Questioning teletechnologies : a study on the notion of inheritance in Derrida

Abstract

This study aims to trace the perspective on media and technology in Jacques Derrida’s thought. For this purpose, a discussion of the notion of inheritance is presented. This notion marks essential themes in Derrida’s approach to modern teletechnologies. Associations between the notion of inheritance and fundamental questions in the thought of deconstruction such as experience, writing and belief are explored. The questions that arise through the contextualization of modern teletechnologies is put forth by a reading of the philosophical dialogue between Bernard Stiegler and Jacques Derrida. It is argued that the experience of bearing witness, to which Derrida ascribes a constitutive role in the formation of the social bond, obtains a new context by the expansion of teletechnologies.