/lit/ - Literature

>The ethno-anthropology of Leroi-Gourhan is grounded in an interpretation of the technical phenomenon, which for him is the principle characteristic of the human, through which peoples distinguish themselves more essentially than through their racial and cultural characters in the spiritualist sense of the term. This interpretation has two objectives: to furnish a theory of anthropogenesis corresponding point by point, as we shall see, in its paleoanthropological dimension (which will be taken up in the third chapter), to a technogenesis; secondly, to allow on this basis for the comprehension of cultural differentiations between ethnic groups.

>This comparison between technological and zoological facts, between the technical object and the living being, is crucial for the hypotheses that will follow. The explanation of the technical phenomenon will analyze as a particular case of zoology the relations established between the human qua living matter and inert matter qua the "raw material" out of which technical forms appear. Technical evolution results from a coupling of the human and matter, a coupling that must be elucidated: technical systematicity is here embedded in a "zootechnological" determinism.

>The zootechnological relation of the human to matter is a particular case of the relation of the living to its milieu, the former passing through organized inert matter—the technical object. The singularity of the relation lies in the fact that the inert, although organized, matter qua the technical object itself evolves in its organization: it is therefore no longer merely inert matter, but neither is it living matter. *It is organized inorganic matter that transforms itself in time as living matter transforms itself in its interaction with the milieu. In addition, it becomes the interface through which the human qua living matter enters into relation with the milieu.*

>The enigma of this matter goes back to that of hylê qua dynamis. Matter qua potentiality would be seen in its organization as the act of this potentiality. It would then be tempting to say that the organization of matter is its form, qua the act of this potentiality. But here the question cannot be that of a purely hylomorphic relation: matter organized technomorphologically is not passive; *the tendency does not simply derive from an organizing force—the human—it does not belong to a forming intention that would precede the fréquentation of matter, and it does not come under the sway of some willful mastery: the tendency operates, down through time, by selecting forms in a relation of the human living being to the matter it organizes and by which it organizes itself, where none of the terms of the relation hold the secret of the other.*

so Give That Monkey A Hammer
>but also, if you think about it, "give that hammer a monkey," right? the instrumental tool and the innovative brain waltz through time together.
>those entrancing HammerMonkey waltzes, ah yes