Anthropotechnics and its declinations in Sloterdijk

Sloterdijk considers human beings to be the only beings that have succeeded in detaching themselves from the evolutionary development of their own species by means of a new way of relating with the environment that surrounds them. This process, which allows them to pass from a natural environment to a cultural society, is expressed by the term “anthropotechnics,” a concept that can be considered the leitmotif that is present in all of his work and is fundamental for the understanding of his thinking. The way in which the relation is carried out between the technique and the world involves not only an enslavement of nature, but also a possible use of the human being as an available “base” on which to operate with the most modern technological procedures. From here the disquieting panoramas that could conceivably result from the development of an anthropotechnology, which could reach the point of an ecological catastrophe or a genetic mutation for our species. In his last works Sloterdijk entrusts to human beings, considered in their ability to act upon themselves by means of philosophical practices and “athletic” exercise, the hope of passing beyond the abyss and thus opening a new horizon, which should allow them to confront the challenges presented by our disquieting times, by means of procedures capable of actualizing the potentialities of nature without forcing or modifying it.