The Dialectic of Practice and the Logical Structure of the Tool: Philosophy, Archaeology and the Anthropology of Technology

The Dialectic of Practice and the Logical Structure of the Tool undertakes a critical review of recent trends in the archaeological and anthropological theory of technology from processual neo-positivism and postprocessual relativism to the contemporary French and American anthropology, and the symmetrical theory of material culture. On the basis of a critique of their logical premises and epistemological consequences, it draws on the tradition of Hegelian dialectics in order to propose an alternative understanding of technology as a material social practice within which the subject and the object –the socio-cultural and the natural– are produced concurrently as inter-constituted elements, and they are unified through their mutual negative relation to each other. Consequently, it is argued that this dynamic practical relation is consolidated in the concept of the tool. The analysis of its logical structure shows its role as an immanent moment of technological practice. According to Hegel, a tool is not a neutral means for transmitting subjective ends to an external object but the material expression of the practical relationship between artisan and matter, and of their negative unity within practice. Concerning this point, the discussion follows a detailed reconstruction of Hegel’s theoretical reflections on the tool concept, and it evaluates their significance for the contemporary debates on the question of techniques and technology.

Table of Contents

Introduction ; 

PART I: A Brief History of Research: From neo-positivism to phenomenology and beyond ; 
Elusive technology and analytic dualism: between processual objectivism and post-processual idealism ; 
French and American anthropology of technology: synthetic dualism and the concept of the “process” ; 
The chaîne opératoire approach: some theoretical remarks ; 
Symmetrical theory and the phenomenology of material culture ; 

PART II: Hegel and the Concept of Practice: Elements for a dialectical theory of technology ; 
Dialectics in contemporary archaeological and anthropological theory ; 
The dialectic of practice: reconsidering Hegel ; 

PART III: The Subject, the Object, and the Logical Structure of the Tool ; 
Heidegger’s phenomenology or the tool as not a tool ; 
Hegel’s tools: relationality, universality, and effectivity ; 

Epilogue ; 

References

Jannis Kozatsas’ research broadly focuses on philosophy and archaeology. Currently, he is a postdoctoral researcher in philosophy at the Department of Political Science and History, Panteion University of Athens, as a Fellow of the State Scholarship Foundation. Since 2018 he has been lecturing in modern European philosophy at the Department of Philosophy, University of Patras.