The opposition between tecnomania and technophobia has an ideological and fideistic
character. This essay proposes a philosophical critique of that opposition, carried out
through genealogy and anthropology of technology. On the guidelines of ontology,
biology and paleoanthropology of machines, it is detected the fundamental difference
between “apotelestic” and “sympleromatic” machines, two dimensions that converged in
ancient techne. On this basis it becomes evident that the era of technological civilization,
in which only the apotelestic size prevails, it is a time of impoverishment and
anthropological erosion, insofar as humanity continues to make and to recognize itself in
the mirror of its own machinations.
