ABSTRACT
Techniques are designed to achieve some specific mechanical, chemical, or physical effects. They thus must be regularly efficacious and regularly transmissible. They may be further divided into two broad categories: (1) techniques in conformity with the body and instrumental techniques, or techniques in conformity with nature and (2) techniques designed to give nature a different form. I To move from the first type of technique to the second requires a new time orientation, notably a sacrifice of current advantage to the goal of some future advantage. A further obstacle to the acceptance of the second type of technique was the prevalence among the Greeks of classical Antiquity--despite their propensity for innovation-of the view that a human work or 'tEXVl'\ (techne) acquires a useful and intelligible form only to the extent that its maker aspires to conform to nature even though, as Plato contended, the work itself can be only an imperfect translation of nature.2 In this chapter, I shall deal mainly with the second type of technique.
