The age of complete mechanization

John Michael

John M. Krois

John Krois

pp. 54-61

in: Aud Sissel Hoel, Ingvild Folkvord (eds), Ernst Cassirer on form and technology, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012

Abstract

The ability to make and use tools is one of the defining characteristics of human beings, but, until the twentith century, philosophers gave this fact little heed. Human beings were defined as "rational animals', so that the life of contemplation, Aristotle's bios theoretikos,¹ rated higher than a life of doing or making. Aristotle wrote about tragedy, but not about sculpture, for, unlike dramatists, sculptors were considered to be artisans, engaged in dirty manual work. As Erwin Panofsky commented in his famous study of ancient theories of art, being a sculptor must have been considered to be something especially crude – "etwas besonders Banausisches in ancient Greece'.² Artists were not considered to be creators. In Plato's dialogues, artists are compared to people going around holding up a mirror, and – without any knowledge – reproducing everything: the Sun, and everything in the heavens and on earth.³

Cited authors

Aristoteles

Plato

Panofsky Erwin