The End of Modernity: Nihilism and Hermeneutics in Postmodern Culture (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society) [Paperback]

Gianni Vattimo (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0801843170 | ISBN-13: 978-0801843174 | Publication Date: October 1, 1991 | Edition: Revised

Gianni Vattimo reexamines the roots of modernism and postmodernism in Nietzsche, Benjamin, and Heidegger. Exploring the links between concepts of nihilism and destiny in nineteenth-century humanism, Vattimo follows these trends in aesthetic and scientific theory from Benjamin to Bloch, Ricoeur, and Kuhn.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Sharp and deceptively simple essays.

(Brian Rotman Times Literary Supplement )

Language Notes

Text: English, Italian (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press; Revised edition (October 1, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801843170
• ISBN-13: 978-0801843174
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,150,292 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars How is nihilism our new condition?, April 12, 2009

By 

Larry Baker "Questioner" (Attica, MI USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The End of Modernity: Nihilism and Hermeneutics in Postmodern Culture (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society) (Paperback)

Vattimo continues to issue his argument for a soft-ontology after metaphysics has suffered from the end of absolutes. The end is nothing...nihilism. I am convinced that Vattimo and others like him are correct in accessing our age as technocratic nihilism but I am not convinced that Vattimo's soft-ontology is much more than a "practical" excuse to live as though there is meaning even though tying life to shared experience is impossible. The only real impossibility is that life is impossible. Is a new motivation for innovation and culture possible if we admit with Vattimo that nihilism "gesture[s] toward a new human experience" (26)? I am not convinced that he demonstrates this. Instead I see Vattimo arguing for a kind of soft-ontology that attempts to balance the reification of objective language with the broader givens of life experience that are coordinated in forms of life. Although I am not convinced of Vattimo's vision for life and society after nihilism I do think this book is worthy of a serious read.

8 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Vattimo's hard to accept tesis about a weak thinking., October 13, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The End of Modernity: Nihilism and Hermeneutics in Postmodern Culture (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society) (Paperback)

This book is important to understand postmodernism. However, i don't image american readers accepting Vattimo's tesis about weak subjet right to have a place in world. Why modern civilization has impossed to us the obligation of being strong and the first in every action as the only way to be allowed as a member of this society?