Modernity, Sloterdijk and Private Semiologies

Lump · December 17, 2014, 7:42pm

Ancient Greeks would have a term “diluted” when thoughts are a stray and doesn’t make sense.

Erik1 · December 17, 2014, 7:45pm

So, are you really saying you didn’t comprehend the OP? Not even the gist?

If you really want me to, I will dumb it down for you.

Lump · December 17, 2014, 7:48pm

OP is very clear, and it’s even more clear it’s pure fantasy, not suited for philosophy, more suited for Harry Potter movies.

Erik1 · December 17, 2014, 7:50pm

Yeah - you are a troll.

First you insinuated it was inscrutable; now you claim it’s perfectly fathomable.

You will be ignored, until you show evidence of sincerity and maturity.

Erik1 · December 18, 2014, 1:15pm

‘Even Lacan’s tragically presumptuous theorem about the mirror stage’s formative significance for the ego function cannot overcome its dependence on the cosmetic and ego-technical household inventory of the nineteenth century - much to the detriment of those who were taken in by this psychological mirage’

He argues that in order to prove the valence of psychoanalytic theories in any cultures other than the Western ones we would have to first demonstrate the presence of mirrors (he argues that even until the Modern age few had mirrors and they were cloaked in secrecy – for much of human history S. argues that most of the human race had not seen their own faces [I think he oversimplifies here – e.g. reflection in another’s eyes for example ‘the other thus acts as a personal mirror’ p.200 – but there is certainly something interesting to be said about how the ‘interface’ of mirror technologies opens up new modes of self-encounter – ‘they no longer require completion through the present other, but can complete themselves through themselves so to speak’ p. 20] – says something similar about writing in thought transmission]), and then the emergence of mirror-subjectivities. S. also argues that if we reread the narcissistic mirror-narrative with this intervention in mind, we actually arrive at the stark opposite of narcissism in ‘pre-reflection’ cultures: the visage in the water is not an image of the self, but of another – ‘Looking at the entire history of human faciality, one can say that humans have faces not for themselves, but for the others’ p.192. So through this example we return again to the issues of ontotopology, spherological being and technicity which are of central concern to Sloterdijk’s Spheres

Erik1 · December 21, 2014, 2:04pm

The structural implication of the current earth-encompassing network - with all its eversions into the virtual realm - is thus not so much a globalisation as a foaming. In foam worlds, the individual bubbles are not absorbed into a single integrative hyper-orb, as in the metaphysical conniption of the world, but rather drawn together to form irregular hills.

Referring to a pathology of spheres displays a threefold focus: a politicological one, in so far as foams tend to be ungovernable structures with an inclination towards morphological anarchy; a cognitive one, in so far as the individuals and associations of subjects can no longer produce any complete world, as the idea of the whole world itself, in its characteristic holistic emphasis, unmistakably belongs to the expired age of metaphysical total-inclusion-circles, or monospheres; and a psychological one, in so far as single individuals in foams tend to lose the power to form mental-emotional spaces, and shrink to isolated depressive points transplanted into random surrounds (correctly referred to systematically as their environment). They suffer from the immunodeficiency caused by the deterioration of solidarities - to say nothing, for the moment, of the new immunizations acquired through participation in regenerated sphere creations. For sphere-deficient private persons, their lifespan becomes a sentence of solitary confinement; egos that are extensionless, scarcely active and lacking in participation stare out through the media window into moving landscapes of images. It is typical of the acute mass cultures that the moving images have become far livelier than most of their observers: a reproduction of animism in step with modernity.

Orbie · December 21, 2014, 4:47pm

But i would imagine that dilution would have had imminent and not transcendent ramification(s) You are talking about the Homeric age, not the Platonic?

Erik1 · December 21, 2014, 5:16pm

My previous entry was in regards to the post-metaphysical age ( modernity ), the age of " foam " ( people rubbing up against each other with their own private semiologies ). The semiotics of imminence was in the pre-metaphysical age ( from the paleolithic till Plato ).

