Modern European Philosophy

This chapter considers four texts by Italian thinkers that were published in English translation in 2016, although some of the texts under discussion date back to earlier periods: Giorgio Agamben’s The Use of Bodies (originally published in Italian in 2014, and consisting of texts written over the course of the last twenty years), Gianni Vattimo’s Of Reality: The Purposes of Philosophy (first published in Italian in 2012, and based on two series of lectures delivered at Leuven in 1998 and Glasgow for the Gifford Lectures in 2010), Emanuele Severino’s The Essence of Nihilism (originally published in Italian in 1972, but only now translated into English for the first time), and Adriana Cavarero’s Inclinations: A Critique of Rectitude (first published in Italian in 2014). It suggests that what unites these four thinkers, despite wide variations in their understanding of nihilism, metaphysics and philosophy itself, is the attempt to question philosophy’s own thinking of itself as a discipline, whether this be through resurrecting under-theorized concepts (such as ‘use’ for Agamben and ‘inclination’ for Cavarero), by taking seriously the idea of the ‘end of metaphysics’ and nihilism (Vattimo) or by fundamentally critiquing the nihilistic direction of Western thought and its tethering to time (Severino). The chapter concludes by suggesting that it is in philosophy’s careful exploration of its own conditions, situation and buried concepts, that the modern European tradition remains strongly relevant. The chapter is divided into six sections: 1. Introduction; 2. Agamben on ‘Use’; 3. Vattimo on Interpretation; 4. Severino on Nihilism; 5. Cavarero on Inclination; 6. Conclusion.

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