Technosynthesis

Abstract

The first step out of the biological realm and the human nervous system (and, therefore, out of the evolutionary epistemology), the next step down the nested hierarchy into the realm of exosomatic artificial structures should, naturally, be an account of technology. Technology, in the broad sense of the word, i.e. as the collective term for: (i) technical expertise and knowledge (and mental states and processes involved in them); (ii) physical operations and procedures (techniques); and (iii) their products (technics), is commonly understood to refer to structures that supplement biological actions by which humans satisfy the demands of existence. For an anthropology that describes humans as biologically unspecialised beings but well adapted to technological survival strategy, it is particularly natural and proper to treat technology as an appendix to biology. Technology is then seen as a purposeful, outwardly oriented, human activity mediated by and yielding to a set of artefacts interposed between humans and their natural environment, the set that completes the unfinished human body.