to truth is the commencement, and the very basis, of democracy. If there were an objective truth to social and economic laws (economics is not a natural science), democracy would be an utterly irrational choice. It would be better to entrust the management of the State to experts, to Plato's philosopher-kings or all the Nobel Prize winners in every category."
-"Truth faces a challenge in the world of postmodern pluralism—the challenge of coming to grips with the fact that consensus on individual questions is above all a problem of collective interpretation, of constructing paradigms shared or, at any rate, explicitly recognized."
-"In the end, it boils down to understanding that truth is not encountered but constructed with consensus and respect for the liberty of everyone, and the diverse communities that live together, without bleeding, in a free society."
-"When the latter [the second Wittgenstein] talks about 'linguistic games,' within the bounds of which truth can arise only out of the observance of shared rules, never out of evidence of some correspondence with things, he is practicing hermeneutics without knowing it."
-"But the drive to find out the objective truth about countless deeds of this kind would make no sense if it weren't inspired by the necessity of rendering justice, in other words prioritizing not objectivity as such but the rights of the many who suffered and still suffer and the very right of the community to remake itself into a place of shared civic life, of true political amity. The freedom of everyone has no need of truth-as-correspondence except as a means to better achieve reciprocal comprehension, that realm of the spirit in which, as Hegel put it, humanity will one day be able to feel at one with itself, 'at home.'"
-"If the church continues to think of faith as a deposit of truths more certain than those ascertained by science, continues to profess a more or less literal creationism, and continues to try to impose its own biblical anthropology on the State, it is fated to dwindle away, in a world where science and human rights are becoming universal."
-"When the Church feels weak it talks about freedom, and when it feels strong it talks about truth."
-"A God 'different' from metaphysical Being can no longer be the God of definitive and absolute truth that allows no doctrinal variation. That is why he may be called a 'relativistic' God. A 'weak' God, if you will, who does not show us our weakness as a way of asserting (against rational expectation, as a mystery to which we must submit, as the ecclesiastical discipline we must accept) that he is luminous, omnipotent, sovereign, and awesome, that he bears all the traits of the threatening and reassuring personage of natural-metaphysical religiosity."
-"Nihilism equals Christianity because Jesus came into the world not to demonstrate what the 'natural' order was but to demolish it in the name of charity. Loving one's enemies is not exactly what nature prescribes, and more than that it isn't what 'naturally' happens."
-"Can we really do without biblical mythology, New Testament or Old? I don't believe so. I wouldn't want a Church without saints or Christmas and Easter rituals. But I don't want to be compelled to accept an elaborate doctrine like transubstantiation just so I can go to Mass. To take Christian mythology as though it were a description of a reality alternative to that of science is an authoritarian abuse that the church ought to abandon, because it scandalizes the faith."
-"If I have an idea that leads to a successful experiment, that doesn't mean that I gained exhaustive, objective knowledge of that aspect of reality. What I did—and the philosophy of science backs this up—was to make the experiment work, on the basis of certain expectations and premises. When I do an experiment, I already dispose of a set of criteria and instruments that make it possible for me, and for anyone whose ideas differ from mine, to tell whether the experiment worked or not. The criteria and the instruments are already in place and undisputed when I start. No scientist studies all of physics from scratch; they all learn from textbooks and build on that. This is universally accepted. So I don't want to hear any more of this talk about how scientists describe the world objectively. They describe it with rigorous instruments, which are nonetheless determined and historically qualified."
-"Not all metaphysicians have been violent, but I would say that almost all large-scale perpetrators of violence have been metaphysicians. If Hitler had merely hated the Jews in his neighborhood, he would have set fire to their houses, and that would have been it. But he worked up a general theory to the effect that they were an inferior race and that it would be better to eliminate them completely. In other words, he reached the point of holding a theory that he believed to be true."
-"Objectivity, the fact that that which is true is that which is verified on the basis of received criteria, is always preferred by the dominant classes."
-"We never experience an absolute origin of society, because we always find ourselves in conditions established prior to us."
-"A statement that 'works' always works for someone and in view of some goal."
June 19, 2023
Desde el umbral de las palabras, Vatinni nos conduce por un laberinto intelectual, desafiando los cimientos y cuestionando los pilares sobre los cuales la verdad ha sido erigida. Su pluma se desliza con elegancia sobre el lienzo de la página, trazando ideas que desafían las convenciones y se aventuran audazmente hacia la relatividad.
“Adiós a la verdad" es un texto que se lanza audazmente hacia el abismo de la relatividad, a través de las complejidades de la verdad, exteriorizando su naturaleza mutable y su dependencia de los contextos culturales y sociales. Sin embargo, en esta danza de ideas también encontramos espinas que punzan el corazón del lector crítico. La densidad filosófica de sus argumentos puede llegar a desorientar, como un enigma sin resolver que se esconde entre líneas. Algunos podrían argumentar que su enfoque relativista amenaza la objetividad y socava la certeza que tanto ansiamos.
Pero en ese abrazo con la incertidumbre, Vatinni nos invita a reflexionar, a cuestionar nuestras propias convicciones y a mirar más allá de la superficie de las cosas. Aunque su pluma se incline hacia una perspectiva particular, su obra nos instiga a explorar otros caminos y a nutrir el diálogo en busca de una comprensión más amplia. Es un texto que fluyen con ritmo y cadencia, evocando imágenes en la mente del lector y provocando emociones que se deslizan por las sinuosidades de la experiencia humana.
En resumen, haber leído "Adiós a la verdad" de Gianni Vattimo fue una experiencia intelectualmente estimulante y enriquecedora. La obra desafió las concepciones, de la aparente verdad, que como ejemplo algunos políticos llevaron a cabo para realizar sus fechorías internacionales. Me hizo una invitación a adentrarme en el vasto universo de la incertidumbre con una mirada lúcida y un corazón abierto.
“Adiós a la verdad" es un texto que se lanza audazmente hacia el abismo de la relatividad, a través de las complejidades de la verdad, exteriorizando su naturaleza mutable y su dependencia de los contextos culturales y sociales. Sin embargo, en esta danza de ideas también encontramos espinas que punzan el corazón del lector crítico. La densidad filosófica de sus argumentos puede llegar a desorientar, como un enigma sin resolver que se esconde entre líneas. Algunos podrían argumentar que su enfoque relativista amenaza la objetividad y socava la certeza que tanto ansiamos.
Pero en ese abrazo con la incertidumbre, Vatinni nos invita a reflexionar, a cuestionar nuestras propias convicciones y a mirar más allá de la superficie de las cosas. Aunque su pluma se incline hacia una perspectiva particular, su obra nos instiga a explorar otros caminos y a nutrir el diálogo en busca de una comprensión más amplia. Es un texto que fluyen con ritmo y cadencia, evocando imágenes en la mente del lector y provocando emociones que se deslizan por las sinuosidades de la experiencia humana.
En resumen, haber leído "Adiós a la verdad" de Gianni Vattimo fue una experiencia intelectualmente estimulante y enriquecedora. La obra desafió las concepciones, de la aparente verdad, que como ejemplo algunos políticos llevaron a cabo para realizar sus fechorías internacionales. Me hizo una invitación a adentrarme en el vasto universo de la incertidumbre con una mirada lúcida y un corazón abierto.
February 4, 2023
Interesante
April 24, 2015
A very complex study of a very important idea. Stretched my brain to the limit which is a good thing. A sober comment on the corruption of politicians and men in power in the 21st century and the absolute subversion of truth in our world today. Chilling in places.
October 31, 2016
I enjoyed this book. Especially the second chapter, Religion and the Future.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews