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7a73e7e How much truth is contained in something can be best determined by making it thoroughly laughable and then watching to see how much joking around it can take. For truth is a matter that can withstand mockery, that is freshened by any ironic gesture directed at it. Whatever cannot withstand satire is false. reasoning parody Peter Sloterdijk
e1cec5e We can trace the communitarian fantasy that lies at the root of all humanism back to the model of a literary society, in which participation through reading the canon reveals a common love of inspiring messages. At the heart of humanism so understood we discover a cult or club fantasy: the dream of the portentous solidarity of those who have been chosen to be allowed to read. In the ancient world--indeed, until the dawn of the modern nation.. reading humanism language grammar Peter Sloterdijk
4371f98 Gardens are enclosed areas in which plants and arts meet. They form 'cultures' in an uncompromised sense of the word. Peter Sloterdijk
c6d8b65 Wherever one encounters members of the human race, they always show the traits of a being that is condemned to surrealistic effort. Whoever goes in search of humans will find acrobats. humanity humans Peter Sloterdijk
1f0769f In truth, the crossing from nature to culture and vice versa has always stood wide open. It leads across an easily accessible bridge: the practising life. People have committed themselves to its construction since they came into existence - or rather, people only came into existence by applying themselves to the building of said bridge. The human being is the pontifical creature that, from its earliest evolutionary stages, has created tradi.. exercise nature education custom etiquette human-sciences training practising habit Peter Sloterdijk
e3f3f8a In his treatise on the battles between the gods underlying ancient Dionysian theatre, the young Nietzsche notes: 'Alas! The magic of these struggles is such, that he who sees them must also take part in them.' Similarly, an anthropology of the practising life is infected by its subject. Dealing with practices, asceticisms and exercises, whether or not they are declared as such, the theorist inevitably encounters his own inner constitution, .. practising nietzsche Peter Sloterdijk
2fa0c8c As in the days of the first Merovingian, who pledged allegiance to the cross because of a victorious battle, today's children of the banalized Enlightenment are likewise meant to burn what they worshipped and worship what they burned. enlightenment Peter Sloterdijk
e1adf23 Consequently, immune systems at this level can be defined a priori as embodied expectations of injury and the corresponding programmes of protection and repair. practising Peter Sloterdijk
6eec0ef Give up your attachment to comfortable ways of living - show yourself in the gymnasium (gymnos = 'naked'), prove that you are not indifferent to the difference between perfect and imperfect, demonstrate to us that achievement - excellence, arete, virtu - has not remained a foreign word to you, admit that you have motives for new endeavours! Above all: only grant the suspicion that sport is a pastime for the most stupid as much space as it d.. training change-your-life sport Peter Sloterdijk
116375f As long as no more than a small minority are capable of reading and writing, universal alphabetization seems like a messianic project. Only once everyone has this ability does one notice the catastrophe that almost no one can do it properly. Peter Sloterdijk
7578823 There is no 'eugenics' in Nietzsche - despite occasional references to 'breeding'- at least no more than is implicit in the recommendation to choose a partner under decent lightning conditions and with one's self-respect intact. Everything else falls under training, discipline, education and self-design - the Ubermensch implies not a biological but an artistic, not to say an acrobatic programme. The only thought-provoking aspect of the marr.. marriage education self-design training Peter Sloterdijk
ccdad03 But if man genuinely produces man, it is precisely not through work and it's concrete results, not even the 'work on oneself' so widely praised in recent times, let alone through the alternatively invoked phenomena of 'interaction' or 'communication': it is through life in forms of practice. Practice is defined here as any operation that provides or improves the actor's qualification for the next performance of the same operation, whether i.. work working Peter Sloterdijk
13485d4 The stakes in this game are not low. Our enterprise is no less than the introduction of an alternative language, and with the language an altered perspective, for a group of phenomena that tradition tended to refer to with such words as 'spirituality', 'piety', 'morality', 'ethics' and 'asceticism'. If the manoeuvre succeeds, the conventional concept of religion, that ill-fated bugbear from the prop studios of modern Europe, will emerge fro.. morality spirituality religion piety culture ethics practising Peter Sloterdijk
