Abstract

We have never been lacking. The technical Core of human Existence according to Paul Alsberg Paul Alsberg (1883-1965) represent a minor, though influential author within philosophical anthropology. The aim of this paper is firstly to analyze some of his most relevant intuitions concerning the problem of hominization and the nature of the tool. In his work Das Menschheitsrätsel (1922) he conceptualizes the prosthetic dynamics of technical practice, maintaining that human biological lack descends from tool-using and tool-making and consequently do not elicit it. This allows him to theorize a constitutive simultaneity and reciprocity between anthropogenesis and technogenesis. The second half of the paper develops some critical remarks on Alsberg’s theory. It considers questionable the assumption made by Alsberg of a difference of nature between human and animal and of the independence of the environment from the adaptive action of man. Nevertheless, Alsberg’s thesis may provide an interesting contribution within the current debate about hominization and the question of technics.