Homo Faber and Homo Economicus in the Scientific Revolution

Ahmet Selami Çalışkan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781032231136
• eBook ISBN: 9781000614954
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

This book tells the story of how the "servile arts" turned into the "mechanical arts," which in turn developed into a kind of philosophical apparatus that made modern science possible.

Why did the scientific revolution take place in the West and not in China or the Islamic world? How did humanity's progress in science and technology, which had been moving along at a relatively steady pace for tens of thousands of years, end up taking such an unprecedented leap? Subjecting the history of thought and technology to a novel interpretation based on the relationship between theory and practice, Ahmet Selami Çal??kan argues that the industrial revolution and modern science—and the scientific revolution that preceded both—did not alone suffice to sort out the philosophical problems of their day or to produce the institutions of the modern age. Both required a new sort of human: Homo economicus faber.

Tracing the historical emergence of this figure and its persistence in our own age, this book offers an innovative and holistic assessment of the economic, cultural and political effects of centuries of interaction between East and West and their repercussions in our world today.

1 Imitation

DOI: 10.4324/9781003275756-2

Whenever an investigation on nature was the case in the history of thought, consulting to the ancient wisdom is indispensable. The Greek legacy, largely referred now as the only literary source, provides the first examples on how the philosophical context on the nature of nature and the nature of human being was established. Besides, important connections on the relationship between tekhne (art, technics) and physis (of nature) were established as well in this period. Some questions were posed: “How did the idea of this relationship emerge?” “Is this relationship necessary or do tekhne and physis act independently?” or “Is there any question of limits between tekhne and physis?” In general, the Greek legacy is considered the starting point for all these discussion(s). The relation or distinction that we try to build between theory and practice is related to under which conditions they were taken and what kind of reflections they had in the past.

1.1 Ancient Relations

Epistheme comes from the Greek root epistasthai. Epistasthai, to know how to do something, is important to show epistheme’s connection to the practice. The application of this word whose exact meaning is know-how is best seen in the drawings of military arts. Technai comes to learn military arts from the knowing person (epistamenon).¹ Socrates asserts that the military arts are innate or they are transmitted through knowledge (epistheme).² Plato, as the most important transmitter of the thoughts of Socrates, writes about tekhne and its relations in many of his books. In Xenophon’s Socratic works, Memorabilia and Oeconomicus, Socrates calls certain arts such as mathematics and astronomy many times as technai, and occasionally he calls mathematics and astronomy as episthemai.³

Xenophon in various parts of his book Memorabilia tells the art of government (basilica tekhne) without differentiating theory from practice, and he uses banausikai tekhnai (vulgar-rude) for illiberal arts in Oeconomicus.⁴

Plato’s works include many details on various arts. Occasionally, Plato identifies theoretical aspects of some practical arts (tekhne) such as navigation, military, sculpture, administration and medicine with epistheme. In additio(n), he relates tekhne with gnosis. He divides all sciences into two: praktikos engaging in practical things and gnostikos as the completely intellectual activities.⁵ Both nature and tekhne have lower position in respect to the ideas. Both of them seek to realize the ideas, but nature is considered relatively superior than tekhne. In this sense, tekhne is classified as “real and artificial.”⁶

There are four kinds of tekhne in the dialogues of Socrates. According to the dialogues of Polus and Calliclas, these are medicine,⁷ physical education, legislation and jurisdiction. Other arts somehow fall into these categories and each art is described by its objective. In the texts, tekhne and epistheme are mostly used interchangeably.⁸

Even though Aristotle classified tekhne among practical science, he emphasized its character of deriving practical knowledge and rejected the Platonic approach.⁹ In his book, Nicomachean Ethics, where he discussed classifications, Aristotle divides mental virtues into two: logistikon (calculation) and epistemonikon (science). At large, logistikon deals with daily affairs and changing facts, while epistemonikon corresponds to the unchanging structures like mathematics. As calculation deals with the practical sphere, differentiating “good” and “correct” from “right desire” appears in this category. Similarly, in the differentiation between tekhne and virtue, he states that tekhne’s aim is for solid product whereas virtue’s objective is for activities, such as playing an instrument.¹⁰

