A New Take on Asceticism: Asceticism as Training and Secession Suspended between Individuality and Collectivity
Inspired by Peter Sloterdijk's Du mußt dein Leben ändern. Über Anthropotechnik (2009), I present a novel take on asceticism as deliberate training. Understanding humans as training animals, I discuss how, with the emergence of kosmos or Axial Age religions, humans came to acknowledge this eleme...
| Published in: | Numen |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Brill
[2019]
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| In: |
Numen
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| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Sloterdijk, Peter 1947-, Du musst dein Leben ändern
/ Asceticism
/ Individual
/ Collective
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| RelBib Classification: | AB Philosophy of religion; criticism of religion; atheism AG Religious life; material religion |
| Further subjects: | B
Sloterdijk
B Weavers B Ideology B Ritual B Kosmos religion B Asceticism B Durkheim B Training Program B Axial Age |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Resolving-System) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | Inspired by Peter Sloterdijk's Du mußt dein Leben ändern. Über Anthropotechnik (2009), I present a novel take on asceticism as deliberate training. Understanding humans as training animals, I discuss how, with the emergence of kosmos or Axial Age religions, humans came to acknowledge this element and made it a pivotal part of their lives. After presenting three important complements to Sloterdijk's argument, I present a new take on asceticism by relating it to the two main currents in classical scholarship, those of Durkheim and of Weber. Underlying the two perspectives is the transition in asceticism, highlighted by Sloterdijk in his understanding of the phenomenon as basically constituting training programs, from a ritually determined to an ideologically defined form encompassing one's entire life. Finally, I argue with Durkheim and Sloterdijk that asceticism should not be reduced to a religious phenomenon only, nor to one exclusively characteristic of religions. It is a basic feature of human life enacted on a continuum suspended between the two poles of individuality and collectivity. |
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| ISSN: | 1568-5276 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Numen
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1163/15685276-12341551 |