Of Reality

We tell one another to accept reality, not to fight for something that doesn't exist or might never be. Gianni Vattimo pushes back against this false wisdom, which lends tacit support to the status quo. Instead, Vattimo urges us to never stop questioning, contrasting, or overcoming reality, which is not natural, inevitable, or objective. Reality is a construct, reflecting, among other things, our greed, biases, and tendencies toward violence. Drawing on Nietzsche and Heidegger, Vattimo develops in this volume a philosophy to combat the newest enemy of freedom and democracy: complacency toward reality. It is no accident, Vattimo argues, that the call to embrace reality has emerged at a time when the inequalities of liberal capitalism are at their most extreme.