cadbf91 This background enables us to understand a fact that is symptomatic of the current phase of saturation: there are countless people who want to withdraw from the omnipresence of advertising, who even avoid it like the plague. Here too, it is helpful to distinguish between the states before and after. From the perspective of the burgeoning world of products, advertising could be justified by the argument that spreading the word about the exis.. Peter Sloterdijk
6b164b3 This gesture is one of the motifs of modernity's turn against the principle of imitating nature, that is to say, imitating predefined morphological expectations. It is still capable of perceiving message-totalities and autonomous thing-signals when no morphologically intact figures are left - indeed, precisely then. The sense for perfection withdraws from the forms of nature - probably because nature itself is in the process of losing its o.. photography perfection nature poetry science perfect cripples fragments hybrids intensity technique rilke thing-poem modernity Peter Sloterdijk
6e0e98d Above all: only grant the suspicion that sport is a pastime for the most stupid as much space as it deserves, do not misuse it as a pretext to drift further in your customary state of self-neglect, distrust the philistine in yourself who thinks you are just fine as you are! Hear the voice from the stone, do not resist the call to get in shape! Seize the chance to train with a god! shape fit pastime sport Peter Sloterdijk
b408bb7 In Nietzsche's usage, the word 'Christianity' does not even refer primarily to the religion; using it like a code word, he is thinking more of a particular religio-metaphysically influenced disposition, an ascetically (in the penitent and self-denying sense) defined attitude to the world, an unfortunate form of life deferral, focus on the hereafter and quarrel with secular facts christianity asceticism friedrich-nietzsche nietzsche Peter Sloterdijk
83b5603 The hero of the following account, Homo immunologicus, who must give his life, with all its dangers and surfeits, a symbolic framework, is the human being that struggles with itself in concern for its form. We will characterize it more closely as the ethical human being, or rather Homo repetitious, Homo artista, the human in training. None of the circulating theories of behaviour or action is capable of grasping the practising human - on th.. Peter Sloterdijk
83d1843 It is not sufficient, he emphasized, to colour (colorare) the mind with wisdom; it must be pickled (macerare) in it, as it were, soaked in it (inficere), and entirely transformed by it. wisdom Peter Sloterdijk
d80c471 La cultura de masas presupone el fracaso de todo intento de hacer de uno alguien interesante, lo que significa hacerse mejor que los otros Peter Sloterdijk
600e16c The aesthetic construct, and nothing else, has taught us to expose ourselves to a non-enslaving experience of rank differences. The work of art is even allowed to 'tell' us, those who have run away from form, something, because it quite obviously does not embody the intention to confine us. 'La poesie ne s'impose plus, elle s'expose' Something that exposes itself and proves itself in this test gains unpresumed authority. In the space of aes.. poetry authority rilke creativity Peter Sloterdijk
48963a2 If Enlightenment in a technical sense is the programmatic word for progress in the awareness of explicitness, one can say without fear of grand formulas that rendering the implicit explicit is the cognitive form of fate. Were this not the case, one would never have had cause to believe that later knowledge would necessarily be better knowledge - for, as we know, everything that has been termed 'research' in the last centuries has rested on .. progress science knowledge Peter Sloterdijk
b420487 What appears in the former statue of Apollo, however, cannot simply be equated with the Olympian of the same name, who had to ensure light, contours, foreknowledge and security of form in his days of completeness. Rather, as the poem's title implies, he stands for something much older, something rising from prehistoric sources. He symbolizes a divine magma in which something of the first ordering force, as old as the world itself, becomes m.. poetry rodin sculpture rilke thing-poem dionysus Peter Sloterdijk
