DOI: [Link]

4 Review article

Received on: July 23, 2022 Accepted on: November 11, 2022 Published on: April 27, 2023

Hoda El Khouly
Cairo University
[Link]@[Link]

DOES THE MODERN USAGE OF “TECHNOLOGY”

DENOTE SOMETHING VERY DIFFERENT FROM
WHAT τέχνη MEANT FOR THE ANCIENT GREEKS?

Abstract
This paper aims to trace the term technology back to its Greek origin, τέχνη. We
recognize as its first meaning a mental activity based on knowledge and systematic
study which aims to create a technical or a moral work. The present paper argues that
the main difference between technology as seen by the classical Greek philosophers
and our contemporary technology may lie in the goal that man sets for technology.

Keywords: technology; τέχνη; knowledge; Socrates; Plato; Aristotle; contemporary

technology; logos

BEZEICHNET DER MODERNE GEBRAUCH VON

“TECHNOLOGIE” ETWAS GANZ ANDERES ALS
DAS, WAS τέχνη FÜR DIE ALTEN GRIECHEN
BEDEUTETE?

Zusammenfassung
In diesem Aufsatz wird der Begriff „Technik“ bis zu seinem griechischen Ursprung,
τέχνη, zurückverfolgt. Wir erkennen seine erste Bedeutung als eine geistige Aktivi-
tät, die auf Wissen und systematischer Erforschung beruht und auf die Schaffung
eines technischen oder eines moralischen Werks abzielt. Im vorliegenden Aufsatz
wird argumentiert, dass der Hauptunterschied zwischen der Technik, wie sie von den
96 Hoda El Khouly

klassischen griechischen Philosophen gesehen wurde, und unserer heutigen Technik,

in dem Ziel liegen könnte, welches der Mensch für die Technik setzt.

Schlüsselwörter: Technik; τέχνη; Wissen; Sokrates; Platon; Aristoteles; zeitgenössi-

sche Technik; logos

Introduction
The Classical Period of the Greek philosophy of Socrates, Plato, and Aris-
totle was a reaction to the transformation of Greek society towards a mate-
rialist tendency. It was a tendency that endangered human nature and arose
under the influence of the materialist philosophers, especially the atomists
and the sophists. Classical philosophers expressed dismay at the new teach-
ings that had begun at that time to destabilize moral values and established
wisdom, replacing them with uncertainty. Classical philosophers, especially
Socrates, felt the necessity to resort to established values in order to face the
materialist attack and the necessity of structuring moral teachings by seek-
ing the true knowledge of the concept of man.
We may now be in great need of rereading these classical philosophers’
stances in order to face another attack, that of modern technology, especial-
ly when the word’s etymology goes back to ancient Greece.
Contemporary technology has, no doubt, achieved great progress for
mankind, enabling man to master the world, but we cannot ignore the fact
that human nature today is undergoing a crisis. In the shadow of this great
technological advance, the concept of man has shrunk. The human being
who was the center of the universe for Socrates has relinquished the role of
attempting to understand and decipher the secrets of the universe and real-
ize the moral value of Good. Man has lost his real existence, as the prevalent
thought in modern industrial societies has turned to a technical one that
puts machines over man. Man has become just a cog in a machine, just an
object or a thing governed by the same mechanical rules.

1. Technology: Term and Concept

The word technology1 is derived from the Greek τέχνη from the verb τέκνο
which also gives τεχνάομαι and τίκτω meaning giving-birth, creating, skill,
1
The word technology is derived from the Greek τεχνολογία and is composed of two
roots: techne + ology (τέχνη + λόγος). Techne is craft or art, evoking meanings of creating

