In this article the significance of technics for an acceptable perspective on human agency is
presented in a descriptive and critical manner. The principal descriptive strategy adopted in this
study is to approach technicity as an aspect of human agency, rather than to explore technical
action in the framework of an action typology. Correspondingly, “technology” is presented as
the study of the technicity of human action. In the centre of such a study is an exploration of
technicity as major characteristic of the human body, the coinciding use of means and/or the
pursuit of different forms of excellence. This polemical use of the term “technology” serves the
purpose of opposing three recurrent misconceptions regarding technics: (1) the ideologically
driven approaches to human technicity, namely techno-optimism and techno-pessimism, (2) the
erroneous conviction that thorough attention to human technicity necessarily implies the
instrumental degradation of the human being, and (3) the excessive isolation of human technicity
with respect to other aspects of being human.
The constructive response to these three critical points, are as follows: first, a nuanced image
of human technicity is provided. Bodily technics (techniques du corps) are the growing and evolving series of capabilities that are gradually sedimented in the body of a developing human being. These
capacities are acquired under cultural specific regimes of encouragement and sanction. They are
also steady dispositions to act in certain ways, when confronted with certain kinds of context,
without, however, being determined by these contexts. Furthermore, the bodily technics is the
manner in which an agent is acquainted with the world, in the sense of having a non consciousness
centred, practical know-how of the world. Second, the particular human character of technicity is
studied in three ways. (i) It is demonstrated that there is no disposition to rule following behaviour
in human beings that does not stand under the influence of judgement, adaptation to a context and
the exercise of capabilities under the restrictions of inabilities. (ii) Subsequently the hermeneutic
spiral involved in the technicity of all action is explained. A three-fold meaning is uncovered in the
interpretation, which is part of the technicity of action: the technical meaning (in a narrow sense),
the meaning of usage and the symbolic meaning. (iii) Finally, the mutual implication of technicity
and creativity is explored. It is argued that the technicity of action is to be understood as a nonteleological
capacity, before the subsequent teleological capability (usually associated with the
instrumental reason in action typologies) is taken into consideration. Drawing from the work of
Hans Joas, it is demonstrated that without this teleological capability, the human being would be
simply determined in a behaviouristic manner by the forces of the environment, in other words, the
teleological capacity (as development of our primordial technicity) creates room for creativity.
Furthermore, the capacity for creative intervention in the world presupposes the non-teleological
capacity of primordial technicity. Third, the interwovenness of human technicity with other
anthropological aspects is examined. Five aspects of human existence are dialectically implicated
with human technicity: the biological constitution, the constructed technical system, the acquisition
of know-how through socialisation, associative action and the symbolic and linguistic order. The critical potential of a non-teleological notion of the technicity of human action is mapped
in the last section in order to demonstrate the relevance of “technology” for the humanities and
for the social sciences in particular. Stated negatively, the critical thrust of technology is aimed
against the technicist reduction (ie the reduction of human technicity to a specific type of action,
which is warped by the teleological prejudices against the nature of human technicity) and against
the anti-technical marginalisation of human technicity (ie the attempt to expel technicity from
being human or to limit it to certain kinds of action). These two tendencies of misrepresentations
of human technical agency usually lead to techno-optimism and techno-pessimism, respectively.
Stated positively, technology as critical discourse on human technicity is guided by the desire to
gain insight into the full potential for the development of human agency, since this is a condition
for the possibility of ethical as well as moral and political excellence. In this sense, technology
(in the sense used here) has a critical social scientific ambition.
An overview of possible pathologies of techno-pessimism and techno-optimism is plotted in
tabular form against the five dialectical relations between human technicity and other aspects of
human existence (as referred to above). The underlying structure of the table presents these two
categories of practical techno-pathologies in an Aristotelian way as the excesses and deficiencies
associated with warped perspectives on human technicity. Furthermore, as in Aristotle’s practical
philosophy, the two vices give an indication of the midway between them that is to be pursued in
all practical contexts as the way of excellence. This midway ideally recognises the true spirit or
humaneness of human technicity, by according to it, its rightful place. One of the characteristics
of excellence in human action is the capability to do justice to this spirit of human technicity in
the divergent contexts of practice and under different regimes of justification. Here, “doing justice”
refers only secondarily to what is done after action, retrospectively by social scientists; primarily
it refers to excellence in human practice.
In hierdie artikel word die belang van tegniek vir ’n aanvaarbare perspektief op die menslike
agentskap (en dus ook op die gees van die mens) op ’n beskrywende en kritiese manier aangebied.
Die polemiese gebruik van die term “tegnologie” dien as afgrensing teen drie wydverspreide
wanopvattings aangaande tegniek: (1) teen die ideologiesgedrewe benaderings tot menslike
tegnisiteit, naamlik tegno-pessimisme en tegno-optimisme, (2) teen die foutiewe oortuiging dat
behoorlike aandag aan menslike tegnisiteit noodwendig lei tot ’n instrumentale degradering van
die mens en (3) teen die oordrewe isolering van menslike tegnisiteit ten opsigte van ander aspekte
van menswees, soos die simboliese, sosiale of biologiese aspekte. Dienooreenkomstig word: (1)
’n genuanseerde beeld van menslike tegnisiteit aangebied, (2) aangetoon hoe tegnisiteit wesenlik
deel van menslike bestaan is en (3) die verweefdheid van menslike tegnisiteit met ander
antropologiese aspekte ondersoek. Uiteindelik word die kritiese potensiaal van ’n nie-teleologiese
begrip van die tegnisiteit van menslike aksie gekartografeer ten einde die relevansie van
“tegnologie” vir die geesteswetenskappe te demonstreer.
