TESTI / 1 / André Leroi-Gourhan /
Technology and society in the animal and the human (Italian translation)
The problem of the originality of the human being is addressed through an interdisciplinary analysis, starting from the critique of the dualism opposing homo faber and homo sapiens, and thus contrasting technique with speech and language. Animal technicality is investigated on a palaeontological and anatomical level, described as a capacity that emerges in the evolution of many forms of life, assuming with mammals such characteristics that lead anatomy towards a functional organisation in which prehension and manipulation are detached from locomotion. The constitution of a field of relations between face and hand is not typical of human beings, but the behaviour that follows along with the growth of the brain is original. The complexity of human technical behaviour also relies heavily on language, which emerges as an integrated aspect of human agency.It is therefore necessary to psychologically analyse manual technicality and conscious phonation, as these two behaviours are possible thanks to memory, a memory that is not biologically hereditary but the result of education. This brings out the importance of society and language as vectors of human memory, which allows technical capacity to be freed from individual characteristics, opening up the possibility of unlimited growth in technical progress. The key to originality thus lies in the complementarity of zoological and ethnic features.
