Function, role and history of the outsider from antiquity to the free thinkers The term originally comes from the world of sports: 'Outsiders' are those who enter a race without a chance of winning. In his philosophical essay, Ralf Konersmann explores this particular social phenomenon. From antiquity to today's unconventional thinkers, he examines different types of outsiders: how they launch certain professionally entrenched patterns and allow them to permeate our collective perception—resulting in the outsider emerging as a prominent figure of modernity. From Diogenes to Cusanus, from Rousseau to David Bowie, the outsider serves as a model for deciding on belonging in moral, political, educational, or aesthetic terms. biography Ralf Konersmann, born in 1955, is Professor of Philosophy and its Didactics at the Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel. New product