ABSTRACT
Peter Sloterdijk does not explain exactly how it exceeds the Kantian imperatives but his general meaning is crystal clear. The “spring, gushing upwards” reflects Sloterdijk’s adoption of the thrust towards verticality and away from the downward pull of gravity and mediocrity. The reflective life, or the bios theoretikos, is described as highly improbable in evolutionary terms and Sloterdijk devotes the third section of the book to an examination of “the formation or self-generation of the disinterested person”. Stress and Freedom further suggests that commitment, properly understood, is arrived at after the experience of freedom and detachment. Detachment is not the answer or end point, but conversely commitment cannot be genuine unless it follows a process or period of detachment. The idea that commitment arises from the experience of freedom is profoundly Sartrean, though Sartre stresses the way in which commitment not only originates in freedom but is also a call to freedom.
