La crise environnementale et énergétique a débuté quand le feu et le travail humain ont fusionné. Depuis la préhistoire jusqu'à l'anthropocène, des premiers gaspillages des ressources de surface (extinctions d'espèces dues à la chasse, feux de forêt, etc.) jusqu'à celui des ressources souterraines (charbon, lignite, pétrole), Peter Sloterdijk raconte nos rapports économiques avec le feu et esquisse des solutions inspirées de la pensée de Bruno Latour pour tenter d'arrêter la "catastrophe".
La religion, dans les temps archaïques, c'est un rituel et un sacrifice. Mais depuis l'Antiquité, ce sont des procédés littéraires plus ou moins élaborés, le plus souvent poétiques, qui rapportent les actions, paroles et pensées des dieux. Pourquoi avons-nous fait parler les dieux ? D'où vient notre besoin de textes religieux ? Comment intériorisons-nous le divin ? Au sommet de son art, alliant érudition et mordant, l'un des penseurs les plus stimulants de notre époque explore tous les rouages du théâtre de la parole divine.
"On n'est pas un peintre tant qu'on n'a pas peint un gris." Ces mots de Cézanne, écrit Peter Sloterdijk, "mettent au défi de formuler une affirmation complémentaire : tant qu'on n'a pas pensé le gris, on n'est pas un philosophe". Ce nouvel essai relève le défi. Il en résulte un livre flamboyant à partir du gris, apparemment la couleur de l'indifférence, du neutre, de la tiédeur, mais qui contient en réalité toute l'histoire de la pensée, de l'art et du monde. Une réflexion magistrale sur les couleurs en politique, en philosophie et dans les arts, mais aussi dans la religion, et jusque dans la nature (éclipses, tempêtes, menace d'un hiver nucléaire).
L'Europe est inquiète, l'Europe va voter. C'est le moment d'écouter la parole du plus grand philosophe européen actuel, connu pour sa pensée vigoureuse et ses idées iconoclastes. En quatre essais sur les thèmes de l'immigration, du Brexit, de la cohésion sociale et de la nation, il défend la réalité de l'Europe, analyse la montée des populismes et leur vision simpliste du monde, dénonce l'absurdité des ghettos et nous rappelle la nécessité vitale de lutter contre le cynisme. Et si rien n'était possible sans l'autre ?
« Tu dois changer ta vie ! » Tels sont les mots énigmatiques qu'écrit Rainer Maria Rilke à la fin d'un poème consacré à un torse antique du Louvre. Quitter l'horizontalité du système actuel, affronter de nouveau la verticalité, tenter de nous grandir par l'exercice, construire pour l'homme et pour la terre un bouclier immunologique qui lui permettra d'échapper à la fatalité. La crise est devenue cette instance, autrefois représentée par Dieu, qui nous impose un impératif absolu : « cela ne peut pas continuer ainsi » - ce serait en effet la fin de notre idée de l'homme et la destruction progressive de la terre qui nous nourrit.
Un changement radical s'impose donc, qui doit trouver sa source dans un engagement pra¬tique et responsable dont le résultat dépend de l'intensité de la volonté et de l'effort fourni. Tels sont les objectifs que Peter Sloterdijk fixe à la pratique rigoureuse d'un exercice permettant à l'homme de se former et de s'élever lui-même.
Un parcours passionnant à travers l'histoire des idées et des hommes et une porte philosophique ouverte sur le futur.
Cinq universitaires, ayant tous dépassé la cinquantaine, entament une correspondance par mails pour mettre au point un projet de recherches pluridisciplinaires consacrées au « développement d'une sexualité féminine sur le trajet menant des femelles hominidées aux femmes homo sapiens, du point de vue de la théorie de l'évolution et sans jamais oublier la philosophie de la nature de l'idéalisme allemand ».
Au fil de la correspondance, la parole se libère révélant la quête de chacun du bilan de son existence sexo-intellectuelle.
