Spheres (Sloterdijk)
Sphären is the title of a trilogy by the philosopher and author Peter Sloterdijk that was published between 1998 and 2004 . In the monumental work (2565 pages) he tries to tell the story of mankind anew in his own way. It starts with the question of where and how people live (together). To answer this question, Sloterdijk coined the metaphorically derived concept of spheres and viewed human history from this perspective. The image of the ball , the bubbles , the globe and finally the foam runs like a red thread through the trilogy.
Spheres I - bubbles, microspherology
The first volume is about the so-called bubbles , which Sloterdijk believes are the basic molecules of a strong relationship. He relates these bubbles or microspheres to the individual who is never alone from his fetus stage - here the placenta as “fluidal communion” of the fetus with the placenta - but always lives in these bubbles and is related to others . The focus is on the thesis that the couple is more important than the individual.
The first volume begins with the description of soap bubbles and goes on to show that social existence, the formation of spheres and ultimately thinking are only variations for one and the same. A sphere becomes the inner, developed, divided encircled that paired people inhabit in their incarnation. To live in spheres means to create the dimension in which people can be contained.
Spheres II - globes, macrospherology
The second volume is no longer dedicated to the individual , but to politics . He interprets the concept of the globe and globalization . First he refers to the Greek worldview , in which the world is represented by the shape of the sphere . He examines the ideas in the premodern empires and then the ideal changes that occur through the discovery of America and the first circumnavigations of the world. As the third level of globalization, he interprets today's virtuality of all conditions that lead to a spatial crisis.
Spheres III - Foams, Plural Spherology
In the third volume, Sloterdijk examines how our modern society works. He creates the metaphor of “foam” as a multifocal model of society. With this picture he tries to grasp and describe the paradox of the “individual society”.
literature
- Peter Sloterdijk: Spheres I - Bubbles . Suhrkamp, 1998, ISBN 3-518-41022-9 .
- Peter Sloterdijk: Spheres II - Globes . Suhrkamp, 1999, ISBN 3-518-41054-7 .
- Peter Sloterdijk: Spheres III - Foams . Suhrkamp, 2004, ISBN 3-518-41465-8 .
- Ludger Lütdkehaus: foam interpretation . In: Die Zeit , No. 21/2004
- Michael Mayer: A little too round . In: Berliner Zeitung , May 17, 2004
Web links
- Frank Hartmann: Critique of the monocentric reason . Telepolis
- Architecture of the foam . In: archplus 169/170 , May 2004
- Richard David Precht : Collapsing sand castles. Why the creator of "spherology" is a gifted linguist and critic, but not a great philosopher . kultiversum.de Literatures July / August 2004
Individual evidence
- ↑ Compare the concept of the bubble (physics)
- ^ Peter Sloterdijk: Spheres I - Bubbles. Suhrkamp, 1998, ISBN 3-518-41022-9 , p. 17
- ↑ Compare the concept of foam