“La lira mi sia cara e l’arco ricurvo”: una trama di tensioni opposte

Abstract

The opposition between tecnomania and technophobia has an ideological and fideistic character. This essay proposes a philosophical critique of that opposition, carried out through genealogy and anthropology of technology. On the guidelines of ontology, biology and paleoanthropology of machines, it is detected the fundamental difference between “apotelestic” and “sympleromatic” machines, two dimensions that converged in ancient techne. On this basis it becomes evident that the era of technological civilization, in which only the apotelestic size prevails, it is a time of impoverishment and anthropological erosion, insofar as humanity continues to make and to recognize itself in the mirror of its own machinations.