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Not Being God: A Collaborative Autobiography
Gianni Vattimo, a leading philosopher of the continental school, has always resisted autobiography. But in this intimate memoir, the voice of Vattimo as thinker, political activist, and human being finds its expression on the page. With Piergiorgio Paterlini, a noted Italian writer and journalist, Vattimo reflects on a lifetime of politics, sexual radicalism, and philosophical exuberance in postwar Italy. Turin, the city where he was born and one of the intellectual capitals of Europe (also the city in which Nietzsche went mad), forms the core of his reminiscences, enhanced by fascinating vignettes of studying under Hans Georg Gadamer, teaching in the United States, serving as a public intellectual and interlocutor of Habermas and Derrida, and working within the European Parliament to unite Europe.
Vattimo's status as a left-wing faculty president paradoxically made him a target of the Red Brigades in the 1970s, causing him to flee Turin for his life. Left-wing terrorism did not deter the philosopher from his quest for social progress, however, and in the 1980s, he introduced a daring formulation called "weak thought," which stripped metaphysics, science, religion, and all other absolute systems of their authority. Vattimo then became notorious both for his renewed commitment to the core values of Christianity (he was trained as a Catholic intellectual) and for the Vatican's denunciation of his views.
Paterlini weaves his interviews with Vattimo into an utterly candid first-person portrait, creating a riveting text that is destined to become one of the most compelling accounts of homosexuality, history, politics, and philosophical invention in the twentieth century.
Vattimo's status as a left-wing faculty president paradoxically made him a target of the Red Brigades in the 1970s, causing him to flee Turin for his life. Left-wing terrorism did not deter the philosopher from his quest for social progress, however, and in the 1980s, he introduced a daring formulation called "weak thought," which stripped metaphysics, science, religion, and all other absolute systems of their authority. Vattimo then became notorious both for his renewed commitment to the core values of Christianity (he was trained as a Catholic intellectual) and for the Vatican's denunciation of his views.
Paterlini weaves his interviews with Vattimo into an utterly candid first-person portrait, creating a riveting text that is destined to become one of the most compelling accounts of homosexuality, history, politics, and philosophical invention in the twentieth century.
- GenresPhilosophy
200 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
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 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 13, 2021
Reading As Resistance
Unless you’re a professional philosopher with an interest in European thought, you probably don’t know much of Gianni Vattimo. But if you read, especially if you take reading as seriously as living, you will want to know Vattimo better. In brief, he gives some very good reasons for your devotion to literature, not the least of which is the need to understand the tactics and tropes of political vulgarity. Vattimo has been dealing with the Trump-like Italian Head of State, Berlusconi, for some considerable time. His street cred is established. So next time you feel a bit down because you or your family think you should stop reading and 'get out more', check him out. This biography might be the easiest entry into his oeuvre.
Gianni Vattimo is the world’s leading philosopher of ‘weakness’, the idea that thought, like any other human characteristic, can be a tool of power if it is misconstrued as divine. Given his controversial and often aggressively-pressed political views, one might be forgiven for perceiving a paradox. This is unlikely to worry Vattimo, who finds paradox the source of human intellectual life. Paradox keeps us searching; more important, it keeps us from believing we have final answers to basic questions. It keeps us humble, keeps us not being God.
As human power both increases and concentrates in the world, the temptation to equate power with truth as well as success can become overwhelming. The real danger in Donald Trump, for example, is not his unstable finger on the nuclear button (there are enough adults around who can stay that tiny finger), it is the possibility that he will solidify for generations to come, a narrative idea which has threatened American democracy since its inception: that exceptionalism, of any sort but particularly that which presumes a national blessing from God, necessitates and even justifies human cruelty.
Vattimo’s philosophy begins where much of American Pragmatism and European Deconstruction ends, with Interpretation as the foundation of everything contained in language, and therefore in thought. There is nothing other than interpretation against which to assess interpretation. Interpretations are, therefore, necessarily fictions, not in any pejorative sense, but in that they can never incorporate the totality of what they refer to. They are incomplete at best and are, if put forth as anything more, simply lies.
