Peter Sloterdijk (born June 26, 1947 in Karlsruhe, Germany) is a philosopher.

Biography

Sloterdijk studied philosophy, Germanistics and history at the University of Munich. In 1975 he got his Ph.D. from the University of Hamburg. From 1980 on he published many essays, such as Critique of Cynical Reason. In 2001 he was named president of the Karlsruhe State Academy of Design .

Philosophy

Sloterdijk’s philosophy comprises an equilibrated dichotomy between a firm academicism (in which we find a scholarly professor) and a certain sense of anti-academism (e.g. his interest in Rajneesh’s ideas). Besides the criticism that some of his thoughts have created he refuses to be labeled as “polemic thinker”, instead he sees himself as “hyperbolic”. His ideas rejects the existence of dualisms (body-soul, subject-object, culture-nature, etc.) since the interaction, the spaces of coexistence, and the technical advances create a hybrid reality. Thus Sloterdijk, who intends to develop a new humanism (sometimes labeled post-humanism) searches to integrate different components that have been, in his opinion, erroneously considered detached from one another. This has lead him to propose the creation of an “ontological constitution” that would incorporate all elements (i.e. humans, animals, plants and machines).

Critique of the Cynical Reason

To be added

Spheres

The trilogy Spheres is Peter Sloterdijk’s magnus opus. The first volume was published in 1998, the second in 1989 and the last one in 2004.

Spheres gravitates around the spaces of coexistence , commonly overlooked or taken for granted, that conceal crucial information to develop an understanding of what humans are. The exploration of the spheres begins with the basic difference that exists between mammals and other animals; the biological and utopical comfort (i.e. mother’s body) which humans try to recreate via science, ideology and religion. From these micro-spheres (ontological relations as fetus-placenta) to the macro-spheres (macro-uteri such as political structures like nations or states), Sloterdijk analyses the spheres where humans try unsuccessfully to dwell, and traces a connection between vital crisis (e.g. emptiness and narcissistic detachment) and the crises that are created when a Sphere shatters.

The author has explained that the first paragraphs of Spheres are “the book that Heidegger should have written”, which refers to the initial exploration of the ‘being-there’ idea that is then further explored as Sloterdijk distances himself from Heidegger’s positions.

Globalization

For Sloterdijk the actual concept of Globalization lacks historical perspective. In his opinion it is merely the third wave in a process in which humans overcome distances (the first one being the globalization metaphysical—Greek cosmology— and the second the nautical globalization of the 15th century). The difference, in Sloterdijk's opinion, is that while the second one created cosmopolitanism the third one is creating a global provincialism.

The Genetics dispute

The controversy, which began shortly after a symposium on Philosophy and Heidegger, was triggered by Sloterdijk’s essay Regeln für den Menschenpark (Rules for the Human Park ). In it, Sloterdijk criticizes Enlightenment societies for the reason that they have imposed artificial restraints on human potential (thus bestializing and taming humans themselves) and defended, buttressing on Plato, Nietzsche and Heidegger, the necessity to reinvent the concept ‘human’—something that could be obtained via gene technology. The core of the controversy was not only Sloterdijk’s ideas but also use of the German words Züchtung (breeding, cultivation) and Selektion (selection), which had a resonance of the Nazi Reich ideas. Although Sloterdijk rejected the accusation, which he considered out of historical context, the paper started a controversy in which Sloterdijk was strongly criticized for the use of a fascist rhetoric that seemed to be intended to bring forward Plato’s vision—in which the government would have absolute control of the population—and also of using a not normative, simplistic reduction of the bioethical issue itself, a critique that was based in the vagueness of Sloterdijk’s position on how exactly society would be affected by this genetic development. After the controversy burgeoned positions both against and in favor, Die Zeit published a Sloterdijk vehement open letter to Jürgen Habermas, in which he accused the latter of "criticizing behind his back" and defending a view of humanism (i.e. critical theory) which he deems dead.

List of works

• Kritik der zynischen Vernunft, 1983 (Critique of the Cynical Reason)
• Der Zauberbaum. Die Entstehung der Psychoanalyse im Jahr 1785, 1985
• Der Denker auf der Bühne. Nietzsches Materialismus, 1986 (Thinker on Stage, Nietzsche's Materialism)
• Kopernikanische Mobilmachung und ptolmäische Abrüstung, 1986
• Zur Welt kommen - Zur Sprache kommen. Frankfurter Vorlesungen, 1988
• Eurotaoismus. Zur Kritik der politischen Kinetik, 1989
• Versprechen auf Deutsch. Rede über das eigene Land, 1990
• Weltfremdheit, 1993
• Im selben Boot. Versuch über die Hyperpolitik, 1993
• Falls Europa erwacht. Gedanken zum Programm einer Weltmacht am Ende des Zeitalters seiner politischen Absence, 1994
• Der starke Grund zusammen zu sein. Erinnerungen an die Erfindung des Volkes, 1998
• Sphären I - Blasen, Mikrosphärologie, 1998 (Spheres I)
• Sphären II - Globen, Makrosphärologie, 1999 (Spheres II)
• Regeln für den Menschenpark. Ein Antwortschreiben zu Heideggers Brief über den Humanismus, 1999
• Die Verachtung der Massen. Versuch über Kulturkämpfe in der modernen Gesellschaft, 2000
• Über die Verbesserung der guten Nachricht. Nietzsches fünftes Evangelium. Rede zum 100. Todestag von Friedrich Nietzsche, 2000
• Nicht gerettet. Versuche nach Heidegger, 2001
• Die Sonne und der Tod. Dialogische Untersuchungen mit H.-J. Heinrichs, 2001
• Tau von den Bermudas. Über einige Regime der Phantasie, 2001
• Luftbeben. An den Wurzeln des Terrors, 2002
• Sphären III - Schäume, Plurale Sphärologie, 2004 (Spheres III)
• Im Weltinnenraum des Kapitals, 2005
• Was zählt, kehrt wieder. Philosophische Dialoge, gem. mit Alain Finkielkraut (aus d. frz.), 2005

External links

General

• http://www.petersloterdijk.net/
• The Operable Man, a Sloterdijk essay on the Ethical State of Gene Technology
• Compilation of links about the genetics polemic (In French)

Interviews

• Topics: Humanism, terrorism, ethics (In Spanish)
• Topics: Utopia (In Spanish)
• Topics: Spheres, Postmodenism, Enlightment (In Italian)