Since the publication of his Critique of Cynical Reason (English version 1988) Peter Sloterdijk has become the most important representative of post-Frankfurt School critical theory in Germany.  In a series of publications, ranging from treatments of Nietzsche (Thinker on Stage), engagement with postmodern philosophy (Derrida, ein Ägypter), and discussions of the relationship between religion, science and politics (Eurotaoismus, Regeln für den Menschenpark, leading to his famous dispute with Jürgen Habermas in 2001 over genetic engineering and eugenics), to the recent three-volume work Sphären (spheres), Professor Sloterdijk has cemented his role as one of Europe’s most sought-after intellectuals.  In addition, he is a national media figure in Germany, hosting the bi-monthly discussion programme Philosophische Quartett on ZDF.  For many years Professor Sloterdijk operated as a freelance writer but since 1992 he has taught at the Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung, Karlsruhe, a leading institution in higher education devoted to research and teaching on the relationship between philosophy, the arts, the human sciences and new modes of communication.  For the last few years he has been its Rector.  

 

Professor Sloterdijk’s main contribution to European social theory is to have consistently sought a new language in which the human sciences broadly conceived might grasp the challenges of the twenty-first century.  To this end, the argument of his magnum opus, Sphären, is that there is a need to come to terms with two major developments in the advanced societies of the late twentieth century: deindustrialisation and the predominance of spatial over temporal relationships.  He argues that this is a challenge for the human sciences because they have been wedded for decades to models that cannot take these developments into account.  In particular, almost all versions of the sociology subscribe to some version or another of historicism.  Most of Sphären – divided into ‘Bubbles’, ‘Globes’ and ‘Foam’ - is devoted to this second problem, and seeks to promote a ‘topological turn’ in the human sciences, centred on the theorisation of space. It argues the resources for such spatial thinking are to be found in a buried layer of the European philosophical heritage that stretches from Plato to Leibniz.  Volume 1 is mainly concerned with dyadic relationships; volume 2 excavates the philosophical history of the concept of globalisation; volume 3 rethinks the nature of social relations in terms of the structure of foam, arguing from an image of what Sloterdijk calls ‘connected isolations’.    

 

Professor Sloterdijk will spend a week at Warwick, from May19th to 23rd, 2008.  A number of events have been organised, to which all are very welcome. 

 

 

 

Seminars and Lectures at Warwick: May19th to 23rd, 2008

 

Participants of the Sloterdijk Workshop, May 22nd, 2008