Highlighting the link that connects the philosophy of history and institutions developed
by Urmensch with the biological categories set out in Der Mensch, this work attempts to
reconstruct the main social, cultural and institutional stages of human history in the light
of two interconnected principles: the biological principle of exaptation, and the principle,
derived from the idealistic tradition, of indirect self-consciousness [indirektes
Selbstbewusstsein]. The result is a materialist conception of human history in which,
however, the main social and cultural institutions – from the rituals of hunting to
totemism, from the great monotheistic religions to the experimental practice of modern
science – do not appear as mere superstructural effects of different «socio-economic
formations», but as «transcendental schemes» that interconnect action and perception,
reality and need, necessity and convention, norm and emotion. This conception allows to
throw new light on post-histoire, on the postmodern era in which the techno-scientific
institution dominate any other form of institutional mediation, transforming the metainstitution
of language into an instrument of manipulation of internal and external
reality. Neutralizing any means to satisfy the most essential needs, which is
communication, humanity is thus exposed to the greatest danger: an era where social
autism seems no longer possible to be cured.
