A Farewell to Truth

by Vattimo, Gianni; McCuaig, William; Valgenti, Robert T.

• ISBN13: 9780231153089
• ISBN10: 0231153082
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-04-05
• Publisher: Columbia Univ Pr

Summary

With Western cultures becoming more pluralistic, the question of "truth" in politics has become a game of interpretations. The outcome of the war in Iraq forced leaders to admit they lied about their justifications, but whether they did so voluntarily or involuntarily remains an unresolved issue, despite independent inquiry. Tolerance of untruth has been present and accepted since the dawn of time in practical politics, yet it was once condemned as an ethical violation deserving of public censure. Today, we face the demise of the very idea of truth, though many have yet to acknowledge that truth as an objective description of facts is changing. Gianni Vattimo explicitly engages with this trend and its implications for democracy. There are important consequences for how we conceive of politics and its truth, such as a radical retreat from grounding politics in science, economics, and technology. However in Vattimo's conception, a farewell to truth can benefit democracy, exposing the unspoken issues underlying all objective claims. The end of absolute truth also 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 not encountered but constructed with a consensus and respect for the liberty of all. By taking into account the cultural paradigms of others, a more "truthful" society& -freer and more democratic& -is 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 Neitzsche's death of God to the death of an authoritarian God, ushering in a new, post-religious Christianity. He connects the thought of Heidegger, Marx, and Karl Popper with surprising results and accommodates modern science more than in previous books, 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 musings contribute deeply to a modern reconception of God, metaphysics, and the purpose of reality.