In the form of Schäume/Foams Peter Sloterdijk has now brought to an end his three-volume endeavor to retell the history of humankind.

The concept of the sphere refers back to Sloterdijk's main proposition, namely that life is a matter of form. »It suggests that life, sphere images and thought are different expressions of one and the same thing.«

The first volume Blasen/Bubbles appeared in 1998 and reconstructs how the close co-existence of people creates a special kind of intérieur. The emphasis in that first volume of the Spheres was on the hypothesis that compared with the individual it is actually the couple/pair that is the far stronger entity. In the second volume, the philosophical Roman Globen/Globes (1999) Sloterdijk narrates how classical metaphysical thought qua contemplation of the large round whole expands to appropriate the world, the globe, and thus triggers several forms of globalization.

Schäume/Foams, the third and last volume, now offers a philosophical theory of the present age from a specific angle: Life, or so Sloterdijk claims, unfolds in a multi-focal fashion. The cheerful image of »foam« serves to re-assert the pluralism of world inventions and invented worlds, thus allowing Sloterdijk to formulate a philosophical-anthropological interpretation of modern individualism that goes beyond existing descriptions. Schäume/Foams likewise answers the question as to what shape a bond must take in order to bind the individuals together to form what the sociological tradition terms »society«.
By virtue of the fact that the third section of the Sphären/Spheres concerns itself with the most urgent and compelling questions, it is quite possible to read it as if it were the first of the triad.

The Terrible Children of Modernity