The Educational Thought of Bernard Stiegler

Focusing on the Relationship Between Techniques and Education

Abstract

Over the past twenty years, the information technology revolution has given us freedom and equality. At the same time, it has also allowed the rise of a new form of power that Deleuze calls a “control society.” As a first step to consider the relationship between techniques and education in the present age, this paper examines how this relationship is conceived by a French philosopher, Bernard Stiegler. First, this paper analyzes Leroi-Gourhan’s concept of “exteriorization” and Heidegger’s concept of “a watch.” Both are concerned with the fundamental relationship between techniques and human beings. Through such an analysis, Stiegler defines a technique as “a trace that can go back to the memory of the distant past.” Second, this paper examines Jacques Derrida’s concept of “différance.” Stiegler describes différance as the relationship between techniques and human beings, clarifying that techniques and human beings are not in opposition to each other but in “composition” with each other. Thus, Leroi-Gourhan and Heidegger are criticized for describing the opposition between techniques and human beings. For Stiegler, education is the transmission of the memory of the distant past in composition of techniques and human beings. Education is therefore essentially a “technique.”