Acting Out is a book by French philosopher Bernard Stiegler

Bernard Stiegler

Bernard Stiegler is a French philosopher at Goldsmiths, University of London and at the Université de Technologie de Compiègne. In addition, he is Director of the , founder in 2005 of the political and cultural group, , and founder in 2010 of the philosophy school,...

. It is composed of two short works, "How I Became a Philosopher," and "To Love, To Love Me, To Love Us: From September 11 to April 21," which were published separately in French in 2003 as Passer à l'acte and Aimer, s'aimer, nous aimer: Du 11 septembre au 21 avril. Acting Out was published by Stanford University Press

Stanford University Press

The Stanford University Press is the publishing house of Stanford University. In 1892, an independent publishing company was established at the university. The first use of the name "Stanford University Press" in a book's imprinting occurred in 1895...

 in 2009, and the translators were David Barison, Daniel Ross, and Patrick Crogan.

How I Became a Philosopher

This section of the work was originally delivered as an oral presentation, a kind of "confession" à la Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of 18th-century Romanticism. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution as well as the overall development of modern political, sociological and educational thought.His novel Émile: or, On Education is a treatise...

, in which Stiegler admits for the first time that he became a philosopher while incarcerated for a period of five years. Stiegler tells the story of his transformation in prison, a transformation which took the form of rediscovering the world in a quasi-phenomenological fashion. The chapter draws from the work of Edmund Husserl

Edmund Husserl

Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl was a philosopher and mathematician and the founder of the 20th century philosophical school of phenomenology. He broke with the positivist orientation of the science and philosophy of his day, yet he elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in logic...

, Aristotle

Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...

, and Epictetus

Epictetus

Epictetus was a Greek sage and Stoic philosopher. He was born a slave at Hierapolis, Phrygia , and lived in Rome until banishment when he went to Nicopolis in northwestern Greece where he lived the rest of his life. His teachings were noted down and published by his pupil Arrian in his Discourses...

.

To Love, To Love Me, To Love Us: From September 11 to April 21

This section of the work is a discussion of the ways in which modern society is leading to a loss of a sense of existence, thus a destruction of what Stiegler calls "primordial narcissism," resulting in the proliferation of all kinds of individual and collective pathological behaviours. He outlines his theory of individuation

Individuation

Individuation is a concept which appears in numerous fields and may be encountered in work by Arthur Schopenhauer, Carl Jung, Gilbert Simondon, Bernard Stiegler, Gilles Deleuze, Henri Bergson, David Bohm, and Manuel De Landa...

 (drawn in part from the work of Gilbert Simondon

Gilbert Simondon

Gilbert Simondon was a French philosopher best known for his theory of individuation, a major source of inspiration for Gilles Deleuze and Bernard Stiegler.- Career :...

), and the compositional relation of synchronic and diachronic processes, in order to argue that a consumer society founded on television advertising produces hyper-synchronising and hyper-diachronising processes which threaten human desire and therefore human existence. Examples discussed of the consequences of these processes include the September 11, 2001 attacks

September 11, 2001 attacks

The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/119/11 is pronounced "nine eleven". The slash is not part of the pronunciation...

, the success of the French National Front, and the Nanterre massacre

Nanterre massacre

The Nanterre massacre refers to an act of mass murder that occurred on March 27, 2002, in Nanterre, France. 33-year-old gunman Richard Durn opened fire at the end of a council meeting, resulting in the deaths of 8 councilors, and the injuries of 19 others...

 perpetrated by Richard Durn.

Secondary literature

• Heckman, Davin, Review of Acting Out.
• Hui, Yuk, "Individualization and the Play of Memories" (review of Acting Out), Parallax 16 (2010): 117–20.
• Rajski, Brian, "Review of Disorientation and Acting Out," Radical Philosophy
  Radical Philosophy
  Radical Philosophy is a British academic journal of critical theory and continental philosophy, appearing six times a year. It was established in 1972 with the purpose of providing a forum for the theoretical work which was emerging in the wake of the radical movements of the 1960s, in philosophy...
  
  158 (2009): 50–3.