PETER SLOTERDIJK

Philosopher / Author

Born on July 26, 1947, in Karlsruhe. He studied philosophy, history, and German language and literature in Munich and Hamburg from 1968 to 1974. Among his first works in the early 1970s was his essay “Michel Foucault's Structural Theory of History.” His 1976 doctoral thesis, entitled “Literature and Organization of Life Experience,” dealt with autobiographies from the Weimar Republic. From 1978 to 1980, he stayed at a Bhagwan center in India. His work “Critique of Cynical Reason” was published in 1983. It had an immediate impact on discourse and contributed to a broader public awareness of philosophy. The work is one of the best-selling philosophical books of the 20th century.

Since 1988, he has held several chairs, and in 1993 he took over the Institute for Cultural Philosophy at the Academy of Fine Arts on Schillerplatz in Vienna, where he became a contract professor in 2001. In the same year until 2015, Sloterdijk was rector of the State Academy of Design in Karlsruhe and professor of philosophy and aesthetics. In 2011, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Nijmegen, Netherlands.

Peter Sloterdijk is probably the most controversial contemporary German philosopher. He places his idiosyncratic, often risky interpretations of contemporary phenomena not only in the philosophical tradition (in order to rethink them), but also in the continuity of rites and parables. That is why his book “Gottes Eifer” (God's Zeal) concludes with a reinterpretation of Lessing's Ring Parable.

Awards (Selection)
2017 Helmuth-Plessner-Prize
2013 Ludwig-Börne-Prize
2009 BDA award for architectural criticism
2008 Prix Euopéen de l’Essai Charles Veillon
2008 International Mendelssohn Prize in Leipzig (category Social Responsibility)
2008 Cicero Award for Oratory
2008 Lessing-Prize for Criticism
2006 Commandeur de L‘Ordre des Arts et Lettres
2005 Austrian Decoration of Honour for Science and Art
2005 Sigmund-Freud-Prize
1999 Friedrich-Märker-Prize
1993 Ernst-Robert-Curtius-Prize

Works (Selection)
2018 Neue Zeilen und Tage – Notizen 2011-2013 (New Lines and Days)
2017 Nach Gott – Glaubens- und Unglaubensversuche (After God: Essays on Faith and Disbelief)
2016 Was geschah im 20. Jahrhundert? (What Happened in the 20th Century?)
2014 Die schrecklichen Kinder der Neuzeit (The Terrible Children of Modernity: An Antigenealogical Experiment)
2013 Ausgewählte Übertreibungen – Gespräche und Interviews 1993-2012 (Selected Exaggerations: Conversations and Interviews, 1993–2012)
2012 Zeilen und Tage – Notizen 2008-2011 (New Lines and Days)
2011 Stress und Freiheit (Stress and freedom)
2010 Scheintod im Denken – Von Philosophie und Wissenschaft als Übung (Suspended in Thought: On Philosophy and Science as Practice)
2009 Du musst dein Leben ändern. Über Anthropotechnik (You Must Change Your Life: On Anthropotechnics)
2008 Theorie der Nachkriegszeiten (Theory of the Post-War Periods)
2007 Gottes Eifer. Vom Kampf der drei Monotheismen (God's Zeal: The Battle of the Three Monotheisms)
2005 Im Weltinnenraum des Kapitals (In the World Interior of Capital)
2002 Luftbeben. An den Quellen des Terrors (AirQuake: At the Sources of Terror)
2001 Nicht gerettet. Versuche nach Heidegger (Not Saved: Essays After Heidegger)
2000 Die Verachtung der Massen. Versuch über Kulturkämpfe in der modernen Gesellschaft (Contempt for the Masses: A Philosophical Interpretation of Culture Conflicts in Modern Society)
1999 Regeln für den Menschenpark (Rules for the Human Zoo)
1998/1999/2002 Sphärentrilogie (Spheres)
1994 Falls Europa erwacht (Should Europe Wake Up)
1993 Im selben Boot. Versuch über die Hyperpolitik (In the Same Boat: An Essay on Hyperpolitics)
1990 Vor der Jahrtausendwende. Berichte zur Lage der Zukunft (Before the Turn of the Millennium: Reports on the State of the Future. Reports on the State of the Future)
1988 Zur Welt kommen – zur Sprache kommen, Frankfurter Vorlesungen (Coming to the World – Coming to Language)
1983 Kritik der zynischen Vernunft (Critique fo Cynical Reason)

Bibliography (Selection)
2015 Grillmeyer, Siegfried (publisher); Müller-Zähringer, Erik (publisher); Rahner, Johanna (publisher): Peterchens Mondfahrt – Peter Sloterdijk, die Religion und die Theologie. Würzburg: Echter Verlag
2011 Heinrichs, Hans-Jürgen: Peter Sloterdijk: Die Kunst des Philosophierens. München: Hanser
2010 Rehmann, Jan (publisher): Angriff der Leistungsträger? Das Buch zur Sloterdijk-Debatte. Hamburg: Argument
2009 Jongen, Marc (publisher): Die Vermessung des Ungeheuren. Philosophie nach Peter Sloterdijk. Paderborn: Fink
2006 Dobeneck, Holger von: Das Sloterdijk-Alphabet: eine lexikalische Einführung in Sloterdijks Gedankenkosmos. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann
2006 Tuinen, Sjoerd van: Peter Sloterdijk: ein Profil. Paderborn: Fink
1993 Noll, Wulf: Sloterdijk auf der 'Bühne': zur philosophischen und zur philosophiekritischen Positionsbestimmung des Werkes von Peter Sloterdijk im Zeitraum von 1978–1991. Essen: Verlag Die Blaue Eule