In addition, according to Aristotle, thought has five virtues: Tekhne, Epistheme, Phronesis, Sophia and Nous.¹¹ At the point where he distinguished epistheme from tekhne, he states that epistheme deals with constant things. Therefore, epistheme is completely outside of tekhne and deals with the unchanging facts. In this context, he indicates in Metaphysics II that the matter in the external world and changing things will not be subject matter of epistheme; thus, we should expect less in this field than in unchanging information.¹² He also specifies that epistheme may cover the facts that happen regularly in the nature and the things that are mostly realized.¹³ Appealing to tekhne to understand nature, Aristotle concludes that nature is teleologically indigenous:

Where there is an end, all the preceding steps are for the sake of that. […] Now action is for the sake of an end; therefore the nature of things also is so. Thus if a house, e.g., had been a thing made by nature, it would have been made in the same way as it is now by art; and if things made by nature were made not only by nature but also by art, they would come to be in the same way as by nature. The one, then, is for the sake of the other; and generally art in some cases completes what nature cannot bring to a finish, and in others imitates nature. If, therefore, artificial products are for the sake of an end, so clearly also are natural products. The relation of the later to the earlier items is the same in both.¹⁴

Aristotle here states that just like artificial objects, nature too continuously proceeds to a certain goal. In both tekhne and physis, every stop is a starting for the next one. Based on the discussion above, however, it can also be argued that tekhne is more advanced than nature. As nature do not make it, tekhne made house and boat; and if nature did so, it would do exactly the same in the same fashion. It can also be said that tekhne eliminates nature’s deficiencies. Contrary to what may be supposed, there is a complementary relationship rather than a contrasting one. In addition, he comments on tekhne,

All Art deals with bringing something into existence; and to pursue an art means to study how to bring into existence a thing which may either exist or not and the efficient cause of which lies in the maker and not in the thing made.¹⁵

The reduction of the distinction between nature and art to whether the source of change is indigenous or exogenous leads to think natural and artificial processes in parallel terms. The subject is discussed in Metaphysics at the paragraph z7–9. In both generations (nature and tekhne), matter has a form. The form in the artificial one is in the artist’s mind, whereas the one in nature is in parents. In fact, even though Aristotle seems to separate natural and artificial environments, and ultimately parallel outcomes by products emerge.

According to a work, Mechanical Problems, attributed to Aristotle, there are two extraordinary things: the things occurring by nature with no known cause or origin (kataphysin) and the things occurring by tekhne (paraphysin). The human being whose strength, knowledge and capacity is limited grows old due to nature’s hard and coercive structure. Intervening at this state, tekhne transforms the loss into benefit; the part of tekhne that facilitates this is called mechane.¹⁶

Moreover, the facts happening indigenously fit to nature, whereas the exogenous facts happening by force are contrary to nature; in other words, they are paraphysin.¹⁷ Therefore, the characteristics of being contrary to nature and the one of occurring by force are used interchangeably. However, this should not mean a break from natural processes. For example, lightning occurring from heavens contrary to the nature of fire is paraphysin.¹⁸ Aristotle uses in some of his works the concept of paraphysin for the great birds rarely seen in nature too.¹⁹

Even though nature and tekhne seem to be opposed to each other, this conflict actually appears in the human being. The human being’s sophisticated needs clash with the simple condition of nature, then tekhne saves the human being from despair by resolving the conflict. Therefore, the adaptation of the animate is facilitated similarly by tekhne.

Mechane meant in the fourth century BC to overcome the difficulties in a crafty or by tricky way by using mental or physical tools.²⁰ It can be said that these tools are as a whole beyond the divisions of natural or artificial categories. Like Prometheus, it is said that the human being struggles desperately in nature but then overcomes the challenges by the discovery of technai.²¹ Nevertheless, despite the discoveries gathered from all the mortals, the human being cannot escape from the control of God Zeus and “complains that he has no sophisma for extricating himself from the present predicament in spite of all the inventions (mechanemata) which he devised for the mortals.”²²

The author continues in Mechanical Problems to explain the characteristics of mechane. Mechanics is a general way by which heaven burdens are lifted by small forces and the small manages the big. In this context, while the management of the small forces by the big forces is natural, by mechane the small forces come to manage the big forces. In other words, the relationship between forces is inverted. Citing Antiphon, he states that “We by skill gain mastery over things in w...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 Imitation
• 2 The Epistemological Transformation of Secret Knowledge
• 3 Quantification
• 4 The Space of the New Knowledge
• 5 Mechanization
• 6 Solidarity between Homo Faber Homo Economicus
• Conclusion
• Index