Old Notes from an Unfinished Reading of Stiegler's Technics and Time 1
Introduction
Stiegler starts by establishing philosophy has historically and contemporaneously divided technical and other more pure epistemological types of knowledge and a divide between the organic and the chemically inert, the latter dichotomy is united (presumably) in technical beings aforementioned though with a principle subordination from the organic. Modern science and the advance of economies has challenged the aforementioned technical subordination to purer epistemology, applying even to mathematics through algebra in Husserl’s analysis that divorces math from its essence into pure symbology of the pursuit of technical rules. This is a paradigmatic example of how technology is making philosophy forget the universal essences that founded its practice.Heidegger echoes this lament of forgetting in his analysis of being as forgotten in the history of technics, for example through the ability to measure temporality with instruments.Heidegger sees Dasein as constituted by a relationship to past as either inauthentic opining or authentic taking up of possibilities of ancestors that is inherited, while at the same time living in anticipation of the not-yet which is ultimately death; with Dasein being the excessive inbetween of anticipation and historicity. In relation to death Dasein gains individuality in the unrepresentability of personal death as an openness to possibilities against the commonality of impersonal communal death which closes possibilities. In relation to technics Heidegger believes when we try to master this open possibility space with a concern for a particular end we forget other possibilities through the common worldliness of calculation. However Heidegger is open to the idea that technics allow a confrontation between man and being which is not reducible to metaphysical representation through the fact technics cannot be reduced to a mere means to an end. This ends way of understanding technics comes about through putting humanity as an efficient cause above all others and denying a final cause to technics in this sense.However this puts technics in a unique position in being able to reveal the essence of that which does not reveal itself for itself as such in an unconcealment for Heidegger.which is revealing of nature or being itself through the process of technics. However modern technics has merely violently dominated nature as well as humanity in Heidegger’s analysis to the calculation of the future. Habermas and Marcuse talk of a similar type of political domination where domination itself is reduced merely a byproduct of a true rationality, which Habermas contrasts with a historicity of communicative action in intersubjective norms which in themselves through technocracy or consumed by the clasp of rationalizations based on extrinsic contingencies rather than universal transhistorical norms. Both Heidegger and Harbermas view technics as dehumanizing language, which means for Heidegger the invasion of technics into time through calculation or inauthentic mastery of the future. Stiegler notes theorist talking of the autonomy of technics and how technology accelerates faster than time itself (in the Heideggerian sense of a relationship to past and possibility).Stiegler then talks of an inorganic organized being that has traits beyond its mere constitution, and a speed older than time and space. He also describes technics as pursuit of life by means other than life, how the technical object is a product of retention, and how through the works of Simondon technics forms the origins of time.
PART 1 The Invention of the Human
Introduction
Stiegler wants to investigate how or if we can control the evolution of technics Simondon in Stiegler’s interpretation wants a new relation to technics through understanding it as “concretization” as opposed to an ends means relationship Simondon says in Stiegler’s reading that humans have becomes technical individuals who either master or are mastered by machines Heidegger in Simodon’s reading talks of the human being made a “Standing Reserve” for later use, and how modernity inverts the relationship between humans plus nature and technology in terms of which is used by which. In Stiegler’s interpretation of Gille technics becomes a programing or relation of anticipation and decision that has unforeseen effects on fields outside its calculation. Gourhan according to Stiegler talks of a mix of ethnicity and technology as anthropology Stiegler talks of Gille’s analysis of Technics as an analysis of the transformation between different overall interdependent technical systems between epochs. Stiegler seeks to show time itself emerges from technics.
1-Theories of Technical Evolution General History and the History of Technics
Stiegler talks of Gille’s analysis of history itself as the movement between different technical interdependencies. Stiegler talks of history of Technics not being conflated with a history of what he calls techniques with the distinction being Technics being as “result not a fact” The Technical System The technical system for Stiegler is the interconnection of techniques around a point of equilibrium. The Technical System in its Relation to Economic and Social Systems Stiegler speaks of Gille’s analysis that economics can cause reversals or implementations of technically anachronistic forms in the technical system leading to social upheaval and the relevance of consumption as a factor. The Limits of the Technical System Stiegler notes that technological transition occurs in the economic or other such limits of current technical systems causing an interconnected rupture of the whole era. Rationality and Determinism in the Process of Invention Simondon talks of a technical evolution distinct from scientific evolution not based on chance but the movement of systems between interconnected frameworks that push the technical system to its limits. Gourhan in Stiegler’s analysis will oppose ethnic groups to universal technological logic in a way that will shed light on Gille’s analysis of technics Invention and Innovation Innovation is in Stiegler’s analysis how technics develop in relation to economic and social advancement which creates disparate rhythms of technical development around the world system.
