Tuesday, 29 April 2025

 For Stiegler is technics the same as inscription?

For Bernard Stieglertechnics and inscription are deeply intertwined but not identical. His philosophy argues that technics—the totality of tools, practices, and cognitive prostheses that shape human existence—is fundamentally tied to memory and inscription as the condition of human becoming. Here’s the breakdown:

1. Technics as the "Originary Prosthesis"

Stiegler, following André Leroi-Gourhan, sees technics as constitutive of humanity itself—not an external tool but the very medium through which humans evolve.

  • "Epiphylogenesis": Unlike animals, whose evolution is purely biological (phylogenesis), humans evolve through technical memory—tools, writing, digital storage.

  • Inscription is the mechanism: Technics requires material traces (cave paintings, writing, hard drives) to exteriorize memory.

2. Inscription as the Condition of Technics

Stiegler draws from Derrida’s grammatology (where writing precedes speech) to argue that all technics is a form of inscription:

  • From flint tools to AI: Every technical object "inscribes" a logic—e.g., a hammer inscribes the possibility of nails, algorithms inscribe behavioral norms.

  • "Retentional finitude": Inscriptions (books, databases) allow memory to outlive individuals, but they also standardize thought, risking cultural homogenization.

3. The Difference (Where They Diverge)

  • Technics = the broad system of human prostheticity (tools, institutions, languages).

  • Inscription = the specific act of exteriorizing memory (writing, coding, recording).

    • Example: A smartphone is technics; the data it stores is inscription.

4. Why This Matters for Stiegler’s Critique

Capitalism, for Stiegler, hijacks technics by industrializing memory:

  • Social media algorithms replace deep cultural inscription with real-time dopamine loops, destroying long-term collective memory.

  • "Short-termism": Digital inscription today is ephemeral (TikTok clips, AI-generated noise), eroding the lifeworld.

Conclusion

Inscription is the operational logic of technics, but technics is the total system that binds humans to their tools. For Stiegler, resisting capitalist nihilism means reclaiming deep inscription—art, philosophy, slow media—against the toxic ephemerality of 21st-century technics.

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