UNA MACCHINA PER PRODURRE DEI. DA HEIDEGGER A BERGSON

In the ancient myth of Protagoras, which still inspired 20th century thinking about technology, the machine is a prosthesis. It must compensate for the "lack" that distinguishes man from the other living species. Technology is thus included in the horizon of Aristotelian poiesis, i.e. as work, and assigned to the human sphere alone. It is feared that the machine could turn man into its own tool, destroying his sovereignty. In Bergson's philosophy, on the other hand, machines are organs of life that do not contrast with the causality of nature. In other words, technology is included in the horizon of Aristotelian praxis, and the human agent is seen as the operator of the natural machine. Mechanics and mysticism share the same vital drive that runs through matter. Bergson thus provides the basis for a cosmological view of technique (cosmotechnics) and a 'general organology' that is radically opposed to Heidegger's anthropological-existential conception of technique.