Santiago Zabala (ed.) Weakening Philosophy: Essays in Honour of Gianni Vattimo. Monteal & Kingston; London; Ithaca: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2007 [Review Article]

According to Manfred Frank, Gianni Vattimo is “the man whose name occurs immediately to one and all when someone calls for the leading Italian philosopher and intellectual.” While much of Vattimo’s work has been translated into English (he is perhaps best-known for the book The End of Modernity), there has been little critical reaction to this work. Finally, a volume of critical essays has become available in English with the publication of Weakening Philosophy: Essays in Honour of Gianni Vattimo. The volume is edited by Vattimo’s “disciple” Santiago Zabala, who also provides an ex-cellent introduction to Vattimo and his philosophy of “weak thought” (pensiero debole), containing much biographical background not previously available. The contributors are all distinguished philosophers and theologians in their own right, and among those well-known in the English-speaking world are Umberto Eco, Charles Taylor, Hugh J. Silverman, Reiner Schür-mann, Richard Rorty, Manfred Frank, and Jean-Luc Nancy. (Zabala ex-plains in his introduction that Jacques Derrida was also invited to be a part of this project, and was keen to write an essay for his “friend Gianni,” but was sadly prevented from doing so by his failing health (34)).