Les jeux érotiques épistolaires, les récits ironiques, tendres ou parfois brutaux, débouchent sur une sorte de nouvelle théorie du rapport amoureux et font de ce Projet Schelling une farce philosophico-érotique, subtile, évocatrice et très drôle.
Né en 1947, professeur d'esthétique et de philosophie à Karlsruhe, Peter Sloterdijk est considéré comme l'un des plus importants philosophes contemporains. Il est l'auteur de nombreux essais, traduits en français pour la plupart.
La principale caractéristique de son travail est de mettre en rapport les questions contemporaines avec le temps long de l'histoire. Il parvient ainsi à redéfinir la condition humaine actuelle en la replaçant dans une perspective originale et souvent inattendue.
Voici l'un des livres les plus importants de Peter Sloterdijk, l'auteur de Colère et temps et de Tu dois changer ta vie ! Il tire son titre du mot célèbre de Mme de Pompadour et propose une réflexion sur une société incapable d'assurer et d'assumer la transmission du savoir et de l'expérience depuis qu'elle a fait de la rupture le moteur de la modernité. Refuser tout héritage, faire table rase du passé, mépriser les modèles et les "filiations", rompre systématiquement avec le "père" : ce geste "moderne", qui nous englue dans le présent, mène aux pires catastrophes, humaines, politiques, économiques. Contre le culte de l'ici-et-maintenant, et pour sortir de notre malaise civilisationnel, le philosophe nous exhorte à nous réinscrire dans la durée. Telle est la leçon de ce livre, sans nul doute un essai magistral sur l'art de maîtriser sa liberté.
The idea of a connection between poetry and religion is as old as civilization. Homer consulted the Olympian gods on the fate of the fighters on the plain before Troy, and the poet made the heavenly ones speak. It was through poetry that the gods were brought within reach of human hearing. In the centuries after Homer, the Athenian stage became the setting where gods made their poetic interventions, resolving human impasses and contributing to the emotional synchronization of the public life of the city. Sloterdijk argues that, as with the culture of the Ancient Greeks, all religions inscribe a kind of "theopoetry" at the heart of their cultural life and thought, even as they strenuously obscure these poetic origins through the cultivation and enforcement of orthodox norms. Sloterdijk also shows how, in conditions of religious pluralism, religions poetically reshape themselves to accommodate the demands of the religious marketplace. This highly original study of the poetic devices that inform accounts of the otherworldly offers a new interpretation of religious practice and its theological elaboration through history, as well as a fresh perspective on our contemporary age in which collective life, interwoven with imaginative fabrications, is fraying under critical stress.
When we look back from the vantage point of the 21st century and ask ourselves what the previous century was all about, what do we see? Our first inclination is to focus on historical events: the 20th century was the age of two devastating world wars, of totalitarian regimes and terrible atrocities like the Holocaust - "the age of extremes," to use Hobsbawm's famous phrase. But in this new book, the philosopher Peter Sloterdijk argues that we will never understand the 20th century if we focus on events and ideologies. Rather, in his view, the predominant motif of the 20th century is what Badiou called a passion for the real, which manifests itself as the will to actualize the truth directly in the here and now.
Drawing on his Spheres trilogy, Sloterdijk interprets the actualization of the real in the 20th century as a passion for economic and technological "antigravitation". The rise of consumerism and the easing of the burdens of human life by the constant deployment of new technologies have killed off the kind of radicalism that was rooted in the belief that power would rise from a material base of production. If the 20th century can still inspire us today, it is because the fundamental shift that it brought about opened the way for a critique of extremist reason, a post-Marxist theory of enrichment and a general economy of energy resources based on excess and dissipation.
While developing his highly original interpretation of the 20th century, Sloterdijk also addresses a series of related topics including the meaning of the Anthropocene, the domestication of humans and the significance of the sea. The volume also includes major new pieces on Derrida and on Heidegger's politics. This work, by one of the most original thinkers today will appeal to students and scholars across the humanities and social sciences, as well as anyone interested in philosophy and critical theory.
