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Homo faber


Homo faber (Latin for "Man the Maker") is the concept of human beings able to control their fate and their environment through tools.

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 anthropology theories, Homo faber, as the "working man", is confronted with Homo ludens, the "playing man", who is concerned with amusements, humor, and leisure.

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.

Homo faber can be also used in opposition or juxtaposition to deus faber ("God the Creator"), an archetype of which are the various gods of the forge.

Homo faber is used by Pierre Schaeffer in the Traité des objects Musicaux as the man creator of music, which uses its brute experience, an instinctive practice in music creation; Concluding that the homo faber aways precedes the Homo sapiens in the process of creation.


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