Gianni Vattimo Quotes

Gianteresio Vattimo, known as Gianni Vattimo, was an Italian philosopher and politician and the principal architect of what he called pensiero debole, weak thought. A pupil of Luigi Pareyson and a long-time professor at Turin, he developed in The End of Modernity, Belief, After Christianity, and Beyond Interpretation a distinctive hermeneutic philosophy in which the softening of strong metaphysical claims is read as the proper destiny of post-Christian modernity rather than as a mere loss. The quotes below are attributed to Gianni Vattimo, organized by topic.

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Gianni Vattimo on God

Attributed to Gianni Vattimo:

“Secularization is the destiny of Christianity, not its betrayal.”
“Well, if I hadn't been gay, I would never have embarked on this profound reflection on the non-normativity of natural essences, which constitutes the soul of weak thought. So, even if it's not a particularly gay philosophy, I believe there are important connections.”
Ecco, se non fossi stato gay, non avrei mai intrapreso questa profonda riflessione sulla non normatività delle essenze naturali, che costituisce l'anima del pensiero debole. Quindi, anche se non è una filosofia particolarmente gaya, credo che ci siano connessioni importanti. P. Quaranta, Gianni Vattimo è morto, addio al filosofo del pensiero debole , lastampa.it , 19 September 2023

Gianni Vattimo on Justice

“Cecchi Paone is a kind of right-wing aunt. I don't dislike him. I don't like him, but not because he's right-wing. If Robert Redford were right-wing, I'd still like him. Cecchi Paone, honestly... I don't even like Rizzo . But when Rizzo's name comes up in gay clubs, everyone.”
Cecchi Paone è una specie di zia di destra. Non mi è antipatico. Non mi piace ma non perché è di destra. Se Robert Redford fosse di destra mi piacerebbe lo stesso. Cecchi Paone, sinceramente... Rizzo nemmeno mi piace. Ma quando nei locali gay si nomina Rizzo si eccitano tutti... quella testa pelata... From an interview of Claudio Sabelli Fioretti , sabellifioretti.it , 23 January 2007
“Just as Western literature would be unthinkable without the Homeric poems, without Shakespeare, without Dante, so our culture as a whole would be meaningless if we were to cut Christianity out of it.”
Il futuro della religione , with Richard Rorty and Santiago Zabala (editor), Garzanti

Gianni Vattimo on Knowledge

Attributed to Gianni Vattimo:

“Hermeneutics is the koine of late modern philosophy.”
“I am a marxist , a leninist and I don't even consider disagreeable Stalin, who saved us from Hitler, more than the United States.”
I do not vote for Bresso even under torture" , February 21, 2010.
“I do not vote for Bresso even under torture" , February 21, 2010.”
I am a marxist , a leninist and I don't even consider disagreeable Stalin, who saved us from Hitler, more than the United States.
“Cecchi Paone è una specie di zia di destra. Non mi è antipatico. Non mi piace ma non perché è di destra. Se Robert Redford fosse di destra mi piacerebbe lo stesso. Cecchi Paone, sinceramente... Rizzo nemmeno mi piace. Ma quando nei locali gay si nomina Rizzo si eccitano tutti... quella testa pelata... From an interview of Claudio Sabelli Fioretti , sabellifioretti.it , 23 January 2007”
Cecchi Paone is a kind of right-wing aunt. I don't dislike him. I don't like him, but not because he's right-wing. If Robert Redford were right-wing, I'd still like him. Cecchi Paone, honestly... I don't even like Rizzo . But when Rizzo's name comes up in gay clubs, everyone.
“Ecco, se non fossi stato gay, non avrei mai intrapreso questa profonda riflessione sulla non normatività delle essenze naturali, che costituisce l'anima del pensiero debole. Quindi, anche se non è una filosofia particolarmente gaya, credo che ci siano connessioni importanti. P. Quaranta, Gianni Vattimo è morto, addio al filosofo del pensiero debole , lastampa.it , 19 September 2023”
Well, if I hadn't been gay, I would never have embarked on this profound reflection on the non-normativity of natural essences, which constitutes the soul of weak thought. So, even if it's not a particularly gay philosophy, I believe there are important connections.
“My mother was a widow and I am gay, but I know many other children of widowed mothers who, despite the absence of their fathers, did not become gay. After all, I am convinced that almost anything is better for a child than an orphanage. Nor can one pursue the perfect family balance. It is enough that the adoptive parents are normal, civilized people, not sadists who cut up children, and that they have an income to support them, without necessarily having to be part of the Agnelli family.”
«Adozioni gay, non voto più ds» , Corriere della sera , 17 December 2006, p. 20
“My mother was a widow and I am gay, but I know many other children of widowed mothers who, despite the absence of their fathers, did not become gay. After all, I am convinced that almost anything is better for a child than an orphanage. Nor can one pursue the perfect family balance. It is enough that the adoptive parents are normal, civilized people, not sadists who cut up children, and that they ”
«Adozioni gay, non voto più ds» , Corriere della sera , 17 December 2006, p. 20
“Lasciate che si sposino , L'Espresso , 21 January 1996”
Opposing homosexual families is only possible in the name of a philosophical belief about the natural essence of the family itself. This cannot be professed by a lay state.

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Gianni Vattimo on Love

Attributed to Gianni Vattimo:

“Charity is the rule that survives the dissolution of all foundations.”

Gianni Vattimo on Nature

“Opposing homosexual families is only possible in the name of a philosophical belief about the natural essence of the family itself. This cannot be professed by a lay state.”
Lasciate che si sposino , L'Espresso , 21 January 1996

Gianni Vattimo on Truth

Attributed to Gianni Vattimo:

“Weak thought is the form philosophy must take after the death of metaphysics.”
Attributed to Gianni Vattimo:

“Truth is more event than correspondence.”
“The paradoxical fact is that it is precisely the passion for truth, conscience, in its search for the truth, that has come to undermine itself: it has discovered, in fact, that it is just a passion like any other.”
Le avventure della differenza , Garzanti, Milano, 1988

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