One can rightly say of Peter Sloterdijk that each of his essays and lectures is also an unwritten book. That is why the texts presented here, which sketch a philosophical physiognomy of Martin Heidegger, should also be characterized as a collected renunciation of exhaustiveness. In order to situate Heidegger's thought in the history of ideas and problems, Peter Sloterdijk approaches Heidegger's work with questions such as: If Western philosophy emerged from the spirit of the polis, what are we to make of the philosophical suitability of a man who never made a secret of his stubborn attachment to rural life? Is there a provincial truth of which the cosmopolitan city knows nothing? Is there a truth in country roads and cabins that would be able to undermine the universities with their standardized languages and globally influential discourses? From where does this odd professor speak, when from his professorial chair in Freiburg he claims to inquire into what lies beyond the history of Western metaphysics? Sloterdijk also considers several other crucial twentieth-century thinkers who provide some needed contrast for the philosophical physiognomy of Martin Heidegger. A consideration of Niklas Luhmann as a kind of contemporary version of the Devil's Advocate, a provocative critical interpretation of Theodor Adorno's philosophy that focuses on its theological underpinnings and which also includes reflections on the philosophical significance of hyperbole, and a short sketch of the pessimistic thought of Emil Cioran all round out and deepen Sloterdijk's attempts to think with, against, and beyond Heidegger. Finally, in essays such as "Domestication of Being" and the "Rules for the Human Park," which incited an international controversy around the time of its publication and has been translated afresh for this volume, Sloterdijk develops some of his most intriguing and important ideas on anthropogenesis, humanism, technology, and genetic engineering.
In this short book Peter Sloterdijk clarifies his views on religion and its role in pre-modern and modern societies. He begins by returning to the Mount Sinai episode in the Book of Exodus, where he identifies the emergence of what he calls the ?Sinai Schema?. At the core of monotheism is the logic of belonging to a community of confession, of being a true believer - this is what Sloterdijk calls the Sinai Schema. To be a member of a people means that you submit to the beliefs of the community just as you submit to its language. Monotheism is predicated on the logic of one God who demands your utmost loyalty. Hence at the core of monotheism is also the fear of apotheosis, of heresy, of heterodoxy. So monotheism is associated first and foremost with a certain kind of internal violence Ð namely, a violence against those who violate their membership through a break in loyalty and trust. On the basis of this analysis of the inner logic of monotheism, Sloterdijk retraces its historical legacy and shows how this account enables us to understand why we react so nervously today to all forms of fundamentalism - whether that of radical Islamists, the Catholic Pius Brotherhood or evangelical sects in the USA
Displaying the distinctive combination of narration and philosophy for which he is well known, this new book by Peter Sloterdijk develops a radically new account of globalization at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The author takes seriously the historical and philosophical consequences of the notion of the earth as a globe, arriving at the thesis that what is praised or decried as globalization is actually the end phase in a process that began with the first circumnavigation of the earth Ð and that one can already discern elements of a new era beyond globalization. In the end phase of globalization, the world system completed its development and, as a capitalist system, came to determine all conditions of life. Sloterdijk takes the Crystal Palace in London, the site of the first world exhibition in 1851, as the most expressive metaphor for this situation. The palace demonstrates the inevitable exclusivity of globalization as the construction of a comfort structure Ð that is, the establishment and expansion of a world interior whose boundaries are invisible, yet virtually insurmountable from without, and which is inhabited by one and a half billion winners of globalization; three times this number are left standing outside the door.
In his major investigation into the nature of humans, Peter Sloterdijk presents a critique of myth - the myth of the return of religion. For it is not religion that is returning; rather, there is something else quite profound that is taking on increasing significance in the present: the human as a practising, training being, one that creates itself through exercises and thereby transcends itself. Rainer Maria Rilke formulated the drive towards such self-training in the early twentieth century in the imperative 'You must change your life'. In making his case for the expansion of the practice zone for individuals and for society as a whole, Sloterdijk develops a fundamental and fundamentally new anthropology. The core of his science of the human being is an insight into the self-formation of all things human. The activity of both individuals and collectives constantly comes back to affect them: work affects the worker, communication the communicator, feelings the feeler. It is those humans who engage expressly in practice that embody this mode of existence most clearly: farmers, workers, warriors, writers, yogis, rhetoricians, musicians or models. By examining their training plans and peak performances, this book offers a panorama of exercises that are necessary to be, and remain, a human being.
