Vattimo, Gianni (1936—)
Italian philosopher. Born in Turin, Vattimo studied philosophy at the University of Turin, graduating in 1959. He then went to Heidelberg to complete his doctoral studies under the supervision of renowned hermeneuticists Karl Löwith and Gadamer, Hans-Georg. He returned to Turin in 1964 to take up a position at his alma mater, a link he has maintained for his entire career. In 1999, Vattimo was elected to the European Parliament on the Party of Italian Communists ticket. He remained there until 2004, when he resigned from the party. He has since then worked as a journalist, but remains active in European politics. Although openly gay, Vattimo is not a auteur theory as such. He is a Catholic and several of his works, including a collaboration with Derrida, Jacques, Religion (1998), deal with religious and theological issues. Vattimo is best known as an exponent of weak thought, or weak ontology, which takes the view that since there is no strong link between language and reality there are only interpretations; the task of philosophy under such conditions is to develop better and more rigorous interpretations. Consequently, hermeneutics is in Vattimo’s view the principal mode of doing philosophy today. Vattimo is in this respect usefully thought of as a postmodern philosopher, albeit one closer in his thinking to Rorty, Richard than Lyotard, Jean-François. His best-known works are La fine della modernità (1985), translated as The End of Modernity: Nihilism and Hermeneutics in Post-Modern Culture (1991) and La società trasparente (1989), translated as The Transparent Society (1994).