Abstract

The definition of the technique as the mediation between man and nature raises some philosophical problems. Such mediation was established based on imperatives, among which we can highlight efficiency and domination, both exercised over nature. In order to expand the possibilities for improving the human condition, the notion of technical progress has become an emerging need for the consolidation of ancient and modern civilizations. However, it is necessary to establish the criteria for a critique of the limits of unrestrained progress in order to be able to highlight the ambiguity of this process. The development of reality goes through a series of increasingly sophisticated domains without which the objective achievements that structure human life would not be possible. As it oscillates more and more rapidly between production and destruction, technology - understood as the applied discourse of technique - accuses its own limit when submitted to the imperative of efficiency and domination. The purpose of this paper is to show that the ambiguous consequences of technical progress work as an instinctive mechanism for both the welfare state and the state of war. The methodology used to address these issues will be the clash of ideas present in the studies of thinkers who reflected the theme of the technique. Our conclusion, in addition to pointing to a reflection on the limits of technique in human life, intends to rethink the unfolding of the imperatives of a civilization guided by the notion of technical progress and its inevitable contradiction with the notion of human progress.