On Stigler’s "Third Retention"

Bernard Stiegler is one of the representative scholars in the field of contemporary philosophy of technology.With a radical critical attitude and profound and meticulous excavation and analysis methods,it penetrates the original meaning of technology to human existence,and thus has insight into the far-reaching impact of technological power on human beings,which goes beyond the usual understanding of technology in the past.In his view,technology can not only become one of the research topics of contemporary philosophy,but also an important ideological basis for the development of contemporary philosophical discussions.This article intends to clarify the core concept of "Third Retention" proposed by Stigler in his masterpiece "Technology and Time"(Volumes 1,2,and 3).His social critique of modern technology including film,television and other media technologies,and then to grasp some important points of his philosophy of technology and its existential significance.This article intends to analyze and discuss Stigler’s "third retention " concept from the following aspects.First of all,this article will briefly comment on the research status of Stigler’s philosophy of technology at home and abroad in the introduction.Among them,domestic research is mainly carried out in accordance with the discipline,professional attribution and chronological order.The translation,introduction and research of Stigler’s philosophy of technology by domestic scholars either start from the social critical theory of Western Marxism(such as Zhang Yibing,etc.),or start from the research theory of technological phenomenology(such as Shu Hongyue,Chen Mingkuan,etc.),Or from the perspective of how to think about the aesthetics of technology(such as Lu Xinghua,etc.).Especially after Stigler bid farewell to the world in a different way in 2020,Carl Mitcham,Liu Yongmou and other scholars engaged in the study of philosophy of technology,introduced them in the form of a special issue in Dialectics of Nature Newsletter.The relevant important viewpoints and theoretical contributions of Stigler’s philosophy of technology are presented.Foreign related research can be divided into three categories according to the different research questions.The first category is the discussion of the essential relationship between technology and people,such as Anna Kouppanou,Crogan Patrick,etc.The second category is the discussion of film philosophy and aesthetics,such as Leven Bram,Martin Crowley and so on.The third category is the discussion of their social critical theory,such as Pieter Lemmens,Ross Daniel,etc.Secondly,this paper will introduce the theoretical origin of Stigler’s concept of "third retention " in the first chapter.The purpose of this chapter is to elucidate the inseparable and intertwined relationship between man and technology at their origin,and to deepen our understanding of how man as a technological being exists from both anthropological and phenomenological perspectives.Stigler starts from the metaphysics’ inherent instrumental understanding of the third retention,and draws out the technological trends that have been hidden behind many technological phenomena in the past and have already been revealed in the present.Technological trends represent the overall evolutionary direction of technology,clarify the internal driving force of technology to promote its own development,and also show the congenital defect that human beings must rely on the third retention to survive.Stigler believes that in order to recognize the inherent defects of human beings at their origin,it is necessary to overthrow the dualistic thinking framework derived from logocentrism represented by metaphysics.Stigler attempts to introduce Derrida’s concept of supplementation and différance to break the cage of traditional metaphysics,and then elucidate a view that technology serves as a supplement to man at the origin,thereby unfolding his différance between man and technology.Further,based on the dual perspectives of anthropology and phenomenology,Stigler expounds the symbiotic relationship between man and technology,and finally invents the existential significance of the third retention in the origin of human beings and the way of human existence.Thirdly,this article will briefly explain Stigler’s explanation of the development process of the third retention in the second chapter.Stigler believes that human beings continue to develop and "perfect" themselves in the technological evolution of relying on the third retention,but this "perfect" process will also lead people to become lost in their dependence on modern information technology.Stigler first interprets the inner meaning of the "third retention" through Husserl’s analysis of inner time consciousness;secondly,he explores the root cause of human memory loss from the historical changes of the third retention,that is,from the perspective of human beings.The "orthos" of the orthography of historical origin has developed into the transformation of the innate comprehensive framework of human beings through the development of contemporary information technology through the digitization of the third retention,exposing the fact that modern people’s cognition and way of life are very important.It is dominated by the industrialization of memory that is manipulated by capital,and people will eventually lose themselves in this industrialization of memory.Finally,the third chapter will focus on Stigler’s social critique of the third retention such as film.Stigler regards the film as a typical representative of the third retention,and by clarifying the inner working mechanism of the film third retention in editing consciousness,to perspective and criticize how modern capital is formed through the digitalization of the third retention.The cultural industry manipulates human consciousness and completely empties the existence of modern people.Stiegler believes that movies subconsciously transform people’s subconscious by hoisting people’s desire for stories and montages.In this transformation,capital can homogeneously integrate people into the market,making people exist as means and resources for profit.The development of film into television represents a certain innovation of digital third retention,but this innovation also means the deepening of capital’s control over people’s consciousness.This deepening is mainly reflected in the comprehensive transformation of people’s cognition and way of life in the innate technical framework created by capital with the help of modern technology,and also in the real-time eventization and deterritorialization in modern society.In the development of such a digital third retention,people will eventually move towards a new proletarianization.For Stigler,the way out for people to overcome this proletarianization is to live a life that contributes to the economy.