In this wide-ranging book, renowned philosopher and cultural theorist Peter Sloterdijk examines art in all its rich and varied forms: from music to architecture, light to movement, and design to typography. Moving between the visible and the invisible, the audible and the inaudible, his analyses span the centuries, from ancient civilizations to contemporary Hollywood. With great verve and insight he considers the key issues that have faced thinkers from Aristotle to Adorno, looking at art in its relation to ethics, metaphysics, society, politics, anthropology and the subject. Sloterdijk explores a variety of topics, from the Greco-Roman invention of postcards to the rise of the capitalist art market, from the black boxes and white cubes of modernism to the growth of museums and memorial culture. In doing so, he extends his characteristic method of defamiliarization to transform the way we look at works of art and artistic movements. His bold and original approach leads us away from the well-trodden paths of conventional art history to develop a theory of aesthetics which rejects strict categorization, emphasizing instead the crucial importance of individual subjectivity as a counter to the latent dangers of collective culture. This sustained reflection, at once playful, serious and provocative, goes to the very heart of Sloterdijk's enduring philosophical preoccupation with the aesthetic. It will be essential reading for students and scholars of philosophy and aesthetics and will appeal to anyone interested in culture and the arts more generally.
The conflicts between the three great monotheistic religions ? Christianity, Judaism and Islam ? are shaping our world more than ever before. In this important new book Peter Sloterdijk returns to the origins of monotheism in order to shed new light on the conflict of the faiths today. Following the polytheism of the ancient civilizations of the Egyptians, Hittites and Babylonians, Jewish monotheism was born as a theology of protest, as a religion of triumph within defeat. While the religion of the Jews remained limited to their own people, Christianity unfolded its message with proclamations of universal truth. Islam raised this universalism to a new level through a military and political mode of expansion. Sloterdijk examines the forms of conflict that arise between the three monotheisms by analyzing the basic possibilities stemming from anti-Paganism, anti-Judaism, anti-Islamism and anti-Christianism. These possibilities were augmented by internal rifts: a defining influence within Judaism was a separatism with defensive aspects, in Christianity the project of expansion through mission, and in Islam the Holy War.
Peter Sloterdijk's reputation as one of the most original thinkers of our time has grown steadily since the early 1980s. This volume of over thirty conversations and interviews spanning two decades illuminates the multiple interconnections of his life and work. In these wide-ranging dialogues Sloterdijk gives his views on a variety of topics, from doping to doxa, design to dogma, media to mobility and the financial crisis to football. Here we encounter Sloterdijk from every angle: as he expounds his ideas on the philosophical tradition and the latest strands of contemporary thought, as he analyses the problems of our age and as he provides a new and startling perspective on everyday events. Through exaggeration, Sloterdijk draws our attention to crucial issues and controversies and makes us aware of their implications for society and the individual. Always eager to share his knowledge and erudition, he reveals himself equally at home in ancient Babylon, in the channels of the mass media and on the ethical and moral terrain of religion, education or genetic engineering. Appealing both to the seasoned reader of Sloterdijk and to the curious newcomer, these dialogues offer fresh insight into the intellectual and political events of recent decades. They also give us glimpses of Sloterdijk's own life story, from his early passionate love of reading and writing to his journeys in East and West, his commitment to Europe and his acceptance and enjoyment of the role of a public intellectual and philosopher in the twenty-first century.
