Interpretative turn

Abstract

The contemporary hermeneutics of which Vattimo is a particularly qualified representative has contributed decisively to freeing reason from the slavery of the scientific ideal of objectivity (BI). This is why the interpretative turn has also meant an extension of the scope of truth, restricted in modernity to the type of truth regulated by an abstract and exempt objectivity. From this new horizon of meaning it turns out that matters that had been confined to a subjective and publicly irrelevant discretion also appear to be susceptible of truth. Far from posing a threat to truth, Vattimo’s hermeneutics implies an extension of the sphere in which the criteria of truth are relevant in the form of reasonableness, verisimilitude, taste, authenticity, correctness, agreement, and meaning. The ethical conditions of knowledge also rightfully enter the realm of rationality, once the ideal of objectivity as neutrality has lost its validity. The ethical and political consequences of interpretation are not few, either, thanks to which practical issues are freed from axiomatic rigidity and opened up to the personalization of style. Vattimo’s entire practical philosophy is an attempt to draw the ethical and political consequences of this interpretative turn.