After attributing a series of faculties we share with other animals (sensory capacity, memory, imagination, etc.), the naturalist Aristotle characterizes humans by the exclusive possession of techne kai logismois. If the third word, logismois, can be understood as the result of the ability to know and symbolize, it is difficult to summarize what Aristotle understands by techne. In general, it is still difficult to know when technites operates as an explorer of the potentialities of nature and when it’s doing something else, when—to use the epistemologist Bachelard’s expression on Eduardo Chillida—it is a forgeron, one who works with the virtuality of iron, and when it’s what we call sculpture. And the topic can easily be applied to music. An approach to the topic from the point of view of the Kantian issue of multiple interests of reason can serve as an introduction to the problem.
The Work of Technites. Kantian Criteria to Discern the Types of Techne.