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and at the same time refers to experience and ability. Technê is translated
as either art or craft; the first is used to express aesthetic products, while
the second refers to technical products. In Western European languages, the
concept derives from the Latin origin ars, meaning to organize or adjust.
The Greek term τέχνη was originally related to the skill of a craftsman,
such as a carpenter ξυλουργός, but the ancient philosophers used it as well
to refer to artistic creativity. Thus, the old Greek term τέχνη is translated as
“craft” or “art”, and at the same time it denotes “knowledge”. However, it
is not all knowledge since there is also επιστήμη (epistêmê) which refers to
scientific knowledge. Both Plato and Aristotle distinguished between the-
oretical knowledge, i.e., epistêmê, and practical knowledge, i.e., technê; the
first is related to theory, while the second refers to expertise. Today, the term
technology is associated with scientific knowledge or technical knowledge.
Knowledge, in its general sense, was seen by Greek philosophers as knowl-
edge for its own sake. However, they also found a place for a type of scien-
tific or technical knowledge which is devoted to utility and the purposeful
production of objects through imitating nature or inventing something
that has already existed in nature.
It is wrong to think that the concept of technology is identical to its prod-
ucts. This is a narrow view since there is a great difference between technol-
ogy and its products. Tracing the term technology back to its Greek origin,
τέχνη, we realize its first meaning as a mental activity based on knowledge
and systematic study which aims at creating a technical or a moral work.
Technology is not the product of this type of knowledge, that is to say, com-
puters, mobile phones, robots, etc. It is rather the latent knowledge respon-
sible for bringing these products into existence. It is a process in which man
plays an essential part.
Technology is, thus, knowledge and a way of thinking that man uses to
reach pre-set goals. In fact, technology is a means and not an end or an out-
come. It follows, then, that the optimal concept of technology is the good
use of scientific knowledge and intelligent application through human
imagination and creativity in the spirit of the classical Greek philosophers.

and being skillful. Logy is the Greek λόγος which, in both ancient and modern Greek,
means displaying ideas in a systematic way in pronunciation and writing. Logos is also
the root of the word logic, which came later onto the scene. At the same time, it refers
to the relation between things or causality. Technology is used to refer to the technical
sciences, i.e., the applied sciences. As for the common use of the word, it is the optimal
intelligent use of the sciences as applied in various fields of our practical life.

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The basic question here is: to what extent does the concept and goal of tech-
nology today differ from that articulated by classical Greek philosophers?

2. Origins of Technology in the Ancient Greek

Civilization
In ancient Greek civilization, man responded to eternal life problems,
love, death, divinity, and life itself with a spirit of invention and creativity.
This endeavor is thus eloquently expressed in the relation of the term τέχνη
to the verb τέκνο. The word technê (τέχνη) had various nuances of meaning
in the ancient Greek use of it. In the Odyssey, τέχνη was used to express the
ability to work metals skillfully in order to produce useful products. In the
Iliad, it was related to the ability to work wood in order to build ships in
the proper way.
Craftsmanship, in its technical sense, is the best translation for the word
τέχνη as it was used by the ancient Greeks. It is technical knowledge as a
type of knowledge directed towards producing something without confus-
ing this knowledge with the thing itself.
It may be worth mentioning here that at the early stages of Greek phil-
osophical thought, there was no clear distinction between art, science, and
technology since the artist was also a scientist and a craftsman. The essence
of art was associated, in the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, with imitat-
ing or representing nature. Thus, technology was traditionally understood as
mimesis of nature with the purpose of taming it to serve mankind. None of
the Greek philosophers contributed directly to a theoretical understanding
of technology, but they laid some bases that cannot be ignored.

3. Τέχνη According to Plato

In the 4th Century B.C., Plato stood against current ontological and epis-
temological trends and came up with a dual metaphysics of being: a real
world and a transcendental world—a world of appearances perceived by the
senses, and an ideal world perceived only by the intellect. He argued that
the world of appearances is only a representation of the real world, which
seeks hard to appear as the actual ontological world. Thus, the phenome-
non is in a constant state of development. Plato’s theory of art is the natural
consequence of his philosophical theory; art or craft, for him, is a mere im-
itation of nature or a copy of the appearance of the real thing. He further

