The end of modernity : nihilism and hermeneutics in post-modern culture ; translated andwith an introduction

Now available in paperback, this book provides an elegant analysis of the philosophical background to the post-modernity debate. Vattimo focuses on the work of Nietzsche and Heidegger and shows how their bitter criticisms of modern European thought prepared the way for more recent proclamations of the end of the modern era. Vattimo pursues questions central to aesthetics and hermeneutic philosophy and sides with contemporary philosophers such as Gadamer and Rorty in rejecting the search for stable and transcendent foundations for knowledge. Going beyond their work he introduces the notions of 'weak thought' and 'weak ontology' which, he argues, offer a way of 'going beyond' metaphysics by curing philosophy of the modernist disease and by resituating questions of truth and being within the realm of human experience. Now available in paperback, this book provides an elegant analysis of the philosophical background to the post--modernity debate. Vattimo focuses on the work of Nietzsche and Heidegger and shows how their bitter criticisms of modern European thought prepared the way for more recent proclamations of the end of the modern era. Vattimo pursues questions central to aesthetics and hermeneutic philosophy and sides with contemporary philosophers such as Gadamer and Rorty in rejecting the search for stable and transcendent foundations for knowledge. Going beyond their work he introduces the notions of a weak thoughta and a weak ontologya which, he argues, offer a way of a going beyonda metaphysics by curing philosophy of the modernist disease and by resituating questions of truth and being within the realm of human experience Aeo New in paperback, this is a major contribution to the highly topical post--modernity debates. aeo Gianni Vattimo is the leading Italian philosopher of post--modernism, and an expert on Nietzsche, Heidegger and Gadamer. aeo Vattimo presents a distinct philosophical position based on his well--known notion of 'weak thoughta This book is a study of the relationship that links the conclusions reached by Nietzsche and Heidegger in their respective works (to which I shall constantly refer) to more recent discourses on the end of the modern era and on post-modernity. An analysis of modernity and post-modernity, focusing on Nietzsche and Heidegger to show how their criticisms of modern European thought prepared the way for more recent proclamations of the end of the modern era.