Industrial Investment: A Joint Evolution of the Technical System, the Economic System, and the State
The rapid advancement of technics in development occurs with the coinciding of massive capital investment that allows technical systems to efficiently break their limits Constant Innovation: A new Relation Between Tekhne and Episteme Stiegler notes that history since the French Revolution has been the rapid development of economic and technical calculation which has biased a certain orientation toward time. Technical Universality Stiegler seems to basically be saying here that technical evolution has a logic carried on across cultures and how that coincides with particular cultural genius which itself is not the ground of the evolution but a means. The Coupling of the Human with Matter Stiegler talks of Gourhan’s evolution of technics to coincide with or be analogous to an evolution of lifeforms, but with a unique relation between man and matter. Tendency and Facts Stiegler talks of the cross pollination of technological innovation between groups, along with an organization of inorganic matter across different times that occurs beyond the pollination. Stiegler talks of the formation of technologies being interconnected between its aspects such as the matter and the human without any part of the sequence being the primary cause. Ethnic Differences and Technical Differentiation Stiegler discusses how a physiological account will not capture human evolution, and that technical evolution then as extension of the human becomes life’s evolution by other means. Stiegler says that for the cross-cultural evolution of technology it is irrelevant whether the coinciding occurs through borrowing or through invention Stiegler talks about there is a latent technical potential of technical systems across ethnic groups that actualizes in a unique way across cultural circumstances as the form’s “body.” Geography as Origin and Ethnic Genius as “Unifying Process” Stiegler talks of a technological irreversibility analogous to the irreversibility of life, that transcends supposed “cultural” backwardness and suggests differences in development are geographic in nature. Stiegler argues the unity of ethnic groups is in their common horizon of future becoming rather than a historical origin. Milieu = Geography Interior and Exterior Milieus in the Technological Dynamic Civilization in Stiegler’s analysis will be technological advancement. The cultural and economic systems of particular human groups form the inner milieu for which technology emerges. The inner milieu has a quasi-biological evolution as a pseudo organism in Stiegler’s understanding, which cross pollinates with the external milieu Technical evolution is irrelevant as to whether it is done through borrowing or innovating because both only occur repeatedly in a common social “physiology” that can accommodate the technical system.
The Two Aspects of the Tendency
The interior milieu dissolves into the external as a coupling similar to how organism adapt to environmental systems in Gourhan’s analysis. There is a cross cultural selection of solutions across common environments? The diversity of technical systems of a similar universal emerges as a refraction of the unique intentions of the cultural bodies which instantiate them. The Technical Milieu as Factor of Dilution of the Interior Milieu Technical systems form their own milieus that perform at different rhythms and cross pollinate creating new technical systems Technical milieus expand into external milieus that outpace the speed of internal milieus of cultures. The Permanence of Evolution Borrowing and invention are not different because different cultures and the environment are both external milieus relative to the culture. The brutality of certain technical evolutions is a manifestation of their speed. As technology encompasses more of nature the geographical bounds that delimited ethnic groups are further dissolved into a common ecosystem that makes technological progress irreversible. Industrial Technical Evolution Imposes the Renunciation of the Anthropological Hypothesis Stiegler argues that since machines can be non-autonomous they actually can have more developmental potential because they have a higher degree of indeterminacy that allows them to cross pollinate with other technical systems more vibrantly. Mechanology the Science of the Process of Concretization of the Industrial Object Mechanology refers to the dynamic technical object which influences human becoming in the same way sociology for example might. Tools are used by individuals which are coordinated in ensembles. The Genetic of the Industrial Object as Functioning Matter Because the technical object takes on multiple forms it becomes difficult to classify. Technical object in Stiegler’s analysis have a genesis independent of human functions Technical objects qua industrialization are those that effectuate their own genesis. The technical object internalizes its own evolutionary pathway. The Predominance of Technology in the Becoming of Industrial Societies Industrialization in Stiegler’s analysis emerges from the standardization of technical objects rather than visa versa. The technical object in concrete materiality determines its own limits for becoming beyond its abstract form, opening a wide horizon of possibilities other systems must answer to. The Unpredictability of the Object’s Becoming Technical objects become through a certain rupture between wholes and parts.where the parts form a synergy with the whole unplanned by the abstract function imposed on the object composition. The human relationship to the technical object as operator is more like an actor acting out the text already written in the object rather than an author commanding forth reality.
Mutations, Lineages and the Becoming Natural of the Industrial Object
Perfectioning occurs either as a modified distribution of functions or mediation of antagonisms. The technical object has a common ancestor that mutates in Stiegler’s analysis between different lineages, thus blurring the line between natural and unnatural revealing. The dynamics of a technical object’s development are discovered empirically rather than existing in the presumptions of its abstraction as a sum of physical laws. Anticipation as the Condition of the Appearance of the Associated Milieu Technical objects exists on the borders of the milieus of technics and geographies There is a sense in which the combined Milieus of technics and geography form a milieu that is more than the sum of its parts and exists abstractly before its concretization into matter. Stiegler wants to argue that anticipation, which is part of the building of technical milieus, presupposes a technical object.