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Abstract
The article's aim is to measure the potential of Derrida's work for a philosophy of technique. It shows why Derrida does not present a positive philosophy of technology but rather describes technique as a quasi-technique, as if a technique. The article inquires into the potential of such a quasi-technique for a contemporary philosophy of technology: it is suggested that it can function as a salutary "deconstruction" of mainstream philosophy of technology (that "knows" the "essence of technology") because it shows how to think technique in the absence of essence and as the absence of essence.
The article begins with a survey of the machines that figure in Derrida's texts. It then examines three propositions concerning technology in Derrida's work:
1) Derrida thinks technology as a metaphor of writing and not the other way round.
2) Derrida thinks technique as prosthesis, firstly of memory, then more generally of life.
3) Derrida's quasi-technique relies on his peculiar conception of the incorporal materiality of technique.
Keywords
Derrida - technique - technology
At first glance, a surface reading would convince the reader that, in Jacques Derrida's texts, there is constantly the question of techniques and technologies. His texts are especially rich in writing devices: he names or analyzes pens, typing machines, computers, books, letters, post cards, e-mails, and a certain Wunderblock; and equally machines for inscribing sound or image like gramophones, telephones and televisions; he also examines individual skills as techniques, for instance memorizing techniques; and public institutions like archives, postal services and telephone companies; he examines tombs as technical constructions; and nuclear warheads as engines to destroy all the archives of mankind.1 In Derrida's texts, the French word technique denotes a vast variety of phenomena that the English language divides into technologies and techniques, but to which I will in this article refer mostly just by technique in order to stress the unity of the phenomenon. Derrida does not single out one paradigmatic technology nor does he formulate one comprehensive Idea of Technique, but he lays out a vast, open-ended series of different technical capacities and technological devices, situations, contexts and assemblies, somewhat in the same manner as he examines the singular plural l'animot instead of the universal Animal.2 Although Derrida does not have as...