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commented on the value of art, considering it useless and dangerous to so-

cial life.
In the Laws, Plato argues that when the work of art is good, it contributes
to forming the character of the young in the proper manner, which means
that the state has to control the quality of the works of art in order to con-
trol their effect on citizens. (Laws, 664a-672e)
Plato did not devise a well-defined technical theory of technology; he,
nevertheless, set criteria for the knowledge associated with it and the work
it produces, keeping in mind that the concept of art, or τέχνη, was wide
enough to include different crafts. The artistic work was not simply paint-
ing or sculpture; it was rather everything created by man intentionally and
skillfully.
Plato saw art as the ability to make something that requires skill and
proper knowledge. Here, it should be said that, in his dialogues, Plato did
not have a clear demarcation to separate epistêmê from technê, the former as
theoretical knowledge and the latter as applied knowledge in the technical
sense. (Charm., 165c; Euthyd., 281a) In the Republic, Plato distinguishes
between the types of art on the basis of two factors: force and function.
(Rep., 346a) In Charmides, he associates understanding, gnosis, with art.
(Charm., 170e5-7) The artist’s skill is judged by Plato according to the ex-
tent of the artist’s understanding of the goal of his art, and, of course, his
understanding of the means of realizing this goal. In the dialogue, the Laws,
he makes a comparison between a slave doctor and a free doctor, showing
how the former depends only on experience and practical knowledge alone
while the latter depends as well on his theoretical knowledge. Thus, the free
doctor’s means of treatment are more effective since he engages the patients
with him in recognizing the nature of the disease and the right methods of
healing. (Laws, 853a)
In Gorgias, Plato considers good art, medicine, a cause of Good for the
body. This is like justice which realizes the Good for the psyche at the hands
of the judge and the legislator. (Grg., 464c) In the Republic, he links a gov-
ernor’s skill and proper knowledge of art with his wisdom in running the
state. (Rep., 342e)
However, although Plato praises art which is associated with knowledge,
i.e., technê, in many parts of his dialogues, he still sees theoretical knowledge
as the true knowledge: knowledge of forms.
Plato’s view of art is an extension of his theory of forms; the world of
forms is the world of true reality and origins. The ideas of that world cannot

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be copied in our world, as perfection resides only in the world of forms,

while our material world is biased and not ideal. Thus, when art imitates the
biased reality, not the form of the world of ideas, it is twice removed from
the abstract objective perfect reality, and this creates a double deception.
The philosophy of Plato has thus established the notion that the arts de-
pend on mimesis or imitating nature. He did not care much about the arts
of mimesis, considering them deceptive arts. However, he differentiated be-
tween practical useful arts and imitative useless arts, which are even danger-
ous. The distinguishing criterion here is knowledge and proper understand-
ing of the nature and goal of art.
Accordingly, he sets apart two types of knowledge: true knowledge as-
sociated with the world of forms, and false knowledge associated with the
world of the senses, but we have to keep in mind that Plato’s thinking de-
veloped, and in the later period, we discern in his writings an implied dia-
lectical relation between the two types of knowledge: it is a dialectic of the
theoretical and the practical.
In the Republic, there is a division of the makers into three categories:
those who use, those who produce, and those who imitate things.
In the Sophist (219a-219b), there is a division of the arts according to their
relation to nature: natural arts and manufacturing arts, where the latter de-
pends on the skill of manufacturing. (Rep., 401a) In the same dialogue, Pla-
to divides the arts into human and divine. (Soph., 365a) However, the most
important division remains that which he made between “producing” and
“imitative” arts.
Plato does not define what he means by the term μιμητικές. We can only
learn that from the gist of his philosophy. The artist imitates the world he
perceives, which itself is an imitation of the true world; thus, he is twice
removed from the true world: the work of art is an imitation of an imita-
tion. (Rep., 599d, 598b, 597e, 596e) It should be mentioned here that Plato
does not use the term imitation in the same sense every time it occurs in his
writing, his use being very loose. (Laws, 713e; Crit., 107b; Tim., 38c; Phdr.,
252d, extr.)
Art, for Plato, exerts an influence on our feelings, depriving us of the
real social communication means that require rational understanding. Art
moves us emotionally when it sheds light on the contradictions while exag-
gerating them. The artist imitates the biased reality, not perfection or the
abstract form in a genuine way. This makes us believe the material facts

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represented by the artist, not the truth as a whole or as an ideal that is found
in the world of forms. (Rep., 597e, 598b-c, 598e-599a, 602b-c, 605b-c)

