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Der Zauberbaum
1985 novel by Peter Sloterdijk From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Der Zauberbaum[1] (lit. 'The Magic Tree') is a 1985 novel by the German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk. It is about a young Austrian physician, Jan van Leyden, who becomes a disciple of the Marquis de Puységur.[2]
Sloterdijk has said Der Zauberbaum is one of the most difficult books he has written, because it was his first novel and forced him to "conquer a freedom" he previously did not think was possible. Although it is a historical novel set in the 18th century, he describes it as a "translated autobiography" that closely follows his life from 1975 till 1985, which was a time characterised by self-discovery and included a trip to India where he lived for several months in a guru's community.[3]
The book was published in the wake of Sloterdijk's breakthrough as a public intellectual with the 1983 book Critique of Cynical Reason, to which it ties in thematically. Der Zauberbaum is critical of psychoanalysis and its reliance on a Cartesian view of science and the subject. The scholar Till R. Kuhnle describes it as a Bildungsroman which expresses positions that approach Lebensphilosophie.[4]
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