Orbie · December 21, 2014, 5:19pm

Well Yes, and i was referring to the other one,(not your comments) in terms of the broadening of meaning. Cross references are not that unusual?

Orbie · December 21, 2014, 5:22pm

But i was trying to idemnify Your Lacanian application as more then imminent(modern), by reducing it similarly, to the idea, the narcissitic dilemma, hence Narcissus’s fate, of a pool of water being reflective. So no dissent there.

Erik1 · December 21, 2014, 5:26pm

Ah - you were talking to Mr. idiot boy ( Lump ).

Gotcha

Arminius · December 23, 2014, 12:08am

Erik_:

According to Sloterdijk, the contemporary age is an age of foam, i.e., a multiplicity of people, who rub up against each other with their own private semiologies. The metaphysical age was a bubble, i.e., God as the transcendent signified, who encased the Earth, like a dome. This divine macro-sphere provided a psychological immunization to the Lacanian ’ real '. But now, since all the grand meta-narratives and transcendent signifieds have been deconstructed, in the contemporary age, we are in a state of existential nakedness, exposed to the Lacanian ’ real '. The grand bubble has popped and now what remains is foam, the multiplicity of semio-spheres, which contain their own idiosyncratic logic and meaning. Understanding this macro/micro symbolism is conducive to the understanding of contemporary art. Much of modern art is extremely perplexing and ambiguous, even absurd - it isn’t confluent with the metaphysical grand narratives and transcendent signifieds. The deconstruction of the transcendent signified has allowed room for play, as Derrida would say - the signifiers can now play around and create their own semiologies. Once you understand the personal bubble of the contemporary artist, his logic and meaning, you can begin to become part of his semio-sphere.

amazon.com/Bubbles-Spheres-M … 1584351047

You don’t need to refer to Lacan or Derrida in order to understand what Sloterdijk means. But it is useful to refer to Leibniz’ monadology, especially when it comes to understand the meaning of Sloterdijk’s „hubbles“ and „foams“.

For example: „Foams“. What doese Sloterdijk’s foam theory mean?

Peter Sloterdijk wrote:

„Die Schaumtheorie ist unverhohlen neo-monadologisch orientiert: Ihre Monaden jedoch haben die Grundform von Dyaden oder komplexeren seelenräumlichen, gemeindlichen und mannschaftlichen Gebilden.“ (Peter Sloterdijk, Sphären III - Schäume, 2004; S. 61 **).
Translation:
„The foam theory is openly neo-monadological oriented: Its monads, however, have the basic form of dyads or more complex formations of emotional rooms, communities and team unions.“ (Peter Sloterdijk, Spheres III - Foams, 2004; p. 61).

Peter Sloterdijk wrote:

„Die Schaum-Metapher bietet den Vorzug, die topologische Anordnung von kreativ-selbstsichernden Lebensraumschöpfungen im Bild zu erfassen. … So evoziert die Schaumvorstellung sowohl die Ko-Fragilität als auch die Ko-Isolation der in dichten Verbänden gestapelten Einheiten.“ (Peter Sloterdijk, Sphären III - Schäume, 2004; S. 255 **).
Translation:
„The foam metaphor offers the advantage of the topological arrangement of creative-self-securing habitat creations to gather the image. … In this way the foam idea evokes both the co-fragility and the co-isolation of the stacked units in dense associations.“ (Peter Sloterdijk, Spheres III - Foams, 2004; p. 255).

Uccisore · December 23, 2014, 12:29am

Thought you were gonna ignore him. Don’t call him “Idiot boy”. Makes the forum look shitty.

Arminius · December 23, 2014, 12:51am

Not Einstein but Schopenhauer said that, and more than a century later Einstein - who was a Schopenhauerian - quoted him.

Mental masturbation?

