ABSTRACT
In the Discourse on Inequality, Jean-Jacques Rousseau contrasts natural and civilized man. The former has "all his forces constantly at [his] command, [is] always prepared for any eventuality, and [is] always, so to speak, altogether complete in [himself]". Rousseau does not claim that a "natural man" or "savage" ever existed. Nevertheless, the notion of a pre-technological stage of human development is important as a limit concept in the Discourse, as a foil for the always overly civilized condition of the modern. It is interesting to note, then, that while both communities are at root technical economies, the one is healthy because its technai stand in a natural relationship to human nature, both biological and spiritual. Technology is thus again a "problem" when its natural economy is disturbed by the devising of artificial ends, towards the achievement of which the economy is now steered.
