Man and technics: a contribution to a philosophy of life

PREFACE

I. TECHNICS AS THE TACTICS OF LIVING
Process and means. The contest and the weapon. Evolution and fulfilment. Passingness as the form of the actual.

II. HERBIVORES AND BEASTS OF PREY
Man as beast of prey. The spoil and the spoiler. Movement, as flight and onset. The predatory eye and its world. Unalterable genus-technique and inventive human technique.


III. THE ORIGIN OF MAN: HAND AND TOOL
The hand as organ of touch and of deed. Differentiation of the making and the using of the weapon. Libera tion from the compulsion of the genus. "Thought of the eye" and "thought of the hand." Means and aim. Man as creator. The single act. Nature and "art." Human technique artificial. Man versus Nature. The Tragedy of Man.

IV. THE SECOND STAGE: SPEECH AND ENTERPRISE
Collective doing. How old is speaking in words? Purpose of speech, collec tive enterprise. Purpose of enterprise, the enhancement of human power. Separation of thought and hand, leader's work and executant's work. Heads and hands, the hierarchy of talents. Organization. Organized ex istence, state and people, politics and economics. Technics and human numbers. Personality and Mass.

V. THE LAST ACT: RISE AND END OF THE MACHINE CULTURE
Vikings of the intellect. Experiment, working hypothesis, perpetual mo tion. Meaning of the machine, the inorganic forces of Nature compelled to work. Industry, wealth, and power. Coal and population. Mechanization of the world. Symptoms of the de cline, diminution of leader-natures. Mutiny of the hands. The lost mo nopoly of technics. The coloured world.