Camper, Dietmar

He studied at the universities of Cologne , Tübingen , Munich . In Munich, became close to the Catholic philosopher Max Müller , who became one of his spiritual mentors. He carefully read German mystics ( J. Boehme ), romantics ( Baader , Novalis , Schlegel brothers), Kierkegaard . Already in this period, Camper was attracted to topics that seemed marginal at that time: the experience of time, the perception of the body, the feeling of mortality. Doctor of Philosophy ( 1963 ). In 1973 - 1979 he taught at the University of Marburg , became the dean of the faculty of social sciences, from 1977 - vice president of the university. Since 1979 - professor of the sociology of culture and historical anthropology at the Free University of Berlin , creates and leads the Center for Historical Anthropology.

Camper, a rarity in Germany, showed interest in the humanitarian thought of France. I read Lacan , talked with E. Moren , corresponded with Foucault . Invited reports to France, met Baudrillard , P. Virillo , M. Serre , corresponded with Choran . Camper contributed to the reception of poststructuralism in Germany ^[1] .

Camper's themes are time, visuality, body, imagination. He synthesizes the problems of German romanticism with philosophical hermeneutics and the sociology of modern culture. Camper dealt with such issues as the experience of time, the perception of the body, the sensation of mortality, which brings him closer to such authors as Jean Baudrillard , Ernst Junger and Walter Benjamin . The central theme of Camper’s research is “the ability of the imagination,” which, unlike classical philosophy, the philosopher considers inseparable from physicality. The author works with the repressive consequences of this phenomenon, considering the reflection of the imaginative body as a path to liberation. The mind is inseparable from the body, which is defined by the era and the dominant system of imagination - this was the philosopher's protest against the traditional rationalistic approach to man. Dietmar Camper recognized the contribution to the development of historical anthropology and the discourse on new media ^[2] .

The key to Camper is the problem of the body. The philosopher offers various fundamental metaphors for pain associated with the body in various contexts. To understand the phenomenon, it becomes necessary to establish a connection between the imagination and the body, because the concept of pain is associated with images and imagination, defines both models of perception and experience, and ways of symbolic transformation and overcoming of pain. An important problem is the connection of imagination, body and thinking with the body. Camper is interested in the specifics of philosophical and cultural research: analysis of the concept and its historical and cultural change. The philosopher wrote with the current state of the world, drawing an analogy between modern civilization and a spaceship, which, being made by man, is in dead outer space. Rejecting reality and necessity, like the steps of a rocket, a person no longer remembers the fact that he does not control everything. The lack of brake turns against the person himself and only catastrophe can stop this process. The body can become a brake (stop-crane). As a man tries to free himself from the body with his inherent pain, Camper calls for a “bodily revolution in the way of thinking” which will return a man from the distant cosmos of virtuality to Earth. "The bodily revolution in the way of thinking" breaks through the continuum of external images. D. Camper is interested in new media and the phenomenon of demediatization, the problem of violence and counteraction to it. Speaking about the fate of the body in modern civilization, Camper writes about the anthropological quadrangle, a concept developed on the basis of the arguments of Wilhelm Flusser about the four stages of abstraction ^[3] .

• Geschichte und menschliche Natur: die Tragweite gegenwärtiger Anthropologie-Kritik. München: Hanser, 1973
• Abstraktion und Geschichte: Rekonstruktionen des Zivilisationsprozesses. München: C. Hanser, 1975
• Zur Geschichte des Koerpers. München: Hanser Verlag, 1976
• Über die Wünsche: ein Versuch zur Archäologie der Subjektivität. München: C. Hanser, 1977
• Dekonstruktionen. Marburg: Verlag Guttandin & Hoppe, 1979
• Zur Geschichte der Einbildungskraft. München: Hanser, 1981
• Das gefangene Einhorn. Muenchen: Hanser Verlag, 1983
• Zur Soziologie der Imagination. München: C. Hanser, 1986
• Das Heilige: seine Spur in der Moderne. Frankfurt / Main: Athenäum, 1987
• Kulturgesellschaft. Berlin: Ästhetik-u.-Kommunikation-Verl.-GmbH, 1987
• Das Schicksal der Liebe. Berlin: Quadriga, 1988
• Die Erloschene Seele: Disziplin, Geschichte, Kunst, Mythos. Berlin: D. Reimer, 1988
• Hieroglyphen der Zeit: Texte vom Fremdwerden der Welt. München: Hanser Verlag, 1988
• Zur Geschichte der Einbildungskraft: Enzyklopedie. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1990
• Rückblick auf das Ende der Welt / Hrsg. Dietmar Kamper, Christoph Wulf. Munchen: Klaus Boer Verlag, 1992
• Ästhetik als Performance: Doppelkurseinheit. Hagen: Fernuniv., 1993
• Bildstörungen: Im Orbit des Imaginären. Stuttgart: Cants Verlag, 1994
• Unmögliche Gegenwart: Zur Theorie der Phantasie. München: Fink Verlag, 1995
• Abgang vom Kreuz. München: Fink Verlag, 1996
• Im Souterrain der Bilder: die Schwarze Madonna. Bodenheim: Philo, 1997
• Selbstfremdheit. Berlin: Akad.-Verl., 1997
• Die Ästhetik der Abwesenheit: die Entfernung der Körper. München: W. Fink Verlag, 1999
• Idiosynkrasien. Berlin: Akad.-Verl., 1999
• Horizontverschiebung - Umzug ins Offene? Berlin: Akad.-Verl., 2001
• Kants Anthropologie. Berlin: Akad.-Verl., 2002
• Von Wegen. München: Fink Verlag, 1998
• Horizontwechsel. München: Fink Verlag, 2001

• Signs as scars: Graphism of pain // Thought: Almanac. Vol. 1. St. Petersburg: Publishing House of St. Petersburg. University, 1997.S. 164-172.
• Between simulation and negentropy. The fate of a person looking to the end of the world. // Art magazine. No. 13. S. 65-57
• Sight and violence. The Future of Evidence // "ST" (Steps). Petersburg almanac. No. 1 (11), 2000 (reprint: Flusser V. For the philosophy of photography. St. Petersburg: Publishing House of St. Petersburg University, 2008, pp. 102-108).
• Grab the stopcock. Art in the vertigo of speeds // Art Journal , 2000, No. 30/31, p.27-28.
• Associations. Seven rejected proposals on art, terror and civilization // Art Journal , 2002, No. 43/44, p.81
• Quand meme. Remembering Petersburg // Vita Cogitans , 2003, No. 2, pp. 211-218
• Body, knowledge, voice and trace. // Chorus. Journal of modern foreign philosophy and philosophical comparative studies . 2009. No 1. S. 33-41
• Body. Violence. Pain. St. Petersburg: Publishing House of the Russian Christian Humanitarian Academy , 2010

• Was kostet den Kopf? Ausgesetztes Denken der Aisthesis zwischen Abstraktion und Imagination. Dietmar Kamper zum 65. Geburtstag / Herbert Neidhöfer, Bernd Ternes, Hrsg. Marburg: Tectum, 2001
• Marginal man: Dietmar Kamper als Denker jenseits von Differenz und Indifferenz / Bernd Ternes, Silvia Breitwieser, Hrsg. Körle: Argo Books, 2005
• Maresh R. Dietmar Camper: portrait of a marginal philosopher and an outsider // Journal of Sociology and Social Anthropology . Volume II No. 4 (8). St. Petersburg, 1999. S.48-54
• Savchuk V. , Khaidarova G. In memoriam Dietmar Camper // Art Journal , 2002, No. 43/44

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