Peter Sloterdijk
Professor Philosophy, Karlsruhe School of Design
February 17 2009
Website: Peter Sloterdijk
Books in English Translation:
Thinker on the stage : Nietzsche's materialism / Peter Sloterdijk; translation by Jamie Owen Daniel; foreword by Jochen Schulte-Sasse. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, c1989.
Widener | WID-LC | B3317 .S5813 1989
Critique of cynical reason / Peter Sloterdijk; translation by Michael Eldred; foreword by Andreas Huyssen.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, c1987.
Lamont | B809.5 .S5813 1987
Widener | WID-LC | B809.5 .S5813 1987
Selected Articles on his work (in English):
Editorial. L'Architecture d'Aujourd'hui , 2005 (March/April), no. 357: 38-39.
Abstract: Part of a special section on one-off houses. The writer introduces the section. Today, the individual house tops the list of things people want; in France in 2004, for example, construction was begun on 216,000 houses, a figure up 12 percent on the preceding year. According to German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk, however, family homes have lost their impassive dignity and are now just places that are heated, cooled, and wired, serving as hideouts and base camps for our diurnal and nocturnal forays into the outside world of work and leisure. These are places fraught with intrinsic economic and environmental constraints, but, as this special section shows, they do not, for all that, hamper the real creativity of designers.
Funcke, Bettina. “Against Gravity: Bettina Funcke Talks with Peter Sloterdijk.” Artforum International, 2005 (February/March). 11, no. 5: 27-29. Summary: An interview with German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk, who achieved acclaim in the United States during the heyday of critical theory with the 1988 translation of his Critique of Cynical Reason. In 2004, he published the Spheres trilogy, which is an effort to restore the relevance of leftist critical thought. In the interview, Sloterdijk discusses the genesis and nature of Spheres.
Latour, Bruno.”Aria condizionata: il nostro nuovo destino politico / Air-condition: our new political fate.” Domus, 2004(March), no. 868: 40-41. Summary: German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk's urged us to radically modify our point of view on what it means to "inhabit" a place. He explored what it means to pertain to a sphere, a home, a domus, and, taking his cue from Heidegger, he asked that we consider what it means to be "thrown into the world." In the sphere, existence depends on opaque forces that cannot be objectified in the old sense of the word, and which become more and more explicit, playing much the same role as the ambiance, atmosphere, and milieu in which living beings are always immersed.
Margat, Claire. “Peter Sloterdijk: thinking the unthinkable.” Art Press, 2000 (September), no. 260: 58-60.
ten Bos, Kaulingfreks. “Interfaces.” Theory, Culture & Society 2002, 19, no. 3 (06): 139 – 151.
Summary: This article discusses the ideas presented by Peter Sloterdijk in his books "Sphären I" and Sphären II." It is noted that Sloterdijk's work about "Sphären" (spheres) can best be seen as an extended discussion about the possibilities of human togetherness. Almost 1700 pages are devoted to a variety of subjects that are all related to the question of whether there have been and still are conditions that encourage solidarity between people. Basing his argument on the Platonic idea that ideal forms of togetherness are related to a life in a perfect, geometrical sphere, Sloterdijk contends that human life, for all its historical or anthropological heterogeneity, has nearly always been lived within "spheres." (Click here for PDF: Harvard ID and PIN required.)