The end of humanism and the social dimension of lichtung according to Sloterdijk

Abstract

Humanism, as a project that has as its final objective to form humans, has failed. This is the perspective adopted by Sloterdijk and explained here. Inherited from Heidegger and amplified through the inversion of the ontological and ontic elements, so dear to the philosopher of the black forest. The humanist project, and all its historical unfoldings, is understood by Sloterdijk, in its essence, as forming humans. Its primary goal is to enable peaceful and harmonious coexistence among existing humans in the Lichtung. But this project, in all its possible aspects, has failed, and the reasons are rooted in its origins: the natural and social aspects that constitute the human species itself were not thought of. Heidegger, in thinking about Lichtung, would have incurred and reinforced the same error, according to Sloterdijk. The development of what he calls anthropotechnics could remedy this error, as well as the gap in the Heideggerian approach to humanism.  Anthropotechnics would force classical/traditional humanism to revise its foundations and, with it, rethink its foundations. This revision would expose its weaknesses (by making clear the reasons for its failure over time) and would make it possible to overcome them, that is, that the foundations of humanism be now thought of in a more adequate way. Here, briefly, we will present Sloterdijk's interpretation and his proposal. The methodology used was a bibliographic review.

Keywords: Humanism; Project; Failure; Anthropotechnics; Review.