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.
