Radical Hermeneutics and Incarnation (Vattimo)

What interests me the most in Gianni Vattimo's thinking is his attempt to find the "provenance" of hermeneutics in the Trinitarian conception of God.

His argument is in fact pretty simple (at least so it seems). He first characterizes the proper vocation of contemporary hermeneutics (that is to say, roughly, the development of philosophy of interpretation after Heidegger-Gadamer axis) as nihilistic.

What is the nihilistic vocation? Simply put, it's the denial of metaphysics, and its cardinal concept, "truth." It is epitomized in Nietzsche's famous dictum: "there are no facts, only interpretations (and of course this claim is just one of many interpretations)."

In a word, then, Vattimo's first premise is: radical hermeneutics under the post-modern condition is necessarily nihilistic. I don't think this is such an original idea. The association Vattimo makes between hermeneutics and Nietzsche is rather obvious.

Recognizing its nihilistic vocation leads hermeneutics to modify the conception of its "truth" (in quotation marks, of course). Truth is no lounger substantive, metaphysical entity; rather, it is an "opening" of a sort that is event-like and contingent (in Italian these two adjectives are signified by one same word).

I think this point, too, can easily be accepted. In fact, what Vattimo is doing in effect is a re-oriention of what the later Heidegger has spoken about ontology in terms of hermeneutics.

What is really interesting is the next step. Vattimo argues that this transformation from "truth" as metaphysical entity to "truth" as hermeneutical opening can only be accomplished by hermeneutics' looking anew again at its proper provenance, Trinitarian theology.

This step relates to Vattimo's slogan: "weakening of the strong structure of Being." Let me schematize the argument:

(1) Hermeneutics today must face its nihilistic vocation.
(2) This leads to weakening of the strong structure of Being.
(3) This can only be done by hermeneutics' realizing its provenance in Trinitarian conception of God

What is crucial in the Trinitarian conception in particular is the idea of kenosis. Kenosis is the emptying, pouring out, or indeed "weakening" of Being of God.

Vattimo asserts that the hermeneutical weakening of Being is just too much like Kenosis. And this for him justifies the step from (2) to (3).

This seems a bit too weak (huh!) to me. I think the idea is fascinating and beautiful. But I am not convinced that the hermeneutical "deconstruction" of metaphysics of Being must necessarily recall kenosis.

Of course, I see the affinity between the two. But I don't see a philosophical connection that is strong enough. At least in Beyond Interpretation and "The Trace of the Trace," Vattimo doesn't even go in very far in exploring this connection. He merely asserts it.

It is certainly an exciting thought, and so one may be inclined to declare its beauty without philosophically "substantiating" the claim. Perhaps Vattimo explores it elsewhere.

I'm interested in this kind of argument for Incarnation not only because of my inherent interest in Christianity, but, in Vattimo's case, also because it distinguishes him from other thinkers who are engaged in "the post-modern return of the religious." In particular, I have in mind the later Derrida, who has distinctively Jewish orientation (cf. his theory of "the messianic").