Spheres III

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.