Vattimo is an atheist but this insight of interpretation as necessarily incomplete has its roots in Judaic and Christian ‘negative theology’, the study of what God is not. God, and by implication God’s creation, is perennially misinterpreted by human beings. Since neither God nor his creation can ever be fully, that is definitively, interpreted, all interpretations are not just temporary, they are dangerous (in fact heresies since they take a partial truth as a complete truth). They are particularly dangerous because power will want to fix them as truth for its own benefit.
What Vattimo does with this insight makes him interesting for literature. While others try to establish methods for ‘better’ interpretations, or formulate rules for equably arguing about alternative interpretations, Vattimo’s philosophy is very much in the manner of negative theology. His approach is to challenge all interpretations by continuously suggesting alternatives, new narratives that have an effect on the feelings as well as the intellect. In short, he is an intellectual anarchist. All authority, all power is to be questioned insistently, not through alternative centres of power, and certainly not by violence, but most directly through literature. Simply put, the writing and reading of new, innovative, challenging, inspiring stories is the primary means for ensuring that no one gets to believe they’re God for very long, even Donald Trump.
To the barricades with Jane Eyre!
Unless you’re a professional philosopher with an interest in European thought, you probably don’t know much of Gianni Vattimo. But if you read, especially if you take reading as seriously as living, you will want to know Vattimo better. In brief, he gives some very good reasons for your devotion to literature, not the least of which is the need to understand the tactics and tropes of political vulgarity. Vattimo has been dealing with the Trump-like Italian Head of State, Berlusconi, for some considerable time. His street cred is established. So next time you feel a bit down because you or your family think you should stop reading and 'get out more', check him out. This biography might be the easiest entry into his oeuvre.
Gianni Vattimo is the world’s leading philosopher of ‘weakness’, the idea that thought, like any other human characteristic, can be a tool of power if it is misconstrued as divine. Given his controversial and often aggressively-pressed political views, one might be forgiven for perceiving a paradox. This is unlikely to worry Vattimo, who finds paradox the source of human intellectual life. Paradox keeps us searching; more important, it keeps us from believing we have final answers to basic questions. It keeps us humble, keeps us not being God.
As human power both increases and concentrates in the world, the temptation to equate power with truth as well as success can become overwhelming. The real danger in Donald Trump, for example, is not his unstable finger on the nuclear button (there are enough adults around who can stay that tiny finger), it is the possibility that he will solidify for generations to come, a narrative idea which has threatened American democracy since its inception: that exceptionalism, of any sort but particularly that which presumes a national blessing from God, necessitates and even justifies human cruelty.
Vattimo’s philosophy begins where much of American Pragmatism and European Deconstruction ends, with Interpretation as the foundation of everything contained in language, and therefore in thought. There is nothing other than interpretation against which to assess interpretation. Interpretations are, therefore, necessarily fictions, not in any pejorative sense, but in that they can never incorporate the totality of what they refer to. They are incomplete at best and are, if put forth as anything more, simply lies.
Vattimo is an atheist but this insight of interpretation as necessarily incomplete has its roots in Judaic and Christian ‘negative theology’, the study of what God is not. God, and by implication God’s creation, is perennially misinterpreted by human beings. Since neither God nor his creation can ever be fully, that is definitively, interpreted, all interpretations are not just temporary, they are dangerous (in fact heresies since they take a partial truth as a complete truth). They are particularly dangerous because power will want to fix them as truth for its own benefit.
What Vattimo does with this insight makes him interesting for literature. While others try to establish methods for ‘better’ interpretations, or formulate rules for equably arguing about alternative interpretations, Vattimo’s philosophy is very much in the manner of negative theology. His approach is to challenge all interpretations by continuously suggesting alternatives, new narratives that have an effect on the feelings as well as the intellect. In short, he is an intellectual anarchist. All authority, all power is to be questioned insistently, not through alternative centres of power, and certainly not by violence, but most directly through literature. Simply put, the writing and reading of new, innovative, challenging, inspiring stories is the primary means for ensuring that no one gets to believe they’re God for very long, even Donald Trump.
To the barricades with Jane Eyre!
February 29, 2020
"An intellectual I may be, but first and foremost I come from the lower depths, I'm not well-born, I've come from nowhere, and as if that weren't enough - I'm a miserable ex-Catholic"
Before this one I read the short book Belief that Vattimo published in 1995 about his emotional return to his Catholic faith (although you have to take that with a grain of salt). The book left me very unsatisfied, but perhaps that was because I didn't know Vattimo and his philosophical work very well. This book makes up for that. It is a kind of autobiography in the form of a long conversation with a (fictitious?) friend.
