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Gianni Vattimo: Fortunes of a Philosophy

Edited by Emanuele Antonelli, Alberto Martinengo, Gregorio Tenti

Among the most influential European intellectuals of the second half of the 20th century, Gianni Vattimo (1936-2023) was the author of a successful and still vibrant thought: a year after his death, a new phase of the work of reflection and debate on his theoretical legacy begins. The journal “Trópos,” co-founded by Vattimo himself in 2008, intends to contribute to this endeavour with a monographic issue devoted to the fortunes of his philosophy and to the disclosures, possibilities, developments and contradictions it gives way to.

Many disciplines are touched by his path. Vattimo, a disciple of Luigi Pareyson’s, debuts as a scholar of aesthetics, the subject he will teach at the University of Turin for more than fifteen years. But his reflections on the liberation of the symbolic and the aestheticization of the world, decisively influenced by his encounter with Hans-Georg Gadamer, soon converged into the approach to which Vattimo contributed the most and for which he is predominantly known worldwide: philosophical hermeneutics. Weaving together innovative readings of authors such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger and Ernst Bloch, Vattimo developed a hermeneutics with an anti-metaphysical, nihilistic and kenotic vocation, symbolized by the kind of weakening that would make him one of the most important theorists of postmodernism.

But Vattimo's hermeneutics also carries along strong implications in the ontological and epistemological spheres, insofar as it leads its questioning of reality within the analysis of the criteria of signification and historical givenness; it also crosses themes pertaining to the philosophy of religion in making the path of metaphysics coincide with the secularizing effect of Christianity; and finally, it takes on decisive ethical and political instances envisioning an emancipatory, anti-authoritarian and anti-dogmatic praxis, aimed at ensuring that - to use his words - “the conversation goes on”.

Far beyond the confines of the debates it has gone through and the labels attached to it, reopening the discussion on Vattimo's philosophy means retracing and studying it in all its complexity. This call for papers therefore welcomes contributions that address his philosophy from the many disciplines he touched upon (hermeneutics, aesthetics, ontology, epistemology, philosophy of religion, politics...), but also with regards to specific works or within comparative analyses that situate the author in the history of thought or in the contemporary debate.

About the Call

- Interested authors should send a paper of up to 50,000 characters by October 31, 2024 using the journal’s online platform. Contributions in Italian, English, French, Spanish and German are accepted.

- The outcome of the double-blind evaluation will be communicated by November 30, 2024.

- The final article must be received by December 31, 2024.

In addition, the submission must include:

- Name and affiliation;

- Abstract of maximum 200 words;

- 5 keywords;

- Biography of 50-60 words.

 

For further information and Guidelines for the Authors see the journal’s website.