Tiers-temps, Tiers-étant

Bernard Stiegler


In "Tiers-temps, Tiers-étant," Bernard Stiegler builds upon the philosophical project for which he is famous — the theory of technology and being which he explored in Technics and Time. Providing a productive reading of Paul Ricouer's tertiary time [tiers-temps] through Heidegger's Being and Time, Stiegler arrives at the concept of tertiary being [tiers-étant] — the experience of human life in between the origin and the end, an experience that is bound up in the human reliance on technics. Positing as he does elsewhere, the productively deconstructive ethical position that human being is life in default, Stiegler's contribution to the "Retro-Futures" issue of Rhizomes addresses the relationship between the history and humanity as it unfolds through technology and technique.