Secularization as Kenosis
Secularization as Kenosis Secularization as Kenosis
176 | postmodern condition and secularity particular. As a young man Vattimo had a close bond with institutional religion. He describes himself as a militant Catholic. In his student years Vattimo turned his back on the Church, its ethics and metaphysics. Under the influence of his promotor, the Italian philosopher Pareyson, he started to read the great anti-modern philosophers Nietzsche and Heidegger. Nietzsche and Heidegger would remain the two most important philosophers for Vattimo. Only Gadamer, whose assistant he was for some time, approaches them in importance. Like many of his generation he felt attracted to socialism and the activism of the left. In his books of that time, however, he distanced himself from a purely economic revolution in a Maoist and Marxist sense. He suggested that the Maoist revolution should form an alliance with the bourgeois avant-garde: so that the revolution would not end up in a proletarian regime. He emphasized the need for liberation from the values of a Christian-bourgeois society in terms of a psycho-analytic theory. 5 The suggestion of a broadening of the revolution made him suspect in radical, left circles. His attitude to the socialist agenda became more critical and Vattimo began to see more and more that the ideology of the left is potentially violent. 6 Moving away from the violence of leftist ideology, he became devoted to studying the intrinsic connection between violence and ideology. Vattimo became increasingly disappointed with mainstream left parties and he realized that they did not have a real alternative to the expansion of the neo-liberal economic system. This made him rediscover the meaning of communism. As a member of the communist party, he worked as a member of the European Parliament for four years. 7 After that, he returned to the University of Turin, where he teaches as a professor of philosophy. In order to make clearer the relation Vattimo has to the preceding discussions, I will give a general impression of Vattimo’s relationship to the philosophy of Richard Rorty. So far, we have demonstrated, through a reading of Rorty, that there is an intrinsic link between postmodern philosophy and the concept of secularity. Rorty establishes this link by speaking of secularization as temporalization. By giving this broader definition of the concept he can use it to refer both to the transition from a metaphysical-Christian to a modern-scientific culture and to the transition from a modern-scientific culture to a postmodern-literary culture. Our reading of Rorty also made clear that this is not the end for religion. In order to get rid of positivism’s obsession with ‘truth as correspondence’ – for Rorty nothing but a secularization of monotheism – he argues that a polytheistic philosophy of religion fits the postmodern condition best. So there is a postmodern turn to religion in the philosophy of Rorty, but this is not a return to the metaphysics of premodern religion, but rather an overcoming of metaphysics, through polytheistic religion. A significant overlapping concern is given here with Vattimo’s research program. As Nancy Frankenberry remarks, ‘it is the secularization thesis that undergirds both their narratives.’ 8 For Vattimo, however, the insistence on secularization is not a means to overcome Christianity, but rather a legitimate continuation of Christianity in the 5 Erik Meganck, Nihilistische caritas?: secularisatie bij Gianni Vattimo (Leuven: Peeters, 2005), 5. 6 Meganck, 4. 7 Vattimo was a member of the Party of Italian Communists. Between 1999 and 2004 he was a member of the European Parliament, for the Party of European Socialists. For an overview of his op-eds see his website ���������������������������. 8 Nancy Frankenberry, ‘Weakening Religious Belief: Vattimo, Rorty, and the Holism of the Mental’, in: Santiago Zabala, editor, Weakening Philosophy. Essays in Honour of Gianni Vattimo (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2007), 282.
secularization as kenosis | 177 form of hermeneutic philosophy. Vattimo sees a continuity between Christianity and the modern philosophies of history. For Vattimo this is no reason to turn his back on both, but rather to see the transition from Christianity to secular philosophies of history as a legitimate continuation of the central message of Christianity. Vattimo shares with Rorty the intuition that Nietzsche and Heidegger are the guiding figures for a genuinely postmodern philosophy. For Vattimo, Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity and the emergence of a hermeneutic kind of philosophy enables the return of a more authentic religion. 9 Postmodern critique makes it possible for Vattimo to leave the quest for indubitable foundations behind and to engage in a post-foundationalist hermeneutics, that takes off from the particular tradition of Christianity. 10 In Vattimo we thus find a more complex relation to religion and to Christianity. Whereas Rorty works with a one-sided picture of the God of Christianity in a deistic sense (Such a God would have no real relationships, no need or ability to act, a God as a ‘mere machine’). 11 Vattimo also voices a critique of the metaphysical nature of Christian theology, but he underscores the nature of Christianity as a narrative on the kenotic God, whose strength is in his weakness and who becomes man in Jesus Christ. This is not to say that Rorty and Vattimo merely defend opposite positions. They both work out a theory of a secular culture within a postmodern framework. This has made religion a central concern for both of them. 12 The two differ mainly on the consequences of a post-modern epistemology for religion. They both emphasize the importance of the historic nature of rationality and explicitly reject foundationalism. For Rorty, a genuine historicist outlook is all we need for understanding the history of philosophy, like we understand in cultural anthropology. For Vattimo, on the other hand, we meet in the history of philosophy, including all its errors, the history of Being. His originality lies in his insistence on an ontological questioning as the key to understanding the postmodern condition. 13 This tradition should therefore not be met with an attitude of irony, rather with one of piety. 14 This implies a methodological difference. The main part of Rorty’s work is concerned with epistemology as to evade ontological and metaphysical subjects. Vattimo’s primary interest is in metaphysics and the attempt to understand postmodernism as an heir of the metaphysical tradition. What exactly should be understood under the idea of historicity is a point of discussion between Rorty and Vattimo. Despite all their shared philosophical intuitions, Rorty and Vattimo travel diverging roads when it comes to the legitimacy of religion and the shape secularity must take in a postmodern era. Whereas Rorty sees the postmodern condition as a condition of absolute temporalization and sees therefore no need for an ontological questioning, Vattimo develops an historicist ontology. Only against this 9 D’Isanto writes: “The pervasive return of religion in contemporary culture increasingly calls for an interpretation of the present that is no longer grounded in the Enlightenment prejudice against religion, and consequently in the theories of secularization which maintained that religion would be wiped out by the modern process of rationalization.” Luca D’Isanto, ‘Introduction’, in: Belief (London: Polity Press, 1995), 10. 10 “Tradition is not foundation” in Gianni Vattimo and Ger Groot, ‘Traditie is geen fundament- gesprek met Gianni Vattimo’, in: Gianni Vattimo and Ger Groot, editors, Een zwak geloof. Christendom voorbij de metafysica (Kampen: Agora, 2000), 31–38. 11 Rorty, Mirror of Nature, 376. 12 See their co-publication Richard Rorty and Gianni Vattimo, The Future of Religion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 13 John R. Snyder, ‘Translator’s Introduction’, in: The end of Modernity. Nihilism and Hermeneutics in Post-modern perspective (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1988), liv. 14 Snyder, xlviii, li.
