Nihilism and Emancipation

Gianni Vatimo's Nihilism and Emancipation is a work that surprisingly resonates with my own thoughts. A postmodern work that rejects foundations, it does not degenerate into a crass moral relativism nor does it resort to a leap of faith to satisfy the sense of grief after realizing there is no Being. Nihilism is simply the recognition that there is no metaphysics, no essential structure on which to found morality. There is only interpretation.

But I share Vatimo's attitude with Dewey in that they do not despair over the recognition that there is no ground beneath our feet. Paradoxically, he sees nihilism as a path to emancipation, which is the reduction of violence. Emancipation is achieved because most constraints to freedom are based on foundationalist claims of a prior Being, a natural law or a deity, used to silence dissent. But Vatimo argues that the alternative to the oblivion of Being is not necessarily a reversion to the state of nature. Rather, rules that respect and recognize history and context evolve through dialogue.

Thus, one arrives at a world where there is more room for love and kindness, and a recognition that we are all human, all too human, rather than one of rules and codes derived from a discovery of Being.