Technics and time 1:The Fault of Epimetheus

Bernard Stiegler

Summary and added texts by Matthijs De Riek

Introduction

In these texts I try to explain a few of the ideas Stiegler elaborates in his text “Technics and time 1:
The fault of Epimetheus”. I am well aware that summarizing such a text, which is very dense, with
new ideas appearing and disappearing, is a challenge. I tried to focus on the main ideas, but
sometimes the context is lost. Even though the text was quite heavy, I enjoyed it. It is refreshing to
look at the origin of man through technics. I was completely new to the subjects of
paleanthropology and zoology, which was a blessing, since I was bombarded with new concepts.
In the text “Language and music” I took a look at music, in the same way Stiegler looks at technics
and language. I tried to apply the concepts he describes in his text to come to some reflections about
musics origin, linking it to the Aka tribe in the Republic of Congo. It gave me a better
understanding of how with the appearance of technics, music and all the other arts might came to
being.

Technics and time 1; the fault of Epimetheus (1994)

This work, consisting of three volumes, can be seen as the first comprehensive work of Bernard
Stiegler.
In a sense this series is the fullest, systematic statement of Stieglers philosophy. He ventilates his
ideas according to texts of Leroi-Gourhan, Rousseau, Simondon.
As a general idea, he brings forth the notion of technics as a formative entity on the horizon of
human existence. He poses this idea against a philosophy which can never make a clear distinction
between the tekhne (in the Aristoralian sense, craftsmanship) and episteme (knowledge).
The first volume consists of two parts whom generally put forth the same idea. In the firtst part he
devouts his attention at the origin of hominisation and introduces technics as an instrumental
maieutic, showing a different perspective on the paradox of exteriorization. In the second part he
compares the outcome of the first with the philosophy of Heidegger and his existential-analytic
views, since they have quite a few overlapping idea's.
The series contains two other volumes called respectively “Tome 2 : La désorientation” and “Tome
3: Le temps du cinéma et la question du mal-être” in which he elaborates his views on technics and
their importance.

Later he writes three other series whom take on the more political, world-altering subjects. In “De
la misère symbolique (2004)” he describes the process which made technology into a means of
industrializing. He analyses the marketeer-view on life and investigates the cost of creating desire in
service of production.
“Constituer l'Europe (2005)” takes a more individual route. Stiegler suggests that our society made
a turn toward the destruction of psychic and collective individuation. In the line of Carl Jung,
Gilbert Simondon, Friedrich Nietzsche and Arthur Schopenhauer, he tackles the question what
defines ourself, what defines self. He notes that the ability to differentiate between humans is
declining because of the conditions we are living in. The way society tries, intentional or
unintentional, to make us unified.
The latest of his big series, “Mécréance et Discrédit (2004-2006)”, takes on much of the critical
character of the previous one. He, again, states that industrial production and consumption is
destructive for the modes of human life. The people have lost their savoir-faire (know-do) and their
savoir-vivre (know-live).
Summary
Stiegler opens this chapter with posing his keyquestion. He proposes to analyze the expression 'The
invention of the human'. The ambiguity of this expression sets out two apparent opponents , the who
and the what, the object and subject, the human and the technical. Stiegler claims their co-existence
and mutual coming to be are essential to both.
Two coups are put forward, two passages with different ruptures, the Zinjantropian, with the
beginning of technics and ongoing cortilization, and the Neanthropian, starting at the end of
cortilization. The first passage contains the first origin of the human and therefore technics. The
human started to create tools. Although one could argue that the speed of development was more
like a rhythmic genetic drift, it is clear that the drift is no longer only genetically programmed, it
even became purely technical in the Neanthropian passage.
It was in the Zinjanthropian age that the mirror between the cortex and flint was elaborated, the
pursuit of evolution of the living by other means than life, what we will call the epiphylogenenis.
Why question the birth of man? Because since Hegel everybody questions its end, birth is the
mirror of end. The beginning is the “birth of death”. Even though we can not imagine a possible
end, it began and will end.
Stiegler opens a dialog between Leroi- Gourhan, as an paleantrhopologist, and Derrida, as a
philosopher. He utilizes the concept of différance to challenge the border between the animal and
the human, since différance is life in general. Différance has a double meaning. In the most
common sense it means to be different, polemic or dissimilar. On the other hand it can also mean to
temporalize, putting of, taking resource, which is to make space time and time space.
It all comes down to the grammë, a concept that exceeds the distinction between genetic and non-
genetic, in which the human is just a singular case. It structures all levels of the living and beyond,
it starts the freeing of the memory and therefore the start of exteriorization.
The grammë can be found on both sides, the animal one and the human, since it is différance. With
the passage from the genetic to the non-genetic memory, the grammë had to take on a new form. It
manifested itself as cultural codes and ethnic substance, paving the way for reflective Moralität.
Grammë is différance, so is exteriorization. It is in essence a movement, logically from interior to
exterior, but how can there be an expression of the interior when the interior has not appeared yet.
This is the paradox of exteriorization.
To understand the concept of epiphylogenesis Stiegler makes a comparison with Heidegger's
Already There, the past that I never lived but is still my past. In Heidegger Dasein, the epigenetic
memory, conserves and passes down. It creates a epigenetic sedimentation, the epiphylogenetic
memory. If the Already There is epiphylogenesis, it must have an inorganic organon, a non-living
matter to store memory, so it can surpass the threshold that death is.

Leroi-Gourhan questions the emirical-transcendental divide of Rousseau, whom claims that

intentional consciousness sporadicly appeared after the cortilization was ended, a miracle second
origin. First he puts a link between the skeleton, technics, language and society, to be able to
approach technology as a singular zoological reality.
Everything begins with the feet. When man walks upright, he opens up his hands to manipulation
and mobilization, leading to exteriorization. Man is not a spiritual miracle in a given body, it is first
of all a state of the body. The notion that “humans descends from the apes” is a false one. The
problem was drawing a straight line from the Sapiens through the Neanderthal to the anthropoid
foursome, gorilla etc.. The discovery of the Zinjanthropian with his small brainpan, but
accompanied with tools, proves us that the cerebral development is secondary to the physical. When
tools and technics emerge, language too made his appearance. The hand freed the face.

The hand freed language, and in the same blow technicity and prosthetics. As said before, language
can only be understood in a zoological perspective. General zoological evolution is based on
liberation, with each step more choice is bestowed on the being. Liberation can also be seen as
mobility, as a movement. In this zoological perspective it seems that mobility is a significant feature
of evolution, more important than intelligence, which is a type of mobility. The apparent end of
mobilization and liberation, leads us to exteriorization. A new type of cortical organization comes to
be, this is the appearance of the “spirit”.
After the end of cortilization, evolution continues by rupture and not fulfillment. The neurological
evolution has finished, the cortex established. The human needed a different kind of grammë than
the animal. Mamals who only walk are genetically hyper-specialized, they can learn but only
through genetic and epigenetic memory. The Graspers cortexs are based on a open functional
undetermined system, which not only gives them the possibility, but the absolute need to learn, this
is where the epiphylogenesis comes in play.

There is a link between the non-specialization and the development of the cortical zones of the
brain. During the passage of the Zinjanthropian, the mirror between cortex and flint was realized, in
a continuous motion, this was when the cortex grew into its final form. The body is no longer only a
body, it can only function with his tools. This is exteriorization. Technicity lies in human nature.
Liberation and mobility became of 'process of exteriorization', which engendered language. The
tool is essential to define our zoology, yet it is not part of our anatomy. The tool is an anatomical
consequence, the only solution for a being with hands and teeth as useless weapons. Here prosthesis
is not a supplement, but an addition; not an extension of the body, but its constitution; not a means,
but an end. The body and brain are again defined by tools. So evolution of technics needs to be
studied as an evolution of life.

In the Zinjanthropian age, the exteriorization was still, partly, genetically programmed. Leroi-
Gourhan speaks about a “technical consciousness”. A consciousness that can only handle concrete
situations, an impossibility to generalize, no notion of spirituality. This technical consciousness is
anticipation without creative consciousness, no reflection. But anticipation is a realization of a
possibility, not determined by a biological program. Therefore a seed of a spiritual consciousness
was already planted in the beginning. Anticipation means a notion of death, to temporalize, to
reflect. It is also a much needed understanding for exteriorization to take place. The combining of
anticipation, therefore foresight, exteriorization and indetermination enables the human to learn
from inorganic matter. To make a shift to a purely technological memory, with few genetic changes.
Leroi-Gourhan states that at the end of cortilization and genetic determination, the second origin
commences. The human develops a “notion of spirituality”, a “grammë as such”.

To question the birth of man is to question its end, to question the birth of death. The invention of
the human, with différance binding the Who and the What, led to a rupture, a passage from genetic
différance to non-genetic. The epiphylogenetic is the third layer of memory, the epigenetic
sedimentation of Dasein. This led us to the paradox of exteriorization, creating an exterior, with no
preceding interior, tool and human invent each other. The first vector of epiphylogenesis is flint.
Exteriorization makes anticipation possible. Two levels of anticipation appear, the operative
anticipation and the anticipation qua the differentiation of stereotypes. The second one signifies a
movement, a mobility. A new process of selection comes in place, a new grammë. Cortex and flint
constitute each other. Based on this, Stiegler identified three types of memory; the genetic, the
epigenetic, i.e. memory of the central nervous system, and the techno-logical memory, i.e. the
epiphylogenetic. He opposes them to Leroi-Gourhans three layers; the species-related, the social-
ethnic and the individual intelligence.

The genetic and epigenetic are both différance qua the history of life. They are still pure phusis.
What separates the animal and the human, is man's ability to create, exteriorization. Leroi-Gourhan
makes a clear break between the animal human, Homo Faber, and the spiritual human, Homo
Sapiens. He states that there was evolution from a Technical consciousness to a faculty of
symbolization, a notion of spirituality, the second origin. Stiegler opposes this, the spiritual was
born when technicity made its appearance, so in the first origin. He links the interior and the
exterior with instrumental maieutics, making them différance, co-existing simultaneously. The
epiphylogenetic is not pure phusis, it is différance of différance. Language, one of the first
exteriorizations, was never a 'concrete' one, it was never just a technical consciousness, anticipation
and foresight were always there. Therefore the second origin, is a slightly exaggerated one. It is a
continuous moving evolution from the Zinjanthropian onwards. An evolution powered by a
exclusively human solution, the exteriorization of memory, the transfer of ethnic memory outside of
the zoological species. The Already-there is the epiphylogenesis.
Language and music
Bernard Stiegler claims that the techo-logical and language are expressions of the same appartus. In
the same sense one could add music to this equation. Music derives from a combined effort of
technical know-how and is structurally very similar to language, making it a symbiosis, making it
différance, differing and deferred.

Just as it was Leroi-Gourhan's goal to search for the origin of man, it was my goal to search for the
origin of music. Music can be imagined only after liberation became exteriorization, the arrival of
the so-called third layer of memory. The arts in general could've never existed without this external,
inorganic matter bestowed with traces of the past epigenes.
In music, this poses a problem. Unlike the plastic arts, music was ungraspable in matter, until the
seventh century. Therefore classic music history generally starts in that period. It is a great
misunderstanding to put its origin so close to our day and age. Just like the freeing of the hand
enabled language, the end of the cortilization, the so-called second rupture, enabled humans to
imagine and reflect.
Music can be seen as an epiphylogenetic phenomenon. It is a clear example of extariorization, the
interior is created simultaneously with the exterior, the organon being the most elusive of them all,
air. Therefore its nature is much more that of a language being passed down orally, from generation
to generation, then that of pure material, epigenetic sedimentation.
If we look at the history of music from that perspective, it leads us inevitably to the rich array of
sounds some secluded tribes, in for instance Africa, are able to create. There traditions are purely
oral and the music comes to being through a form of improvisation. Once again the created border
between the animal and the human appears. What can be the difference between a bird singing and
the human doing the same? Could man claim this ability as his own, maybe the last one Prometeus
had carried? The big gap between the two is not necessarily the outcome, but more the beginning.
The fact that birds can sing their song is completely determined, they have no creative
consciousness if maybe just the technical one. Everything is planned out in its genetic and
epigenetic memory. The growth, much like you would expect, is one of a rhythmic genetic drift. It
is still pure phusis.
The human on the other hand has anticipation, hitherto foresight, combined with a major lack of
determination. This enables him to anticipate the other, to adapt, but most importantly
indetermination allows the human to learn. In a rapid dialog between the group and the individual,
the cortex bursts of activity, the trembling air creates sound. This gesture succeeds the technical
consciousness because no clear technical use can be identified and thus must be placed under the
'notion of a spirit', which should always lead us to thanatology, the being-before-the-end.
Plummeting this discourse in a Heideggerian discussion, will add nothing to my notions on music
through the eyes of Leroi-Gourhan and Bernhard Stiegler, so lets leave this path.
Another comparison urges for our attention. The one between the oral, “ethnic”, tradition and the
tradition of our own. The most significant break appeared with the arrival of writing. Much like
other systems of creation, the written language of music is evolving at a fast pace. Even the oldest
of them, require an immense efficiency in foresight, even more than in an average language. In
music a great technical knowledge appears on the scene. A manipulating of the tool in a very precise
manner. The tool becomes an extension of the human body, a prosthesis. The voice remains of
course one of the first tools that accompanied mankind on its rise and it's obvious that it was the
first mean of musical exteriorization.
We as European Westerners, often claim the origin of polyphony. Some claim that the complexity of
music became so big, one couldn't memorize it anymore and so writing was introduced, as a lasting
epiphylogenetic reminder. This knowledge was then vastly exported and needed the greatest of
thinkers to make it a whole. The key element of Western music was set out on a bed of writing.
The baffling thing about the music of the Akape in the forests of Congo, is that they too can produce
these sounds, these polyphonic harmonies, and they did not have the sophisticated form of writing,
nor any other vast debts to the ancient. They let there indetermination guide them, instead of
rigorous rules and regulations. The critics, who claim that true spiritual fulfillment can only be
formed on the backbone of an ancient tradition, are immediately silenced when they hear the
complex structures that can emerge out of these dialogs between group and individual in continuous
motion, always differing, always differed, différance.

Ever since the second rupture, humans had a weight to carry. Instead of the genetic form of
grammë, they invented an external one. It is this program that allows us to live and learn, but also
forces us to obey. In the Western world we can speak of a macro-society; all that is accomplished is
a group-effort and the group has become so connected there is need for more determination. Much
like a colony of ants, we each have our social paths determined, the ants through genetic and
epigenetic memory, we through an epiphylogenetic one. The big difference is that of determination.
The fact that we, as humans, are not determined by birth, gives us the ability to adapt with
incredible speed. It gave us the ability to create, to imagine other possibilities, to keep growing in
our lifetimes, to be pure phusis.

Aka people

I first came into contact with the indigenous music of the Aka tribe trough the recording of “African
Rhythms”, a compilation album combining their music with classical music of György Ligeti and
Steve Reich. The father of this project was Pierre-Lauren Aimard, a pianist with great knowledge of
ethnic music. He intended a conversation between what was considered modern and what was
considered ancient. A great amount of similarities shows that the evolution of music can be
achieved via two different paths, in western tradition through writing, in ethnic tradition orally.
The Aka people are a nomadic pygmy tribe, living in the Brazzaville region in the Republic of
Congo. They have their own language, that was granted the title of Heritage of Humanity by
UNESCO. They live as hunter-gatherers and have a great knowledge of nature. Just recently they
started to farm crops to be less dependent on trade. For now they are very reliant on others for the
needs the jungle can't fulfill. Like lots of African tribes, the Aka were cast into slavery by the
European colonialism in the 18th century. They were shipped of the far off shores and their
population diminished drastically. The ones that weren't shipped as slaves, were used on the rubber
plantations in the 20th century. Some of them disobeyed their exploiters and ran off to live in the
jungle, where they have been left alone for most of the time.
The first one to study their musical heritage was ethnomusicologist Simha Arom, a French-Israeli
horn player. He was send by the Israeli government to start a brass band in the Central African
Republic, but was so fascinated by the richness of the Ethnic music, he decided to stay and study
their heritage. He uncovered implicit musical systems and the way cultures builds cognitive
categories. Working together with ethno-linguists he compiled the largest set of recordings of
indigenous African tribes, a treasure of ethnomusical information.
Sources:
Stiegler, B 1994 Technics and time 1; the fault of Epimetheus (1994), §3 Who? What? The
Invention of the Human, pg 134-179.

Ross, D 2016 A summary of Bernard Stiegler’s Technics and Time 1, accessed on 3 May 2018
http://www.samkinsley.com/2016/01/11/a-summary-of-bernard-stieglers-technics-and-time-1by-
dan-ross/

African Pygmies 2018 accessed on 7 May 2018

http://www.pygmies.org/

Wikipedia 2018 Aka People accessed on 10 May 2018

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aka_people

Wikipedia 2018 Bernard Stiegler accessed on 24 April 2018

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Stiegler

Pierre-Lauren Aimard 2018 Recordings African Rhythms accessed on 21 March 2018

http://pierrelaurentaimard.com/recordings/

The Ister, film directed and written by David Barison, Daniel Ross, UK 24 September 2004

Song of the forest, film produced by Alex Tondowski, directed and written by Michael Obert 21
November 2013 Germany