Philosopher Peter Sloterdijk was invited to give a speech on the 6th of April 2011 at the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom as part of the Berlin Speeches on Freedom. The philosopher extends his very warm welcome to Katrin Bukhardt, Director of the Berlin branch of the Allianz SE, and Wolfgang Gerhardt, President of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, for their hospitality.
Summary: Sloterdijk begins with a remark about the lack of astonishment in the social sciences. Specifically, about the ambiguous term called "society" which presupposes the cohesion of large-scale political bodies whose members have increasingly individualistic tendencies, at least in the West. He then proposes that "society" should be understood as a stress-integrating force fields which regulates the daily concerns of people. Sloterdijk then explains two contrasting notions of freedom: ancient and modern. The former is exemplified in the "Rape of Lucretia" which formed the Greco-Roman res publica and polis; the latter can be found in the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Reveries of the Solitary Walker. Therein lies the Western individualistic concept of freedom which predominates hitherto. That is, the freedom to flee from the stress of "reality" itself: to remove one's social identity from the social fabric itself and achieve the pure ecstasy of being-with-oneself. In Sloterdijk's view, German Idealism, Marxism and the linguistic turn of philosophy are attempts to put Rousseau's useless reverie subject back into "work". e.g. making it the absolute "I' which generates reality, the subject of capitalist revolution, etc. Sloterdijk then shows the negative realisation of Rousseau's reverie subject which is encapsulated in Samuel Beckett's play Eleutheria. In conclusion, Sloterdijk provides a critique of liberalism as they are not fit to carry on the project of liberty before ending with the deceptively simple formula: freedom is the availability for the improbable. “Whoever acts out of freedom," says Sloterdijk, "revolts against the meanness they can no longer bear to see."
▬ Chapters ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
Preface 0:00
1. Large-Scale Political Bodies as Stress Communes 1:44
2. Lucretia's Revolt, Rousseau's Retreat 12:28
3. Stress and Freedom
4. The Reaction of the Real
5. On the Source of Committed Freedom
Credits:
English Translation by Wieland Hobar (Sloterdijk's exclusive English translator),
Translation taken from the book Stress and Freedom (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2016).
Book borrowed from username Station32.cebu at Archive.org: archive.org/details/stressfre....
Music:
Robert Schumann-Einfach & Sehr Rasch und Leicht
Ludwig van Beethoven-Pathetique Sonata 2nd Movement
C418-Mice on Venus
#petersloterdijk #philosophy #freedom
Clips belongs to www.freiheit.org and Peter Sloterdijk. English translations belongs to Wieland Hoban (2016). I do not own any of the clips except for adding subtitles. This is a non-profit and unmonetised video.
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8 май 2023
