La funzione tecnica e il mestiere dell'artigiano nella Grecia antica tra merito e responsabilità. Una rassegna critica

This paper is a critical essay on the social value of craftsmen in ancient Greece as well of the merit and ethic responsibility connected to the social use of their skills and forms of knowledge, the so-called technai. On one hand a low grade of social consideration was attributed to craftsmen, especially among the upper classes in the Greek cities; on the other hand, craft and technical skills were an essential medium for all the material products and commodities to be supplied for the citizens. The origins of this ambiguous relationship between society and technical skills seem to lie in the particular social and political conditions of Greek craftsmen, mostly foreign people at the disposal of the ancient city-state as public operators (demioergoí), who went around from one city to another to gather the things necessary for their life. Of some importance in this context is also the ancient myth of Prometheus, which, differently worked through the centuries, shows how difficult the relation was between techniques and politics; in effect, mastering a techne means having special ability (so-called dýnamis) which in many respects is not compatible with the social order recommended by the political and philosophical thinking of the time.