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| Peter Sloterdijk; drawing by Siegfried Woldhek |
Today I finished reading Peter Sloterdijk’s magnum opus, Spheres, in its three volumes. It has been an extraordinary experience, one that lasted four years for me. If I were to sum it up in a single sentence, I would say this: Spheres is perhaps the most advanced account of the human condition at the beginning of the twenty-first century, viewed in the context of its historical evolution since medieval times. Its governing metaphor is that of spheres of enclosure or safe havens in which people live: of many kinds: physical, social, and mental.
At the end of the work, Sloterdijk takes an unusual and remarkable step: he offers a kind of self-review from the perspectives of theologian, literary critic, and macro-historian. In doing so, he reveals a striking degree of self-awareness and self-criticism, fully conscious of the delicate and highly particular character of the claims and analyses he advances throughout the book.
I strongly recommend it to anyone who wants to better understand the human condition at the dawn of the second quarter of the twenty-first century.
Here are my previous posts about this opus, many of them including important quotations from the book:
https://sopekmir.blogspot.com/2022/11/spheres-by-peter-sloterdijk-one-of-most.html
https://sopekmir.blogspot.com/2023/08/concluding-reading-of-sloterdijk.html
https://sopekmir.blogspot.com/2023/11/macrospherology-of-humans-globes-volume.html
https://sopekmir.blogspot.com/2024/12/republic-of-spaces-foams-third-volume.html
Lodz, March 21th, 2026
PS. The drawing from https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/10/12/peter-sloterdijk-blowing-bubbles/
