Old Europe wrote:What do you think about Peter Sloterdijk?
Regards,
Old Europe
(title changed from "Peter Sloterdijk" to "Peter Sloterdijk and Rüdiger Safranski" Old Europe, 12 March 2006)
Peter Sloterdijk is one of the best or even the best philosopher of the current era.
Sloterdijk's ideas seek to integrate different components that have been erroneously considered detached from each other. Consequently, he proposes the creation of an "ontological constitution" that would incorporate all beings—humans, animals, plants, and machines.
Sloterdijk regards cultures and civilizations as "anthropogenic hothouses", installations for the cultivation of human beings; just as we have established wildlife preserves to protect certain animal species, so too ought we to adopt more deliberate policies to ensure the survival of Aristotle's zoon politikon.
Old Europe wrote:The spheres are, according to WIKIPEDIA (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Sloterdijk ) his opus magnum. More than 2500 pages, a real philosophical adventure. The first volume already contains nearly 650 pages and it will take me some time to read this. But the first impression is great...
As Sloterdijk is polarizing the minds in the german speaking countries, I would like to ask you all in the english speaking countries, whether his work does the same. It is only, because I'm curious. It will not influence my meaning about Sloterdijk. I think, he is one of the most important contemporary philosophers and I like reading his books. But this should not give the impression, that I'm very strong in philosophy. No, philosophy is only one of my hobbies and I prefer the themes, which have relation with philosophy of art, culture, contemporary politics and media. Maybe this, combined which his great style, is the reason, why I like Sloterdijks work...
The exploration of these spheres begins with the basic difference between mammals and other animals: the biological and utopian comfort of the mother's womb, which humans try to recreate through science, ideology, and religion. From these microspheres (ontological relations such as fetus-placenta) to macrospheres (macro-uteri such as nations or states), Sloterdijk analyzes spheres where humans try but fail to dwell and traces a connection between vital crisis (e.g., emptiness and narcissistic detachment) and crises created when a sphere shatters.
Sloterdijk has said that the first paragraphs of Spheres are "the book that Heidegger should have written", a companion volume to "Being and Time", namely "Being and Space". He was referring to his initial exploration of the idea of Dasein, which is then taken further.
Globalization.Sloterdijk also argues that the current concept of globalization lacks historical perspective. In his view it is merely the third wave in a process of overcoming distances (the first wave being the metaphysical globalization of the Greek cosmology and the second the nautical globalization of the 15th century). The difference for Sloterdijk is that, while the second wave created cosmopolitanism, the third is creating a global provincialism. Sloterdijk's sketch of a philosophical history of globalization can be found in "Im Weltinnenraum des Kapitals" (2005; translated as "In the World Interior of Capital"), subtitled "Die letzte Kugel" ("The final sphere").
Fiscal kleptocracy.Sloterdijk claimed that the welfare state is a "fiscal kleptocracy" that had transformed the country into a "swamp of resentment" and degraded its citizens into "mystified subjects of tax law".
Sloterdijk opened the text with the famous quote of leftist critics of capitalism (made famous in the 19th century by Proudhon in his "What Is Property?") "Property is theft", stating, however, that it is nowadays the modern state that is the biggest taker. "We are living in a fiscal grabbing semi-socialism – and nobody calls for a fiscal civil war."
He repeated his statements and stirred up the debate in his articles titled "Kleptokratie des Staates" (transl. "Kleptocracy of the state") and "Aufbruch der Leistungsträger" (transl. "Uprising of the performers") in the German monthly Cicero – Magazin für politische Kultur.
According to Sloterdijk, the institutions of the welfare state lend themselves to a system that privileges the marginalized, but relies, unsustainably, on the class of citizens who are materially successful.
In January 2010, an English translation was published, titled "A Grasping Hand – The modern democratic state pillages its productive citizens", in Forbes and in the Winter 2010 issue of City Journal.
Sloterdijk's 2010 book, "Die nehmende Hand und die gebende Seite", contains the texts that triggered the 2009–2010 welfare state dispute.
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"Die moderne Welt wird sich als eine Zeit erweisen, in der die Wünsche durch ihr Wahrwerden das Fürchten lehren." - Peter Sloterdijk, "Die schreckliechen Kinder der Neuzeit".