Ontological co-belonging in Peter Sloterdijk's spherological philosophy of mediation
Ontological co-belonging in Peter Sloterdijk's spherological philosophy of mediation
This article examines the ontology and politics of Peter Sloterdijk's Spheres trilogy, focusing in particular upon the notion of microspherical enclosure explicated in the first volume of this series. Noting Sloterdijk's unusual alignment of his philosophy with media theory, three main contentions are put forward. Firstly, that Sloterdijk's reconfiguration of Heidegger's fundamental ontology represents a largely unacknowledged renunciation of the primacy of Being-towards-death in the authentic existence of Dasein, foregrounding instead an originary co-belonging between mother and child. Secondly, that Sloterdijk borrows from media theory a concern regarding the facticity of all communication, grounding philosophical discourse in the determinate locality of its origin, but does so while exalting a pre-natal communicative immediacy that would seem to disparage the everydayness of Dasein. Finally, that Sloterdijk's oft-justified scepticism regarding globalization often retreats into an anti-cosmopolitanism that, in its nostalgia for the comfort, security and immediacy of the matrixial co-belonging (and the various attempts by humans to replicate this enclosure), evinces a covert but potentially noxious politics of exclusion.
continental philosophy, media theory, belonging, birth, communication, globalization, mediation, space, Martin Heidegger, Peter Sloterdijk
133-152
Sutherland, Thomas
a9a8e23c-232e-47ca-9be6-abeac690bfb2
31 July 2017
Sutherland, Thomas
a9a8e23c-232e-47ca-9be6-abeac690bfb2
Sutherland, Thomas
(2017)
Ontological co-belonging in Peter Sloterdijk's spherological philosophy of mediation.
Paragraph, 40 (2), .
(doi:10.3366/para.2017.0222).
Abstract
This article examines the ontology and politics of Peter Sloterdijk's Spheres trilogy, focusing in particular upon the notion of microspherical enclosure explicated in the first volume of this series. Noting Sloterdijk's unusual alignment of his philosophy with media theory, three main contentions are put forward. Firstly, that Sloterdijk's reconfiguration of Heidegger's fundamental ontology represents a largely unacknowledged renunciation of the primacy of Being-towards-death in the authentic existence of Dasein, foregrounding instead an originary co-belonging between mother and child. Secondly, that Sloterdijk borrows from media theory a concern regarding the facticity of all communication, grounding philosophical discourse in the determinate locality of its origin, but does so while exalting a pre-natal communicative immediacy that would seem to disparage the everydayness of Dasein. Finally, that Sloterdijk's oft-justified scepticism regarding globalization often retreats into an anti-cosmopolitanism that, in its nostalgia for the comfort, security and immediacy of the matrixial co-belonging (and the various attempts by humans to replicate this enclosure), evinces a covert but potentially noxious politics of exclusion.
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sutherland_ontological
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Accepted/In Press date: 15 January 2017
e-pub ahead of print date: 21 May 2017
Published date: 31 July 2017
Additional Information:
Winner of the 2017 Paragraph annual essay prize competition, on the theme of ‘Belongings’
Keywords:
continental philosophy, media theory, belonging, birth, communication, globalization, mediation, space, Martin Heidegger, Peter Sloterdijk
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Local EPrints ID: 494960
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/494960
ISSN: 0264-8334
PURE UUID: decde695-adc6-4b25-9876-3a9e8eee1f8c
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Date deposited: 24 Oct 2024 16:37
Last modified: 25 Oct 2024 02:08
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Thomas Sutherland
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