2
B. Li / Technology in Society xxx (2015) 1e6
At the beginning of the 21st century, as a younger sibling
fire d since these arts could not have been acquired or
used without fire d and quickly gave them to humans.
Thus human beings acquired the wisdom necessary to
support life, but not political wisdom, since this was in
the possession of Zeus …. But Prometheus entered un-
observed into the workshop shared by Athena and He-
phaestus, in which they pursued their arts, and carried
off Hephaestus' art of working by fire, and also the arts
of Athena, and gave them to humans. And in this way
humans acquired the means of livelihood. But Prome-
theus is said afterward to have been prosecuted for
theft, owing to the blunder of Epimetheus. (Protagoras,
320c-322a)
of the philosophy of technology, there emerged the phi-
losophy of engineering [4]. It is obvious that philosophy of
technology and philosophy of engineering are two over-
lapping subjects, distinctive but interdependent and
interactive. However, this essay will not differentiate the
two and focus only on their common points.
From my perspective, technology and engineering differ
from science, which focuses on the pursuit of truth, by
being deeply involved with theories of human nature. Such
an involvement will in the future help move the philosophy
of technology to an ever more central position in philo-
sophical reflection. Insofar as the philosophy of technology
and engineering deal with questions of human nature they
also deal with essential problems in philosophy as a whole.
This essay will consider briefly two such topics d human
nature and the means-ends relationship d that can also
provide opportunities for collaboration between western
and Chinese philosophical work.
Obviously and interestingly, we can interpret the Greek
myth philosophically as follows. According to the story, the
nature of an animal species is associated with its ability to
survive. While all animals obtained from Epimetheus their
own such natural abilities, only humans did not obtain
something, which means that humans did not from the
beginning have a nature of their own. But Prometheus stole
the arts d the Greek word is “technai”, the root of the
English “technology” d from Hephaestus and Athena and
along with them fire, giving them to humans so as to enable
human beings to survive.
The word “to steal” is another key to interpreting human
nature. As another element in the story, “stealing” further
suggests that humans do not have their own nature but
instead have a “stolen” nature by way of Prometheus. So
while the nature of all other animals rests in their own
bodies d for example, the nature of tigers or the nature of
moles is to be found in their anatomies and physiologies d
the nature of humans exists outside their bodies. Human
nature is outside the body in an ability to use the arts and
fire. Considering that Hephaestus was the god of black-
smiths and artisans, with his symbols being the tools of axe
and tongs, and that Athena was the goddess of the city,
handicrafts, and agriculture, modern philosophers have
gone a step further and interpreted the human as a tool-
making and tool-using animal.
In ancient Greece, because tool-making and tool-using
activity was mainly carried out by slaves, slave owners
disdained tool-making and tool-using. Slave owners such
as Plato and Aristotle would resist defining humans as a
tool-making species. Instead, according to Plato, Aristotle,
and their followers, the human being is not a tool-making
and tool-using animal but a rational animal. This can be
called the Plato-Aristotle thesis. The majority of philoso-
phers for two thousand years in the West accepted this
view. Something similar was the case in China, although
servitude was not quite the same as in the West. In China,
for instance, peasant agricultural life was ranked above that
of traders.
2. Human nature
There are many theories of human nature. Debates
about what it means to be human have occupied philoso-
phy from its beginnings, with pre-philosophical reflection
taking place in myths. One early attempt in the West to
bring mythological thinking about human nature into
philosophy occurs in Plato's Protagoras, in a passage that
deserves to be quoted at length. The old Protagoras, in
order to persuade a younger Socrates that virtue is teach-
able, tells the following fable (as adapted from Jowett):
Once there were only gods and no animals. When the
time came for the creation of mortal animals, the gods
molded them in the earth as mixtures of fire and earth
and other elements. When they were about to enter the
light of day, the gods ordered Prometheus and Epi-
metheus to distribute appropriate capabilities to each.
Epimetheus proposed to Prometheus: “Let me distribute
and you inspect.” This agreed, Epimetheus went about
his task. To some he gave strength without swiftness,
while weaker animals were given swiftness; some he
armed, and others he left unarmed but devised other
means of preservation: making some large, with size as
a protection, and others small, who could fly in the air or
burrow in the ground. Thus did he give to each species
some means for self-preservation … .
But not being as wise as he might have been, Epi-
metheus distributed among the non-human animals all
the qualities he had to give, so that when he came to
humans, who had yet to be provided for, he did not
know what to do. Now while he was thus perplexed,
Prometheus came to inspect the distribution, and he
found that although all other animals were suitably
equipped, humans alone were naked and unshod, un-
covered, and unarmed d and already time had come
when humans and the other animals were to go forth
into the light of day.
In the 18th century, Benjamin Franklin proposed a
counter thesis, that the human being is a tool-making an-
imal. Strangely, this thesis was not stated by Franklin
himself but was attributed to him by Samuel Johnson. A
later commentator summarized Franklin's view as follows:
Inventiveness was the indispensable condition for the
survival of the human species. Without fur or feather,
carapace or scale, ancestral man naked to the elements;
Then Prometheus, not knowing what to do, stole from
Hephaestus and Athene wisdom in their arts along with
Please cite this article in press as: Li B, Human nature, the means-ends relationship, and alienation: Themes for potential
Schubert, David