d549504 In his differentiation between asceticisms, Nietzsche posited a clear divide between the priestly varieties on the one side, illuminated by his vicious gaze, and the disciplinary rules of intellectual workers, philosophers and artists as well as the exercises of warriors and athletes on the other side. If the former are concerned with what one might call a pathogogical asceticism - an artful self-violation among an elite of sufferers that e.. ascetics friedrich-nietzsche nietzsche Peter Sloterdijk
91b81be In truth, philosophy is the mode of thought shaped by the most radical form of prejudice: the passion of being-in-the-world. With the sole exception of specialists in the field, virtually everyone senses that anything which offers less than this passion play remains philosophically trivial. Cultural anthropologists suggest the appealing term 'deep play' for the comprehensively absorbing preoccupations of human beings. From the perspective o.. passion philosophy deep-play Peter Sloterdijk
6f20176 Vitality, understood both somatically and mentally, is itself the medium that contains a gradient between more and less. It therefore contains the vertical component that guides ascents within itself, and has no need of additional external or metaphysical attractors. That God is supposedly dead is irrelevant in this context. With or without God, each person will only get as far as their form carries them. Naturally 'God', during the time of.. vitality vertical-tensions nietzsche Peter Sloterdijk
b6d1563 In the midst of the ubiquitous dealings with prostituted signs, the thing-poem was capable of opening up the prospect of returning to credible experiences of meaning. It did this by tying language to the gold standard of what things themselves communicate. Where randomness is disabled, authority should shine forth. poetry communication being randomness rilke thing-poem Peter Sloterdijk
7b725b2 The reason for the existence of the perfection conjured up in these fourteen lines is that it possesses ... the authorization to form a message that appeals from within itself. This power of appeal is exquisitely evident in the object evoked here. The perfect thing is that which articulates an entire principle of being. The poem has to perform no more and no less than to perceive the principle of being in the thing and adapt it to its own e.. poetry being rilke thing-poem Peter Sloterdijk
15b30be As we know, Rilke, under the influence of Auguste Rodin, whom he had assisted between 1905 and 1906 in Meudon as a private secretary, turned away from the art nouveau-like, sensitized-atmospheric poetic approach of his early years to pursue a view of art determined more strongly by the priority of the object. The proto-modern pathos of making way for the object without depicting it in a manner 'true to nature', like that of the old masters,.. poetry rodin rilke thing-poem Peter Sloterdijk
309de7e What the poet has to say to the torso of the supposed Apollo, however, is more than a note on an excursion to the antiquities collection. The author's point is not that the thing depicts an extinct god who might be of interest to the humanistically educated, but that the god in the stone constitutes a thing-construct that is still on air. We are dealing with a document of how newer message ontology outgrew traditional theologies. Here, bein.. poetry god being rilke thing-poem poet Peter Sloterdijk
4bbb446 A completely different aspect, however, the thoroughly incommensurable one, lies in the imposition of accepting that the torso sees me while I observe it - indeed, that it eyes me more sharply than I can look at it. The ability to perform the inner gesture with which one makes space for this improbability inside oneself most probably consists precisely in the talent that Max Weber denied having. This talent is 'religiosity', understood as a.. religiosity Peter Sloterdijk
fdadc25 Devi cambiare la tua vita! Questo e l'imperativo che supera l'alternativa tra ipotetico e categorico, l'imperativo assoluto, il comando metanoico per eccellenza. Esso fornisce la parola chiave per la rivoluzione, declinata alla seconda persona singolare. Esso definisce la vita come un dislivello tra le sue forme piu elevate e quelle piu basse. Io vivo, ma qualcosa mi dice con autorita inconfutabile: non vivi ancora correttamente. L'autorita.. Peter Sloterdijk
8dbcfd6 A philosopher is one who, as an athlete of totality, is laden with the weight of the world. The essence of philosophy as a form of living is philponia -- friendship with the entirety of weighty and worth things. The love of wisdom and the love of the weight of the one whole are unified. Peter Sloterdijk
0b812f2 For many intelligences,the thought of homely intimacies is associated with a spontaneous disgust at too much sweetness-which is why there is neither a philosophy of sweetness nor an elaborated ontology of the intimate. One must assess the nature of this resistance if one is to get past typical initial aversions. From a distance,the subject appears so unattractive and inconsequential that for the time being,only suckers for harmony or theoph.. Peter Sloterdijk
