Man and technology in Bernard Stiegler’s works

Abstract

Bernard Stiegler’s philosophy of technique shows the intrinsically tragical character of the technological evolution and claims the possibility to explore the ambivalent character of technological or pharmacological instruments. First we will follow his argumentation, highlighting the role that he assigns to the instrument in opening ecstatic temporality, and the importance of the evolution of the “ortothetical” technologies of registration, as a condition which is simultaneously destabilizing and enabling of a historical and hermeneutic conscience. In a second moment, we will show what Stiegler names the central Pharmakon of the Anthropocene, and the centrality of entropy and negentropy to find a way out of the ecological catastrophe. In a third moment, we will follow Stiegler’s critique of transhumanism and his proposal for negotiation and composition between humanistic tradition and technological development.