Visualizing Sloterdijk [Chapter 2. The Wandering Star]

#1 

"In the Aristotelian-Catholic plan of the spheres, the earth, being most distant from the encompassing firmament, had the humblest status. Its placement at the centre of the cosmos thus entailed, as paradoxical as it may sound, a relegation to the lower extreme of the cosmic hierarchy." (p.16)

#2

"The ancients were so impressed by the contrast between form and mortality that they had to separate off a deathless world on high from the death-affect depths." (p.17)

#3

 "That is why in ancient times, to think always meant to think from the position of the sky, as if one could get away from earth with the aid of logic. In the old days, a thinker was someone who transcended and looked down --as Dante illustrated on his ascent to paradise." (p.17)

#4

"As far as the history of aesthetics is concerned, the modern experience of art is tied to the attempt to open the eye, numbed for two long by geometrical simplifications, to the perceptual charms of the irregular." (p.20)