In this short book Peter Sloterdijk offers a genealogy of the concept of freedom from Ancient Greece to the present day. This genealogy is part of a broader theory of the large political body, according to which Sloterdijk argues that political communities arise in response to a form of anxiety or stress. Through a highly original reading of Rousseau's late Reveries of a Solitary Walker, Sloterdijk shows that, for Rousseau, the modern subject emerges as a subject free of all stress, unburdened by the cares of the world. Most of modern philosophy, and above all German Idealism, is an attempt to reign back Rousseau's useless and anarchical subject and anchor it in the cares of the world, in the task of having to produce both the world and itself. In the light of this highly original account, Sloterdijk develops his own distinctive account of freedom, where freedom is conceptualized as the availability for the improbable. This important text, in which Sloterdijk develops his account of freedom and the modern subject, will be of great interest to students and scholars in philosophy and the humanities and to anyone interested in contemporary philosophy and critical theory.
In his Critique of Cynical Reason, Peter Sloterdijk pursued an enlightenment of the Enlightenment in both its beginnings and the present. After God is dedicated to the theological enlightenment of theology. It ranges from the period when gods reigned, through the rule of the world-creator god to reveries about the godlike power of artificial intelligence. The path of this self-enlightening theology, which is carried out here by a non-theologian, must begin well before Nietzsche's declaration of the death of God, and it must move beyond this dictum to explore the present and the future.
Since the early 20th century we have seen how the metaphysical twilight of the gods, which has preoccupied philosophers and theologians, has been accompanied by an earthly twilight of the souls. The emergence of psychoanalysis, and more recently the development of the neuro-cognitive sciences, have secularized the old Indo-European concept of the soul and transferred many accomplishments of the human mind to computerized machines. What remains of the eternal light of the soul after the artificial lights have been turned on? Have the inventors of AI thrust themselves into the position vacated by the death of god? Perhaps the distinction between God and idols will soon re-emerge here for the citizens of modernity, only this time in a technological and political register. For them, theological enlightenment - which is completely different from an instinctive rejection of religion - will be a fateful task.
This new work by one of the most original thinkers today will appeal to students and scholars across the humanities and social sciences, as well as anyone interested in religion, philosophy and critical theory today.
The core of what we refer to as `the project of modernity' is the idea that human beings have the power to bring the world under their control, and hence it is based on a `kinetic utopia': the movement of the world as a whole reflects the implementation of our plans for it.
But as soon as the kinetic utopia of modernity is exposed, its seemingly stable foundation cracks open and new problems appear: things don't happen according to plan because as we actualize our plans, we set in motion other things that we didn't want as unintended side-effects. We watch with mounting unease as the self-perpetuating side-effects of modern progress overshadow our plans, as a foreign movement breaks off from the very core of the modern project supposedly guided by reason and slips away from us, spinning out of control. What looked like a steady march towards freedom turns out to be a slide into an uncontrollable and catastrophic syndrome of perpetual mobilization. And precisely because so much comes about through our actions, these developments turn out to have explosive consequences for our self-understanding, as we begin to realize that, so far from bringing the world under our control, we are instead the agents of our own destruction.
In this brilliant and insightful book Sloterdijk lays out the elements of a new critical theory of modernity understood as a critique of political kinetics, shifting the focus of critical theory from production to mobilization and shedding new light on a world facing the growing risk of humanly induced catastrophe.
Une promenade à travers les grands noms de l'histoire de la philosophie depuis l'Antiquité jusqu'à nos jours. Ces « vignettes philosophiques », d'une demi-douzaine de pages chacune, sont consacrées à dix-neuf philosophes que l'on découvre par ordre chronologique. Sloterdijk présente chaque penseur et le situe dans l'histoire des idées ; surtout, il évoque leur « tempérament » - ce quelque chose à mi-chemin du caractère, du charisme et de la pensée qui constitue la personnalité - en autant de portraits vifs, ponctués de formules qui prennent à rebrousse-poil les idées courantes.
« Tempéraments philosophiques est comme une exposition dont le catalogue ressemblerait à une déclaration d'amour pour les Maîtres proches ou lointains qui lui ont appris à penser et penser autrement. » Robert Maggior, Libération.
