[I]n a late writing, Identity and Difference, Heidegger suggests that in the grimmest extreme of the Ge-Stell flashes an opening to being’s retrieval, the event of a post-metaphysical dispensation. While Heidegger concludes, argues Vattimo, that no simple leap out of the Ge-Stell is possible, Heidegger hints that the weakening of being in the Ge-Stell may eventually and paradoxically allow for the lifting of being’s current near oblivion.
Taking this hint, Vattimo pursues what he calls “weak thought.” Resigned to imprisonment in metaphysics, this thinking hopes gradually to bend metaphysics toward dissolution. Weak thought questions “strong” claims, truth assertions brandishing as their ultimate warrants anachronistic, termite-ridden metaphysical cudgels. The trick to weak thought is to work strategically with the erosion of foundations rather than to react futilely against this nihilistic trend. Religious fundamentalists, rightist politicians, and nostalgic graspers after fading metaphysical reality generally: these forces stand in emancipation’s way. Vattimo argues that to counter reactionary philosophical arguments, governmental policies, and social movements with claims that emancipation better corresponds to some foundational truth only buttresses the roadblocks to liberation. Rather, in any given situation, Vattimo, practicing weak thought, searches out the nihilistic crowbar useful to help further dismantle cracking foundations and to bring forward emancipation-friendly political alternatives. In mood and attitude, these alternatives embody a mellow nihilism.
