In his major investigation into the nature of humans, Peter Sloterdijk
presents a critique of myth - the myth of the return of religion. For it
is not religion that is returning; rather, there is something else quite
profound that is taking on increasing significance in the present: the
human as a practising, training being, one that creates itself through
exercises and thereby transcends itself. Rainer Maria Rilke formulated
the drive towards such self-training in the early twentieth century in
the imperative 'You must change your life'.
In making his case for the expansion of the practice zone for
individuals and for society as a whole, Sloterdijk develops a
fundamental and fundamentally new anthropology. The core of his science
of the human being is an insight into the self-formation of all things
human. The activity of both individuals and collectives constantly comes
back to affect them: work affects the worker, communication the
communicator, feelings the feeler.
It is those humans who engage expressly in practice that embody this
mode of existence most clearly: farmers, workers, warriors, writers,
yogis, rhetoricians, musicians or models. By examining their training
plans and peak performances, this book offers a panorama of exercises
that are necessary to be, and remain, a human being.