Like any autobiography, this book is highly apologetic and also illustrates the petty-human, vain aspects of Vattimo. But he is not afraid to also talk about the uncertainties in his very erratic life course, even about rather intimate matters, for example his personal struggle with his homosexuality.
On the basis of this book it is perfectly possible to reconstruct an intellectual biography of Vattimo: his proletarian descent and militant Catholic commitment in his youth and years of study, in the 1950s; his steep academic career as a philosopher, coupled with a strong left-wing commitment, ranging from maoism to classical communism to libertarian anarchism. As mentioned in "Belief", the postmodernism of René Girard in particular brought him back into the Christian realm, although that seems more like a return to the warm security of his former environment. Not only philosophical musings (his concept of "soft thinking"), but also the loss of some loved ones played a role in this.
And that brings us to the vulnerable Vattimo, who, with his postmodern relativism, has a keen eye for the uncertainties of existence and an aversion to scientism and fundamentalism (both religious and rationalistic). In this way, this book provides a good view on the fragile existence of a man who, after his very public role (also in politics), at 70, consciously chooses to "not being God" anymore.
Before this one I read the short book Belief that Vattimo published in 1995 about his emotional return to his Catholic faith (although you have to take that with a grain of salt). The book left me very unsatisfied, but perhaps that was because I didn't know Vattimo and his philosophical work very well. This book makes up for that. It is a kind of autobiography in the form of a long conversation with a (fictitious?) friend.
Like any autobiography, this book is highly apologetic and also illustrates the petty-human, vain aspects of Vattimo. But he is not afraid to also talk about the uncertainties in his very erratic life course, even about rather intimate matters, for example his personal struggle with his homosexuality.
On the basis of this book it is perfectly possible to reconstruct an intellectual biography of Vattimo: his proletarian descent and militant Catholic commitment in his youth and years of study, in the 1950s; his steep academic career as a philosopher, coupled with a strong left-wing commitment, ranging from maoism to classical communism to libertarian anarchism. As mentioned in "Belief", the postmodernism of René Girard in particular brought him back into the Christian realm, although that seems more like a return to the warm security of his former environment. Not only philosophical musings (his concept of "soft thinking"), but also the loss of some loved ones played a role in this.
And that brings us to the vulnerable Vattimo, who, with his postmodern relativism, has a keen eye for the uncertainties of existence and an aversion to scientism and fundamentalism (both religious and rationalistic). In this way, this book provides a good view on the fragile existence of a man who, after his very public role (also in politics), at 70, consciously chooses to "not being God" anymore.
November 20, 2020
Il libro presenta una sorte di auto riflessione biografico-filosofica. In questo senso è molto interessante perché Vattimo è un personaggio particolarmente interessante alla luce della sua epoca è dei personaggi che c'erano nel suo intorno, como Luigi Pareyson. In questo senso, l'opera rivela pure una sorte di sviluppo della cultura intellettuale dell'Italia del secolo scorso.
Forse più interessante l'opera che il filosofo. Anche se bisogna dirlo, sono da parte della filosofia analitica
Forse più interessante l'opera che il filosofo. Anche se bisogna dirlo, sono da parte della filosofia analitica
January 7, 2022
“Più di tutto io ho cercato la libertà. Per me. Per gli altri. Più ancora dell’amore forse, più della fama e del successo certamente, più del potere di sicuro, io ho cercato la libertà.”
“Se senti troppe voci e non ne inventi una tua, lì in mezzo, beh, ti perdi, non ci sei più, sparisci.”
“La filosofia ha il dovere di mostrare come la verità non sia mai l’oggettività, ma sempre dialogo interpersonale che si attua nella condivisione del linguaggio.”
ecologia = etica non aggressiva.
“Se senti troppe voci e non ne inventi una tua, lì in mezzo, beh, ti perdi, non ci sei più, sparisci.”
“La filosofia ha il dovere di mostrare come la verità non sia mai l’oggettività, ma sempre dialogo interpersonale che si attua nella condivisione del linguaggio.”
ecologia = etica non aggressiva.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews