Philosophising by Accident

In this book of interviews, conducted in 2002 by Elie During, Bernard Stiegler discusses the reasons that motivated him to develop his philosophy of technics. Divided into four parts, Philosophising by Accident introduces some of the key points in Stiegler's argument about the technical constitution of the human, and its relation to politics, aesthetics and economics. Stiegler presents his original analysis of Plato and the beginning of philosophy in relation to the tragic culture, the method of dialectics and metaphysics. He also reads philosophical texts from the perspective of his controversial thesis about the three types of memory, and refers to concepts central to his later works such as synchrony/diachrony, grammatisation and the industrial temporal object. While contemporary times call us to examine and analyse technical tools and new technologies, Stiegler argues that philosophy has, from its very origins, repressed technics, and examining rigorously the evolution of technics and its effects on the human, will provide us with greater insights into what it means to be human.