Abstract

Prior to the publication of his first work on the co-origination of hominization and technicization, Bernard Stiegler formulated the elements of his philosophical outlook, embodied in the concept of the “idiotext,” conceived as a way of thinking beyond the metaphysical opposition of the empirical and the transcendental. This concept describes the meeting of the spirals of different kinds of memories, and the way this meeting also involves the spiraling of a milieu that supports this encounter, and which is itself a kind of memory—and a support of dreams. The profound reflection that underlay the formulation of this concept never ceased to inform the continued unfolding of Stiegler’s work, and never ceased to return in constantly renewed ways. This article elaborates Stiegler’s notion of the “idiotext” and attempts to indicate its significance for Stiegler’s work and for any thought that wishes to take the measure of our decomposing times.