Philosophies of Technologies

5“Motion” Machines and “Token” Machines: Milestones in the History of the Alphabet

5.1. Introduction

In the following pages, we would like to reflect on the relationship between technology as a capacity to act and produce, on the one hand, and language as a capacity to symbolize, on the other hand. Within the French epistemological tradition, Leroi-Gourhan revisited this matter when he published Le geste et la parole (1964) (“Gesture and Speech”), the first volume of which, “Technology and Language”, sums up the problem in its very title. However, for reasons we will explain later, this is not the source we start from, even though we recognize that the book in question marks an important stage in the questioning of the relationship between technology and language. Instead, we would like to start by drawing on the work of a later anthropologist of technology, François Sigaut, and in particular two comments he made in what turned out to be his last book: Comment Homo devint faber (2012) (“How Homo became Faber”). Based on these two observations, we then take a look at the distinction between “motion” and “token” machines, seen as milestones in the history of writing.

5.2. Two comments on technology from François Sigaut

Which two points are highlighted by Sigaut? He presents both of them in a negative light, indicating that it is the opposite of the generally accepted view.

First, tools are not language. The potter’s wheel, the hammer or the arrow are not, strictly speaking, ...