anthropotechnics

Being

cosmopolitanism

culture

cynical reason

enlightened false consciousness

ethics

foam society

globalization

habit

history

humanism

man (human)

microsphere

modernism

moral amoralism

Niklas Luhmann

philosophizing

practice

reading

space

sphere

spherelogical thinking

spherological being

nationality

German

occupation / innovator as

philosopher

cultural theorist

innovator in the field of

media theory

philosophy

librettist

university teacher

scientific organization

Academy of Arts

television presenter

cultural studies scholar

European Academy of Sciences and Arts

 Berlin

posthumanism

German philosophy

is inherently and always already a sociable and inherently relational thing.

Moreover, for Sloterdijk being is never an isolated being. Much more than is true for Heidegger, being is social. Spatial being.

is a catchword already circulating in plato's lifetime. It openly proclaimed that thinkers were no longer affiliated to a particular local community, but saw themselves as citizens of the universe.

The new parapolitical catchword 'cosmopolitanism' was already circulating in Plato's lifetime. It openly proclaimed that thinkers were no longer affiliated to a particular local community, but saw themselves as citizens of the universe. Their catchphrase was: being able to live anywhere. Somebody who can exist anywhere gets involved nowhere. It became fashionable to practice the maximum 'exile ability' of the soul.4 (sloterdijk art of philosophy)

is the result of cohesive energies, of heat radiating from solidarity. He defines culture as 'anthropogenic hothouses' where one finds not only a house, but a hearth a kind of 'thermal socialism' that turns into politics when that heat is not evenly distributed.

Sloterdijk (1999) argues that culture can be seen as the result of cohesive energies that allow its members to develop a sense of belonging or unity. The idea of cohesive energies is thus conceptually linked to heat. Cultures are places where one not only finds a house but also a hearth. That is, the genesis of culture is brought about by what Sloterdijk describes as a 'thermal socialism' (1999:233) that allows people to gath4er around a fire and to paradigmatically enjoy how the heat in the center is evenly radiated to the periphery. The point of a cultural 'radiocracy' (1999:238) is that its members do not have to compete for the warm commodity in their midst and that everyone has the same access to it. This is what Sloterdijk sees as the sine qua non of human solidarity. the magic of solidarity disappears as soon as the members of the culture do not have equal access to the source of warmth in their midst. Where the source of heat becomes scarce, a political economy enters the scene to undermine pristine forms of solidarity (1999: 240)

is enlightened false consciousness... enlightened because it has acquired knowledge of specific political interests disguised under self-proclaimed universal or disinterested judgments... but false because it characterizes action based on that knowledge as naive, retro, unsophisticated, and apt to make the agent appear ridiculous in the eyes of an authoritative other.

Sloterdijk defines the 'cynical reason' he considers characteristic of the postmodern moment as an 'enlightened false consciousness'' enlightened because it has acquired knowledge of specific political interests disguised under self-proclaimed universal or disinterested judgments... but false because it characterizes action based on that knowledge as naive, retro, unsophisticated, and apt to make the agent appear ridiculous in the eyes of an authoritative Other. In this way cynical reason effectively dissociates the acquisition of social and political knowledge from any possible application to the historical hear and now.'

is the idea that ideology today is not just false consciousness ,but rather a kind of cynicism whereby we know the falsehood of our ideology very well, that is, we are well aware of a particular interest hidden behind an ideological universality, but still we do not renounce it.

But all this is already well known: it is the classic concept of ideology as 'false consciousness', misrecognition of the social reality which is part of this reality itself. Our question is: Does this concept of ideology as a naive consciousness still apply to today's world' Is it still operating today' In the Critique of Cynical Reason, a great bestseller in Germany (Sloterdijk, 1983), Peter Sloterdijk puts forward the thesis that ideology's dominant mode of functioning is cynical, which renders impossible or, more precisely, vain the classic critical-ideological procedure. The cynical subject is quite aware of the distance between the ideological mask and the social reality, but he none the less still insist upon the mask. The formula, as proposed by Sloterdijk, would then be: 'they know very well what they are doing, but still, they are doing it'. Cynical reason is no longer naïve, but is a paradox of an enlightened false consciousness: one knows the falsehood very well, one is well aware of a particular interest hidden behind an ideological universality, but still one does not renounce it.

is the stepping out from the quotidian and the accepted that calls for the production of new spaces of subjectivity and agency.

Ethics is precisely this secession from the quotidian and the accepted, and calls for the production of new spaces of subjectivity and agency. As such, ethics is a heterotopological askesis. Secession is a topological askesis, for it generates spaces in which we can dwell, engaging in new practices and leading to new levels of achievement. In as much as the human being is the creature that is always outside itself, or rather, who is lifted upwards on the vertical axis of its inner elevation, the human is also an acrobat. The acrobat is the Nietzschean creature who swings on the trapeze that extends between the mere human and the trans-human (the so-called superman).

is our present society which is a highly complex, even chaotic, acentric agglomeration of microspheres (couples, households, companies, associations) of different formats that are adjacent to one another, structured one layer over/under the other, without really being accessible to the separable from one another'.