e7779a3 Something is indeed returning today - but the conventional wisdom that this is religion making its reappearance is insufficient to satisfy critical inquiries. Nor is it the return of a factor that had vanished, but, rather a shift of emphasis in a continuum that was never interrupted. The genuinely recurring element that would merit our full intellectual attention is more anthropological than 'religious' in its implications - it is, in a nu.. religion immunitary practising Peter Sloterdijk
be3371d It is not only the weary Homo faber, who objectifies the world in the 'doing' mode, who must vacate his place on the logical stage; the time has also come for Homo religiosus, who turns to the world above in surreal rites, to bid a deserved farewell. Together, workers and believers come into a new category. It is time to reveal humans as the beings who result from repetition. Just as the nineteenth century stood cognitively under the sign o.. work repetition working practising Peter Sloterdijk
7a63a1b I am already living, but something is telling me with unchallengeable authority: you are not living properly. The numinous authority of form enjoys the prerogative of being able to tell me 'You must'. It is the authority of a different life in this life. This authority touches on a subtle insufficiency within me that is older and freer than sin; it is my innermost not-yet. In my most conscious moment, I am affected by the absolute objectio.. life not-yet status-quo will Peter Sloterdijk
879b5b6 Let me repeat: the stakes are high. We must confront one of the most massive pseudo-evidences in recent intellectual history: the belief, rampant in Europe since only two or three centuries ago, in the existence of 'religions' - and more than that, against the unverified faith in the existence of faith. Faith in the existence of 'religion' is the element that unites believers and non-believers, in the present as much as in the past. It disp.. religion religions Peter Sloterdijk
8a285ad The novelty of the new, as noted earlier, stems from the unfolding of the known into larger, brighter, more richly contoured surfaces. Consequently, it can never be innovative in an absolute sense; in part, it is always the continuation of the cognitively existent by other means. Here, novelty and greater explicitness amount to the same thing. We can therefore say that the higher the degree of explicitness, the deeper the possible, indeed i.. explicitness Peter Sloterdijk
ac9ef1d Viewed in this light, life itself appears as a dynamics of integration that is equipped with auto-therapeutic or 'endo-clinical' competencies and refers to a species-specific space of surprise. It has an equally innate and - in higher organisms - adaptively acquired responsibility for the injuries and invasions it regularly encounters in its permanently allocated environment or conquered surroundings. Such immune systems could equally be de.. spiritual religious immune-system transcendence practising Peter Sloterdijk
6a165c3 only very few - only humans, as far as we know - achieve the second level of transcendent movement. Through this, the environment is de-restricted to become the world as an integral whole of manifest and latent elements. The second step is the work of language. This not only builds the 'house of being' - Heidegger took this phrase from Zarathustra's animals, which inform the convalescent: 'the house of being rebuilds itself eternally'; it i.. immune-system transcendence language Peter Sloterdijk
8efd8eb Alors que ce mauvais siecle approche de sa fin, le pressentiment se repand que l'idee de faire histoire n'etait qu'un pretexte. Le sujet decisif de la modernite, c'est de faire nature. nature modernité Peter Sloterdijk
8b91fef In this book, we will naturally be dealing primarily with the manifestations of the third level of immunity. I gather material on the biography of Homo immunologicus, guided by the assumption that this is where to find the stuff from which the forms of anthropotechnics are made. By this I mean the methods of mental and physical practising by which humans from the most diverse cultures have attempted to optimize their cosmic and immunologica.. practising Peter Sloterdijk
a81be9c As the following pages deal with the practising life, they lead - in accordance with their topic - to an expedition into the little-explored universe of human vertical tensions. The Platonic Socrates had opened up the phenomenon for occidental culture when he stated expressis verbis that man is a being potentially 'superior to himself'. I translate this remark into the observation that all 'cultures', 'subcultures' or 'scenes' are based on .. vertical-tensions Peter Sloterdijk
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