DEBATE AESTHETICS AND MODERNITY Jacques Rancière and Peter Sloterdijk / By Adolfo Vásquez Rocca

AESTHETICS AND MODERNITY

Ranciere - Sloterdijk

Peter Sloterdijk

'Jacques Rancière and Peter Sloterdijk debate Aesthetics and Modernity'

Peter Sloterdijk at the Social Theory Centre

Peter Sloterdijk

2008

This is a chance to hear two leading continental thinkers and public intellectuals debating the aesthetic both as a way of understanding the modern world and as a problematic category within that world. In a genial confrontation between German and French traditions and modes of thought, Prof. Rancière and Prof. Sloterdijk assess the role of the aesthetic in the digitalised and globalised world. Their personal presence at Warwick has been especially valuable as they both have major works still not translated into English. This podcast offers an excellent overview of some of the key ideas of the acclaimed thinkers, whose work connects philosophy, literature, history, art, politics, sociology and psychology.

Jacques Rancière

Jacques Rancière is Emeritus Professor at the Université de Paris VIII.

Peter Sloterdijk

Peter Sloterdijk is Vice-Chancellor and Professor of Philosophy and Media Theory, Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung, Karlsruhe

The debate was sponsored by the Social Theory Centre, The Centre for Research in Philosophy, Literature and the Arts, and the Institute of Advanced Studies at Warwick University.

Information:

Adolfo Vásquez Rocca

DR. ADOLFO VÁSQUEZ ROCCA PUBLICA LIBRO 'PETER SLOTERDIJK' | IAM Valencia, España

Peter Sloterdijk

Since the publication of his Critique of Cynical Reason (English version 1988) Peter Sloterdijk has become the most important representative of post-Frankfurt School critical theory in Germany. In a series of publications, ranging from treatments of Nietzsche (Thinker on Stage), engagement with postmodern philosophy (Derrida, ein Ägypter), and discussions of the relationship between religion, science and politics (Eurotaoismus, Regeln für den Menschenpark, leading to his famous dispute with Jürgen Habermas in 2001 over genetic engineering and eugenics), to the recent three-volume work Sphären (spheres), Professor Sloterdijk has cemented his role as one of Europe’s most sought-after intellectuals. In addition, he is a national media figure in Germany, hosting the bi-monthly discussion programme Philosophische Quartett on ZDF. For many years Professor Sloterdijk operated as a freelance writer but since 1992 he has taught at the Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung, Karlsruhe, a leading institution in higher education devoted to research and teaching on the relationship between philosophy, the arts, the human sciences and new modes of communication. For the last few years he has been its Rector.

Professor Sloterdijk’s main contribution to European social theory is to have consistently sought a new language in which the human sciences broadly conceived might grasp the challenges of the twenty-first century. To this end, the argument of his magnum opus, Sphären, is that there is a need to come to terms with two major developments in the advanced societies of the late twentieth century: deindustrialisation and the predominance of spatial over temporal relationships. He argues that this is a challenge for the human sciences because they have been wedded for decades to models that cannot take these developments into account. In particular, almost all versions of the sociology subscribe to some version or another of historicism. Most of Sphären – divided into ‘Bubbles’, ‘Globes’ and ‘Foam’ - is devoted to this second problem, and seeks to promote a ‘topological turn’ in the human sciences, centred on the theorisation of space. It argues the resources for such spatial thinking are to be found in a buried layer of the European philosophical heritage that stretches from Plato to Leibniz. Volume 1 is mainly concerned with dyadic relationships; volume 2 excavates the philosophical history of the concept of globalisation; volume 3 rethinks the nature of social relations in terms of the structure of foam, arguing from an image of what Sloterdijk calls ‘connected isolations’.

DEBATE AESTHETICS AND MODERNITY Jacques Rancière and Peter Sloterdijk / By Adolfo Vásquez Rocca

Revista Observaciones Filosóficas - Peter Sloterdijk

DR. ADOLFO VÁSQUEZ ROCCA PUBLICA LIBRO 'PETER SLOTERDIJK' | IAM Valencia, España

Libro 'Peter Sloterdijk' by Adolfo Vasquez Rocca PH. D.

Adolfo Vásquez Rocca

| E-mail: adolfovrocca@gmail.com