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A radical freedom? Gianni Vattimo's ‘emancipatory nihilism’

  • Feature Article: Political Theory Revisited
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Contemporary Political Theory Aims and scope

Abstract

What scope is there for emancipatory politics in light of the postmodern critique of philosophical foundations? This paper examines the response to this question by Italian philosopher, Gianni Vattimo, who for over two decades has defended the emancipatory prospects of what he terms ‘nihilism’. Vattimo conceives the retreat of metaphysics as a progressive weakening of ontological claims and an opening towards new and diverse modes of being. In his view, far from an exclusively tragic experience of loss or meaninglessness, nihilism is a steadily expanding narrative that invites us to face up to our own radical freedom. The paper sets out Vattimo's central arguments and contrasts the ethical thrust of his ‘emancipatory nihilism’ with the distinctly political take on emancipation presented by Ernesto Laclau. While the two converge on the withdrawal of metaphysics as the premise for a radical and democratic freedom, Vattimo's vision remains insufficiently focused on the dynamics of contestation that a generalized nihilism implies.

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Notes

  1. Rorty's political outlook is well summarized in Rorty, 1989, pp. 44–69; 1999, pp. 229–239; John Gray's position is defended in Gray, 2000; and his chilling view of utopianism is presented in Gray, 2007.

  2. On the differentiation of ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ freedom, see the classic essay in Berlin, 1969, pp. 118–172.

  3. For Vattimo's general reading of Heidegger, see his introductory volume: Vattimo, 2005. Heidegger and Nietzsche are central figures in most of Vattimo's writings on other topics. See especially Vattimo, 1988a, 1993.

  4. In Beyond Interpretation, Vattimo takes issue with Derrida's deconstructive reading of texts, describing them as a form of ‘aestheticism’ which exposes the contingency of truth-claims but fails to look beyond the text to an emergent form of Being characterized as ‘multiplicity, temporality, mortality’ (Vattimo, 1997, p. 92. See also pp. 12, 100–103).

  5. As he argued in his interview with Lotta Continua, the term ‘revolution’ has more a ‘symbolic value’ than a genuine strategic purpose (Vattimo, 1984, pp. 17–18).

  6. Vattimo was keen to indicate that his shift to the Left was not an acceptance of the revolutionary communist tradition: ‘I use the slogan: real communism is dead, long live ideal communism … we should perhaps invent the term “liberal communism’” (Vattimo, 2007a, p. 36).

  7. See, for instance, Laclau's comments at the end of his essay on emancipation, in which he declares, ‘We are today coming to terms with our own finitude and with the political possibilities that it opens. This is the point from which the potentially liberatory discourses of our postmodern age have to start. We can perhaps say that today we are at the end of emancipation and at the beginning of freedom’ (Laclau, 1996, p. 18).

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Acknowledgements

I am grateful to my colleague Saul Newman and to the journal's referees for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

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  1. Goldsmiths, University of London, New Cross, London, SE16 6NW, UK

    James Martin

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Martin, J. A radical freedom? Gianni Vattimo's ‘emancipatory nihilism’. Contemp Polit Theory 9, 325–344 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1057/cpt.2009.7

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