Being and Information

Abstract

A philosophy, such as Gianni Vattimo's, which cedes thought's quest for certain knowledge of objective structures to interpretations of historically conditioned circumstances, would seem to surrender its own claims to validity and relevance to the vagaries of those circumstances. From this perspective, Vattimo's thought would appear to have achieved the apogee of its relevance in the 'postmodern moment' of the 1980s, when the hard-won lessons of his engagements with Nietzsche and Heidegger allowed him to formulate a distinctive and coherent meaning of 'the postmodern' in philosophy.1 Despite the fact that Vattimo's weak thought was distinctively philosophical, it arguably found itself confirmed in thousands of echoes from every corner of contemporary academia and wider culture: the claims that there is very little of Being as objective structure left, and that there are no truths, only interpretations, appeared to resonate with the cultural Zeitgeist and legitimate Vattimo's philosophy as an 'ontology of actuality'2By contrast, the current moment seems in many respects characterisable in terms of a sustained critical backlash against postmodernism. Theses such as the 'end of history' and'incredulity toward metanarratives' are widely thought to have lost their relevance after the terrorist attacks of September 11, and contemporary continental philosophy and the humanities generally seem to favour a return to metaphysics, to the import of the natural sciences, to materialism, the object, and to concepts such as the real, truth, and the subject. Diverse as they are, these themes are united by all being ones which the postmodern moment seemed on the verge of dissolving.3How are we to understand the meaning and potential legacy of Vattimo's work, given the apparent dissolution of his own claims into the movement of history, and the current historical moment's seeming relegation of his work to irrelevancy? The position of philosophers and philosophies in a'traditional' metaphysical mold here is by comparison relatively unproblematic: they can continue on doing their work of making ahistorical truth claims, entirely ignoring the historical, cultural currents which push them in and out of fashion. Yet Vattimo's philosophy, as we have noted, cannot position itself in such a way since it understands itself as an interpretation in, and as, history.My answer would be that we may frame Vattimo's relevance in terms of a deeper and more sweeping understanding of history than the flotsam and jetsam of the cultural market (which of course operates within the academy, as elsewhere). In Heideggerian terms, Vattimo's philosophy is positioned in relation to historical destining (Geschick), or as Being-historical thinking (Seynsgeschichtliches Denken), which aims to uncover not just history's manifold and fleeting appearances, but its essence (Wesen). On this basis, I propose here a reading of Vattimo which seeks to focus attention on what I believe to be some of the key insights in his work, which concern the ontological constitution of meaning in the contemporary world. My subtitle should thus be read in the double sense of the genitive: the meaning of Vattimo-his philosophical importance and legacy-lies in the reflections on meaning he has contributed. Within this rubric, I will argue that Vattimo's relevance and importance may be seen through his insights regarding information, and its link to Being (which for Vattimo, we may understand to be equivalent to meaning). These are insights which I believe must be extended and developed in order to accord to Vattimo the legacy that his work deserves. This line of interpretation is certainly not the whole meaning of Vattimo's work, but it is a thread which I do think is an essential one, and one which promises to extend his legacy beyond the 'postmodern moment.'THE MEANING OF NIHILISMFor Vattimo, as for Heidegger, the attempt to understand Being is the attempt to understand how it is that things are meaningful at all, that is, to understand how meaning is ontologically constituted. …