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...

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Auteur principal: Klostergaard Petersen, Anders 1969- (Auteur)
Type de support: Électronique Article
Langue:Anglais
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Publié: Brill [2019]
Dans: Numen
Année: 2019, Volume: 66, Numéro: 5/6, Pages: 465-498
Sujets / Chaînes de mots-clés standardisés:B Sloterdijk, Peter 1947-, Du musst dein Leben ändern / Ascétisme / Individu / Collectif
RelBib Classification:AB Philosophie de la religion
AG Vie religieuse
Sujets non-standardisés:B Tisserands
B Sloterdijk
B Rituel
B Ideology
B Kosmos religion
B Asceticism
B Durkheim
B Training Program
B Axial Age
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Résumé: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.
ISSN:1568-5276
Contient:Enthalten in: Numen
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1163/15685276-12341551