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176 | postmodern condition and secularity<br />
particular. As a young man Vattimo had a close bond with institutional religion. He<br />
describes himself <strong>as</strong> a militant Catholic. In his student years Vattimo turned his back<br />
on the Church, its ethics and metaphysics. Under the influence of his promotor, the<br />
Italian philosopher Pareyson, he started to read the great anti-modern philosophers Nietzsche<br />
and Heidegger. Nietzsche and Heidegger would remain the two most important<br />
philosophers for Vattimo. Only Gadamer, whose <strong>as</strong>sistant he w<strong>as</strong> for some time, approaches<br />
them in importance. Like many of his generation he felt attracted to socialism<br />
and the activism of the left. In his books of that time, however, he distanced himself<br />
from a purely economic revolution in a Maoist and Marxist sense. He suggested that<br />
the Maoist revolution should form an alliance with the bourgeois avant-garde: so that<br />
the revolution would not end up in a proletarian regime. He emph<strong>as</strong>ized the need for<br />
liberation from the values of a Christian-bourgeois society in terms of a psycho-analytic<br />
theory. 5 The suggestion of a broadening of the revolution made him suspect in radical,<br />
left circles. His attitude to the socialist agenda became more critical and Vattimo began<br />
to see more and more that the ideology of the left is potentially violent. 6 Moving away<br />
from the violence of leftist ideology, he became devoted to studying the intrinsic connection<br />
between violence and ideology. Vattimo became incre<strong>as</strong>ingly disappointed with<br />
mainstream left parties and he realized that they did not have a real alternative to the<br />
expansion of the neo-liberal economic system. This made him rediscover the meaning<br />
of communism. As a member of the communist party, he worked <strong>as</strong> a member of the<br />
European Parliament for four years. 7 After that, he returned to the University of Turin,<br />
where he teaches <strong>as</strong> a professor of philosophy.<br />
In order to make clearer the relation Vattimo h<strong>as</strong> to the preceding discussions, I will<br />
give a general impression of Vattimo’s relationship to the philosophy of Richard Rorty.<br />
So far, we have demonstrated, through a reading of Rorty, that there is an intrinsic link<br />
between postmodern philosophy and the concept of secularity. Rorty establishes this<br />
link by speaking of secularization <strong>as</strong> temporalization. By giving this broader definition<br />
of the concept he can use it to refer both to the transition from a metaphysical-Christian<br />
to a modern-scientific culture and to the transition from a modern-scientific culture<br />
to a postmodern-literary culture. Our reading of Rorty also made clear that this is<br />
not the end for religion. In order to get rid of positivism’s obsession with ‘truth <strong>as</strong><br />
correspondence’ – for Rorty nothing but a secularization of monotheism – he argues<br />
that a polytheistic philosophy of religion fits the postmodern condition best. So there is<br />
a postmodern turn to religion in the philosophy of Rorty, but this is not a return to the<br />
metaphysics of premodern religion, but rather an overcoming of metaphysics, through<br />
polytheistic religion.<br />
A significant overlapping concern is given here with Vattimo’s research program.<br />
As Nancy Frankenberry remarks, ‘it is the secularization thesis that undergirds both<br />
their narratives.’ 8 For Vattimo, however, the insistence on secularization is not a means<br />
to overcome Christianity, but rather a legitimate continuation of Christianity in the<br />
5 Erik Meganck, Nihilistische carit<strong>as</strong>?: secularisatie bij Gianni Vattimo (Leuven: Peeters, 2005), 5.<br />
6 Meganck, 4.<br />
7 Vattimo w<strong>as</strong> a member of the Party of Italian Communists. Between 1999 and 2004 he w<strong>as</strong> a member<br />
of the European Parliament, for the Party of European Socialists. For an overview of his op-eds see his website<br />
���������������������������.<br />
8 Nancy Frankenberry, ‘Weakening Religious Belief: Vattimo, Rorty, and the Holism of the Mental’, in:<br />
Santiago Zabala, editor, Weakening Philosophy. Essays in Honour of Gianni Vattimo (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s<br />
University Press, 2007), 282.