Sloterdijk’s trilogy is called „Spheres“, not „Bubbles“. „Bubbles“ is merely one part of it:

„Spheres I“ = „Bubbles“,
„Spheres II“ = „Globes“,
„Spheres III“ = „Foams“.
Sloterdijk’s trilogy „Spheres“ - the title is to be understood as an anthropological concept and cultural theory - refers to Sloterdijk’s Spenglerian main thesis, according to which life is a formality. And that main thesis suggests that life, spheres forming, and thinking are different terms for the same thing. This „Spheres“ could also be called „Space and Time“ because it is a connection project to Heidegger’s „Being and Time “ and describes the cultural development of mankind from a philosophical-anthropological perspective.

Erik1 · December 23, 2014, 1:58am

Yes, It’s called " Spheres " ( the trilogy ). I just like to, personally, call it bubbles.

Sloterdijk is a great philosopher - very unique and playful ( no homo ). Cool to see others, who know of him too.

Feel free to contribute to the thread with quotational entries from the books, if you have them in E-book form. I would, but I have the hard copy and don’t feel like typing in mountains of text.

Erik1 · January 2, 2015, 2:20pm

Sloterdijk believes that the fundamental semio-sphere is, at least, dyadic in nature, that is to say, bi-polar or bipartite. Spheres of intimacy can be multi-polar, but as prior mentioned, they are, at the very least, dyadic.

Erik1 · January 3, 2015, 2:02pm

An explication of a dyadic sphere of intimacy:

Sloterdijk proposes that bipartite spheres of intimacy can be intersubjective, that is to say, both subjectivities coalesce into one shared biune subjectivity. An example: A hypnotist and the hypnotized; the hypnotist forms a “magic” circle with his subject, he merges into the subjectivity of the other forming a shared subjectivity, a micro-spheric bubble of intimacy. Sloterdijk then argues that the subject hypnotized psychologically regresses to his primal state of communion within the womb, but that’s something to delineate later.

Erik1 · January 7, 2015, 3:26pm

Erik1 · January 7, 2015, 3:38pm

Towards the latter part of the book Bubbles, in the chapter: The Siren Stage, Sloterdijk describes the nature of the mythological creature the siren. In a synopsis, the siren is a creature that seduces and lures sailing men of the sea to come nearer, usually by jumping overboard and, thus, killing themselves by drowning, starvation on an island, etc. In the chapter, the case of Odysseus’ encounter with the sirens is explicated. He has his crew tie him to the ship, so that when the sirens begin to sing, he won’t jump overboard to get closer to them.

Sloterdijk states that it’s not the song itself, that is to say, the way the song sounds that allures the seafaring men, but rather that the siren’s song taps into the psychological makeup of the individual, a specialized song meant just for the particular individual — arousing his innermost desire for completion, recognition and being-at-home. Sloterdijk then corresponds this to the micro-spheric relationship in the womb between mother and fetus/infant, how the pre-subject has a discriminating ability to decipher significant noises from insignificant ones, e.g., between the mother’s beating heart and her endearing talk/noises. This personalized psychoacoustic relationship fills the pre-subject with euphoria.

Arminius · January 7, 2015, 11:09pm

Thank you.

Unfortunately, I do not have them in E-book form, and I also do nat have any of Sloterdijk’s texts in English. Do you speak German? If not, then I will continue to translate Sloterdijk’s texts.

B.t.w.: Do you prefer the first part („Bubbles“) of Sloterdijk’s trilogy „Spheres“. This trilogy is divided into three parts (volumes) not only because of three different types of spheres but also because of three different ages. Sloterdijk’s trilogy „Spheres“ could also be called „Being and Sphere(s)“ or „Being and Space“ because it is the completion of Heidegger’s „Being and Time“. Especially the first paragraphs of Spheres care „the book that Heidegger should have written“ (Peter Sloterdijk), a companion volume to Heidegger’s „Being and Time“, namely, „Being and Space“. It has much to with the idea of „Dasein“ in the sense of Heidegger’s existential philosophy, especially his fundamental ontology.

[tab][size=150]Human “spheres” (examples):[/size]

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