Critique of Cynical Reason
The Critique of Cynical Reason is a 1983 two-volume work by the German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk . The work deals with the Cynicism / cynicism as a social phenomenon in European history.
The first volume contains the philosophical foundations; the second volume, based on this, develops a phenomenology of the history of action. In both volumes, the text-image relationship is an integral part of the philosophical discourse.
Sloterdijk does in many places clear that he the etymological consonants jump uses (from K to Z, such as B to W) to reinforce his basic thesis: The former K ynismus, so to speak, an antithesis to the Greek Academy and valve of a disempowered population, coagulates in a modern industrial or post-industrial system to a Z ynismus of just more mercantile understood actions. While walking through the history of the phenomenon, viewed from a philosophical and socio-psychological perspective, he analyzes it as “cheek that has changed sides”. A real enlightenment - in the sense of Kant's What is Enlightenment? and To Eternal Peace - never happened.
content
Sloterdijk describes the emergence of bourgeois consciousness using negative examples from European history of action and education . He describes the Second World War as the first culminating point of a “system of self-hollowing” ( capitalism ), “which, armed to the teeth, wants to live forever”.
His analysis of Dadaism and its historical presentation in Berlin goes hand in hand with a revelation of the varieties of ironies and sarcasms of all camps in the interwar period (especially Dadaists, Social Democrats , National Socialists and their mutual sneering). The events and the artistic activity of the interwar period , which are classified as “cheeky”, “unmasking” by the National Socialist regime and finally as “degenerate”, deprive many artists of the basis for their work, another level of this work.
He also sheds light on the Nazi documents which - according to Sloterdijk - want to "rhetorically save" the Third Reich , not without mentioning Kästner and Remarque as the "authors of the human" in a "bitter war of all against all ". In doing so, he structurally reveals their text passages, which clearly indicate the now cynical climate, and explains them from his perspective.
In addition, Sloterdijk attempts to trace the history of the impact of Kant's reviews and their interpretations down to the recent past. He tries to show that Kant's “critical business” is being instrumentalized and ultimately undermined by Bacon's premise that “ knowledge is power ”. So he subjects Heidegger's work Being and Time to a close examination and seeks clarification by confirming the “facts”. The daring thesis of Althusser's suicide (in the sense of the untenability of a life lie) and a criticism of National Socialism disguised as a “philosophical system”, which Heidegger has mastered to perfection (cf. his inaugural address: The self-assertion of the German university ) is both a culmination point and Completion of the description of cynicism (as a contrast to cynicism ) also in philosophy, which is inseparably integrated into this historical process of change and repeatedly creates the conditions for it. Along with this, he considers the emergence of today's inhuman cynicism in the team of petty-bourgeois semiologies and grand philosophical ambitions on the basis of Greek cynicism . Today this no longer stands for ultimately (natural) ethical values between people outside of religious and economic-opportunistic convictions. Instead, he has given way to a cynicism that defines his actions purely materialistically on the basis of an “end goal” and trims or reduces an “intended” action economically to maximize profit; a cynicism, which is silent when it comes to social, anthropogenic and altruistic pursuit of goals in one and for a “successful life”.
In the final chapter, Sloterdijk draws attention to the fact that he does not regard success as a mere external fact, but rather as “being embedded” in a constantly self-organizing and renewing “whole” that people create from their own insight and drive.
reception
With his critique of cynical reason , Sloterdijk would like to shape the language of philosophy more indirectly (if it is taught historically), since social phenomena as interpretable "quantities" are no longer only sociologically accepted and philosophically (and in his historical digressions partly also generally understandable) have been broken down. Sloterdijk finds it convenient to unravel the “chaotic whole” of human actions within a “false system” (Sloterdijk) and takes it to absurdity in parts (as for example in the chapter The Bomb as Buddha ). While Foucault - as a pioneer of the Nouvelle Philosophy - had traditionally argued academically (although extremely critically ), Sloterdijk runs the risk of being understood as too bold and polarizing (in the sense of cynical = sensual = integer vs. cynical = cerebral = neurotic). Sloterdijk gives the reader the opportunity and opportunity to grasp the social changes from several points of view.
His criticism of cynical reason caused a sensation in Germany and helped the public to understand philosophy again as a relevant forum for all areas of knowledge and as an open discourse. Subsequently, in 1987, the Suhrkamp publishing house published a collection with contributions by scientists who express themselves psychologically, sociologically, historically and philosophically on the phenomenon of cynicism .
Bibliography
Primary and secondary literature
- Peter Sloterdijk: Critique of Cynical Reason . 2 volumes. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1983, ISBN 3-518-11099-3 .
- Otto Kallscheuer among others: Peter Sloterdijk's "Critique of Cynical Reason" Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 1987 ISBN 3-518-11297-X
- Ulrich Holbein : Peter's journey to the moon . In: Der Spiegel . No. 42 , 1993 ( online - October 18, 1993 , sees itself as a biting counter-essay).
- Marco Fuhrländer: Critique of Cynical Reason . In: Joachim Kaiser (ed.): The book of 1,000 books. Authors, story, content and impact . Dortmund: Harenberg 2002, ISBN 3-611-01059-6 , p. 1007 f.
Methodology and reception of philosophy: Germany - France
- Vincent Descombes: The same and the other ( Le même et l'autre ). Philosophy in France 1933–1978, 1981, Frankfurt / Main: Suhrkamp (stw 346) ISBN 3-518-27946-7
- Wicks, Robert: "Modern French philosophy" from existentialism and postmodernism, 2003, Oxford: Oneworld ISBN 1-85168-318-6
- Eva Dewes, Sandra Duhem (eds.) Cultural memory and intercultural reception in a European context. VICE VERSA. GERMAN-FRENCH CULTURAL STUDIES, Vol. 1 ISBN 978-3-05-004132-2
Individual proof / reference
- ↑ cf. Extract online