Secularization as Kenosis

secularization as kenosis | 205
as a realm beyond this world. The stable and static world of ideas made it possible to
have knowledge of the transient and mutable world. The second stage is the stage of the
Kantian discovery that the world is co-constituted by the human subject. Without the
constituting activity of the human subject, there is no world to be known. The thing in
itself cannot be known. The only thing we can say about it is that we cannot deny its
existence. The third stage of Verfall is the stage of positive science. This is the stage in
which the world is claimed to be known as it is in itself. It is the activity of the establishing
of facts, which marks out its ultimately subjective character. This is why we speak
of the world as a product of modern science. So even in the stage of positive science,
argues Vattimo, there is no longer a true world, rather “. . . truth is reduced entirely to
what is ‘posited’ by the human subject, namely – ‘will to power’.” 146 In trying to find
the true, objective world, we stay within the boundaries of metaphysics. What Vattimo
rejects in metaphysics is that it “identifies being with the objectively given” and “the
calculable, measurable and definitively manipulable object of techno-science.” 147 Vattimo’s
effort is not to improve the objective picture of the world, rather to leave the
subject-object scheme behind and replace it with another way of relating to the world.
Vattimo seeks to “quit a horizon of thought that is an enemy of freedom and of the
historicity of existing.” 148 This condition is one of a dissolution of reality:
. . . as science speaks increasingly little of objects that can be compared with those in
everyday experience, it is no longer clear what to call ‘reality’ – what I see and feel or
what is described in books about physics or astrophysics? Technology and the production
of commodities increasingly configure the world as an artificial world, where one
cannot distinguish between natural, basic needs and those induced and manipulated
by advertisement, so that here too is no longer a measuring-stick to distinguish the
real from the ‘invented’. 149
In the emergence of nihilism, the world is increasingly a product of human creativity.
Vattimo does see this happen in postmodern culture and there is absolutely no doubt
that his observations are to the point. It is quite another thing, however, to equate this
loss of reality with an aesthetic experience and to defend it philosophically. As Vattimo
sees it, aesthetic experience is paradigmatic for postmodern culture. In an aesthetic
culture, the loss of reality and solidity of the world can be experienced as a liberation.
The aesthetic experience opens up our everyday life for other possible worlds, in the
light of which the world of science is but a limitation. 150
In modern technology (and for Vattimo this is most of all information technology),
there is a constant production of world pictures, which makes the classical distinction
between the humanities and the sciences problematic. The sciences too are caught up
in a process of redescribing the world. 151 In this paradox, that our reservoir of scientific
knowledge is exploding at a time in which the world is increasingly designed by
human beings, modern rationalism is both declining and triumphing. The sciences of
146 Vattimo, Belief, 29–30.
147 Vattimo, Belief, 30.
148 Vattimo, Belief, 31.
149 Vattimo, Belief, 31.
150 Vattimo writes: In an aesthetic culture, the loss of reality and solidity of the world can be experienced
as a liberation. The aesthetic experience opens up our everyday life for other possible worlds, in the light of
which the world of science is but a limitation. Vattimo, Transparent Society, 156.
151 Vattimo, Transparent Society, 41.