Out of the World (Cultural Memory in the Present)

by: Peter Sloterdijk (Author)

Publisher: Stanford University Press
Edition: 1st

Publication Date: May 7, 2024

Language: English

Print Length: 246 pages

ISBN-10: 1503633292

ISBN-13: 9781503633292

Book Description

In this essential early work, the preeminent European philosopher Peter Sloterdijk offers a cross-cultural and transdisciplinary meditation on humanity’s tendency to refuse the world. Developing the first seeds of his anthropotechnics, Sloterdijk theorizes consciousness as a medium, tuned and retuned over the course of technological and social history. His subject here is the “world-alien” (Weltfremdheit) in man that was formerly institutionalized in religions, but is increasingly dealt with in mode times through practices of psychotherapy. Originally written in 1993, this almost clairvoyant work examines how humans seek escape from the world in cross-cultural and historical context, up to the mania and world-escapism of our cybeetic network culture. Chapters delve into artificial habitats and forms of intoxication, from early Christian desert monks to pharmaco-theology through psychedelics. In classic form, Sloterdijk recalibrates and reinvents concepts from the ancient Greeks to Heidegger to develop an astonishingly contemporary philosophical anthropology.
In this essential early work, the preeminent European philosopher Peter Sloterdijk offers a cross-cultural and transdisciplinary meditation on humanity’s tendency to refuse the world. Developing the first seeds of his anthropotechnics, Sloterdijk theorizes consciousness as a medium, tuned and retuned over the course of technological and social history. His subject here is the “world-alien” (Weltfremdheit) in man that was formerly institutionalized in religions, but is increasingly dealt with in mode times through practices of psychotherapy. Originally written in 1993, this almost clairvoyant work examines how humans seek escape from the world in cross-cultural and historical context, up to the mania and world-escapism of our cybeetic network culture. Chapters delve into artificial habitats and forms of intoxication, from early Christian desert monks to pharmaco-theology through psychedelics. In classic form, Sloterdijk recalibrates and reinvents concepts from the ancient Greeks to Heidegger to develop an astonishingly contemporary philosophical anthropology. Read more