4. Τέχνη According to Aristotle

In the sixth book of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle presents three
types of mental activities: theoriu, praxis, and poesis (Eth. Nic., VI, 1139a,
5-15) —a division into the theoretical, the practical, and the productive. He
refers this to the two halves of the psyche: the calculative half (logistikon)
and the practical or knowledge-having half (epistêmonikon). In the same
book (1139b, 15), Aristotle reviews four types of the psyche which are re-
lated to the different types of mental activity and the types of knowledge:
technê, phronêsis, sophia, and nous.
Giving a detailed explanation of the virtues of each of these types, Aristo-
tle makes the virtue of technê, which he considers a synonym of craft or art
(1139b, 15-30), lie in praxis. He concludes that wisdom—the highest rank-
ing of his virtues—is the virtue of theoretical knowledge. (1139B, 14-17)
Aristotle differentiates between making (poiêton) and acting (praktikon),
citing the example of health, which is a final goal, or poiêton, as different
from medicine, which is the practical activity, praxis, leading to health. (Eth.
Nic., 1094a)
Aristotle agrees with Plato that true knowledge is not concerned with the
part, but with the whole, the “essence”, that which is found within the part.
With skill, art can provide a small number of wholes with the help of the
craftsman, creating a new part by inventing a new image.
In the Poetics, he argues that art is not separated from knowledge; he even
asserts that mimesis, and accordingly art, is an activity related to human na-
ture. Aristotle further associates the pleasure of learning with the pleasure
of mimesis. (Metaph., 1, 980°)
Unlike Plato, Aristotle defends art, arguing that realizing the final goal
through the proper desire is the criterion for judging which is true and
which is deceptive. (Metaph., 1, 1139a, 25-30) He sees the function of art
as producing things that are found in nature (imitating) or inventing them
if they are not in nature (creating) through practical knowledge. (Metaph.,
1, 1140a, 1-20)
Through art, as Aristotle says, man acquires a certain understanding of
the nature of the universe. This can only be achieved when man possesses
practical knowledge, which Aristotle classifies under practical wisdom—this

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type of wisdom that he, just like Plato, always considers of a lower value
than that of theoretical wisdom.
In his Physics, he sees a similarity between art and nature based on the
fact that both seek a certain goal. To give an example, he compares instances
of a bird building its nest, a spider weaving its web, and tree leaves growing
upward to bear fruit while the roots grow downwards to feed the branch-
es, proving that all seek a goal. Art, as described by Aristotle, imitates the
work of nature, or it completes the work of a nature incapable of perfection.
(Phys., II 8, 199a, 15)

Conclusion
We can thus argue that the main difference between technology, as seen
by the classical Greek philosophers, and our contemporary technology, may
lie in the goal that man sets for technology. In the first case, it is ennobling
human nature through creativity, or simply bringing something to existence
that was not there before without man losing his status. In the second case,
it is controlling nature as a whole and creating a material reality parallel to
nature, as if man’s goal has become imitating nature with all its details. This
made the development of human civilization dependent on man’s ability
to literally imitate nature, going beyond that to a stage that is even more
materialistic, with no room for human nature. We have, thus, grown to live
within this mimesis, so much that we have lost the ability to distinguish
between reality and imitation with all that dazzling advance of technology.
I will conclude my paper by going back to the Greek term: technology.
The Greek language gave us both the problem and the solution in the two
halves of the word. The first, techno-, makes man an imitator of reality, but
seeking to go beyond it, he forgets his true nature and loses his humanity.
The second, -ology (logos), enables man to deal with reality, and at the same
time, and through theory, makes him “see” (from θεωρός - theōrós, “spec-
tator”), putting his eyes always on the meaning and reality of the human
being.
Finally, philosophy plays a role here, which is to raise questions about the
boundaries of modern technology which has caused modifications in sever-
al fields of human endeavors—the environment, economic life, education,
culture. Philosophy should also watch the effects of technology aided by
one compass, which is human nature. The challenge faced by philosophy is
to provide the theoretical understanding for all that and to enable human

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beings to restore the human concept to its previous lost status. In other
words, the only means of survival is to prevent the stripping of the word of
its second half: logos.

References
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Lawson Tancred, London et. al.: Penguin Books.
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ƒ Aristotle (1936) Physics, A Revised Text with Introduction and Com-
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