Homo faber
This article may lack focus or may be about more than one topic.(September 2022) |
Homo faber (
Original phrase
In Latin literature, Appius Claudius Caecus uses this term in his Sententiæ, referring to the ability of man to control his destiny and what surrounds him: Homo faber suae quisque fortunae ("Every man is the artifex of his destiny").
In older
Modern usage
The classic homo faber suae quisque fortunae was "rediscovered" by humanists in 14th century and was central in the Italian Renaissance.
In the 20th century, Max Scheler and Hannah Arendt made the philosophical concept central again.
Henri Bergson also referred to the concept in Creative Evolution (1907), defining intelligence, in its original sense, as the "faculty to create artificial objects, in particular tools to make tools, and to indefinitely variate its makings."
Homo Faber is the title of an influential novel by the Swiss author Max Frisch, published in 1957.
See also
- List of alternative names for the human species
- Artificiality
Footnotes
- ^ (Kubler 1962, p. 10)
References
- Kubler, George (1962). The shape of time : Remarks on the History of Things. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
Further reading
- ISBN 0226025926.
- ISBN 0374502528.
External links