Abstract

In this article, I reconstruct Bernard Stiegler’s theory of (primary, secondary and tertiary) retentions, conveyed by the notion of epiphilogenesis (§ 2). My aim is to show how Stiegler emphasizes certain assumptions of the originally Husserlian theory, while obscuring others that seem to pose certain limitations or objections to his theory of temporal consciousness (§ 3): in particular, I focus on some problematic aspects of (a) the «selection» or «filtering» guided by secondary retentions over primary retentions (§ 3.1), and of (b) the collective secondary retentions as an imprint of the impersonal and the social within individual consciousness (§ 3.2). By connecting this analysis to the question of the aesthetic conditioning of tertiary retentions performed by the hyper-industrial system (§ 4), I conclude by outlining some critical issues that, in my opinion, seem to derive from the analysis carried out in my contribution.