CONCEPT
Défaut d'origine
Stiegler's term — from the myth of Epimetheus — for the constitutive lack that defines the human condition: an originary default that makes humans technical beings.
Défaut d'origine, the originary default, names the foundational claim of Stiegler's philosophical anthropology: the human being is constitutively incomplete. Unlike other animals, which come equipped with behavioral repertoires determined by genetic programming, the human organism must construct its way of being through engagement with a technical milieu. This is not a deficit to be overcome but the condition of possibility for human plasticity — the capacity to adapt to virtually any environment, develop virtually any competency. The default is originary: it has always been there, since the species' origin. Technics is not an add-on to a complete human; it is constitutive of the human as such.
In The You On AI Field Guide
Stiegler drew the framework from the Greek myth of Prometheus and Epimetheus. Epimetheus was charged with distributing qualities to the animals and used them all up before reaching humans, leaving humanity without natural equipment. Prometheus then stole fire from the gods to compensate — technics as the compensation for an originary lack.
The philosophical implications