Sloterdijk conceives of foam as a highly complex, even chaotic, acentric agglomeration of bubbles. Inspired by the American architectural group Morphosis and their notion of 'connected isolations' Sloterdijk defines foam as consisting of 'co-isolated associations' of bubbles (2004: 255). Drawing on this image, he describes the present foam sociaty as follows: '[It is] an aggregate of microspheres (couples, households, companies, associations) of different formats that are adjacent to one another like individual bubbles in a mound of foam and are structured one layer over/under the other, without really being accessible to the separable from one another' (Sloterdijk 2004: 59)

is the overcoming of distance. The ancient greeks first created a metaphysical globalization, followed by a 15th century nautical globalization, followed by a global provincialism.

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 (wiki)

is the location of a transcendent repository of suspended human rage-savings and frozen plans of revenge.

Importantly, for Sloterdijk, Judeo-Christian conceptions of God ultimately 'piggyback' on the feelings of rage and resentment, creating 'metaphysical revenge banks'. For Sloterdijk, 'God thus becomes the location of a transcendent repository of suspended human rage-savings and frozen plans of revenge.' (wiki)

is central to our very nature. Man is fundamentally a creature of habits, of practices, of exercises and is therefore what his habits make of him. Before we are the performance of our freedom, we are the performer of practices and exercises that subjectivize us.

For Sloterdijk, then, the human being is fundamentally a creature of habits, of practices, of exercises. Human beings are born, sustained, and transcend through repetition. They are therefore what their habits make of them. Before we are the performance of our freedom, we are the performer of practices and exercises that subjectivize us.

is not that which happens in space, but that which produces spaces.

Sloterdijk, history is not that which happens in a space, but that which produces spaces.'

is premised on the cultivation of man through reading. The book was a medium of man-breeding. Humanism, though unaware of it, constituted a form of 'anthro-potechnics':.

Humanism, Sloterdijk analyzes, was premized on the cultivation of man through reading. The book was, for the humanist, a medium of man-breeding. Humanism, though unaware of it, constituted a form of 'anthropotechnics': it produced what could be properly called humans.61 According to Sloterdijk, today's era is an age after the book, which has seen the emergence of new forms of human breeding in what was, already for Plato, a 'human zoo' (schinkel 'in media res intro)

is a creature of distance of the distance from himself, from others, from the world, from their own world schemas. Human eccentricity allows humans to 'step out of the river of life and take residence on the shore.

Humans are creatures of distance, of the distance from themselves, from others, from the world, from their own world schemas. Human eccentricity allows humans to 'step out of the river of life and take residence on the shore. . . . All increases of a mental or bodily kind begin with a secession from the ordinary.' (217)

is defined not in terms of what man is, but in terms of 'where' man is. It is not the 'identity' of man that interests sloterdijk, but man's 'place'. That place is always a shared space, a sphere.

Sloterdijk is not interested in the question 'what'' but in the question 'where'' It is not the 'identity' of man that interests him, but man's 'place'. That place is always a shared space, a sphere. Likewise, all universalist claims are disrupted in Sloterdijk's analytics of spherological being, since there is no overlapping super-sphere. (schinkel 'in medias res intro')

is fundamentally a creature of habits, of practices, of exercises. Human beings are born, sustained, and transcend through repetition. They are therefore what their habits make of them. Before we are the performance of our freedom, we are the performer of practices and exercises that subjectivize us.

is structurally superior himself, and carries within himself an asymmetry in which he moulds and is moulded.

Humans, therefore and most fascinatingly, are structurally 'superior to themselves, and carry within themselves an asymmetry in which they mould and are moulded.' (328) This structural condition reveals what Sloterdijk calls, appropriating Helmuth Plessner's language, an 'eccentric potential in humans.'

is the creature of excesses, the animal from which 'too much is demanded' and above all, the animal that demands of itself the improbable.

If for Nietzsche the human being was the mangled being, for Sloterdijk the human is the creature of excesses... the animal from which 'too much is demanded' and above all, the animal that demands of itself the improbable (443).

is a place, a design, and a style rather than as a concept. It is a very specific type of architecture, that of globes. A modernist is someone who lives under a vast dome, and who sees things as though sitting under a huge architecture, the globe of science, the globe of reason, the globe of politics.

We move from envelopes to envelopes, from folds to folds, never from one private sphere to the Great Outside. Modernism, in the hands of Sloterdijk is no longer a concept. It is a place, a design, a style. It is a very specific type of architecture to which the whole second volume of Sphären is dedicated: that of Globes. A modernist is someone who lives under a vast dome, and who sees things as though sitting under a huge architecture, the Globe of Science, the Globe of Reason, the Globe of Politics. (latour cautious prometheus)

is, fundamentally, the stuff we are made of. Man is fundamentally a creature of habits, of practices, of exercises and is therefore what his habits make of him. Before we are the performance of our freedom, we are the performer of practices and exercises that subjectivize us.

is that practice on which humanism and the cultivation of man were premised. The book was, for the humanist, a medium of man-breeding. Humanism, though unaware of it, constituted a form of 'anthropotechnics':.

Peter SloterdijkThinkers

Peter Sloterdijk