At Against the Mathematicians (M) 2.10 Sextus Empiricus defines technê along Stoic lines, as (a) an organized system of knowledge (b) directed towards an end useful for life. This raises a question. Does the sceptic’s own art satisfy conditions (a) and (b) and thereby qualify as a technê? This is not an idle question. For if it turns out that the sceptic’s art does qualify as a technê, then one might reasonably ask whether, on pain of inconsistency, Sextus ought not to train his guns on the sceptic’s art just as he trains his guns on the liberal arts of grammar, rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, astrology and music in M 1–6. The chapter explore the different possible answers that can be given to the question and argues that, though scepticism satisfies condition (b) for a technê, it fails to satisfy condition (a). While skepticism has eudaimonistic use, in that establishes ‘unperturbedness’ (ataraxia), not fixed target or subject matter like technai proper, but one that changes according to dialectical context. Skeptic art has then an asystematic subject matter. Scepticism is, therefore, a non-technical art that differs fundamentally from the kinds of technai Sextus discusses, and attacks, in M 1–6.

According to Aristotle, a technê is both a productive power and a kind of epistêmê. In so far as it is a kind of epistêmê, it deals with universals, involves grasping explanations and does not concern itself with the accidental. But a puzzle arises about how something can both be an epistêmê in this sense and at the same time be a power for producing things. Successful production requires the ability to make adjustments to take account of indefinitely variable circumstances. In this chapter, Coope argues that this essential flexibility of technê marks an important difference between it and theoretical epistêmê. Whereas a theoretical epistêmê is potentially complete (in the sense that it is possible in principle to possess all the explanations of the epistêmê), a technê is indefinitely improvable (however many explanations one grasps, there will always be further explanations to be worked out). Because of this, even an expert in a technê needs to have the capacity for working out new explanations. It is possible for Aristotle to think of technê in this way just because he (unlike, for instance, later Christian authors) does not think there is such a thing as a divine technê.

Production is an essential category of Proclus’ thought. To understand human production, as the late ancient Platonists conceive of it, we need first to look at divine production and natural generation, which is ultimately due to divine causes. Divine production is the by-product of the gods’ unchanging act of thinking. Demiurgic production is a subclass of divine production producing things that become as such. Interestingly, demiurgic production resembles human production more than higher forms of divine production. Gods have only the higher forms of technai, not the human technai based on conjecture. In the logical sequence of planning, the whole precedes the part, while in actual production parts come first. This is made possible by the plurality of demiurgic causes, ordered in a hierarchical sequence. Human craftsmanship is structurally analogous to natural and divine production. It involves paradigmatic causes which are not eternal intelligible objects, but the fruit of genuine invention. Artefacts and the rational formulae (logoi) describing their function and form must be adapted to changing circumstances. While propositional and discursive, their elements are provided by reflections of Forms. New logoi presuppose creative imagination, representing non-actual situations. Knowledge of how to make artefacts involves their conditions of realisation.

Virtue is agreed to be a technê – or at least very like one – by Socrates, Plato, the Stoics and Aristotle (who is deeply ambivalent about the technê model). But in what ways is technê a useful model for virtue? Barney argues that technê has two important dimensions. First, technê provides a small-scale, well-understood model for the general, unspecialized practical rationality that would constitute virtue. Relevant features of a technê so understood include perceptual, rational and deliberative capacities, and a disinterested orientation to an end. Second, a technê is a practical identity: a social role the adoption of which provides a deliberative standpoint. Adopting a practical identity involves accepting its normative authority: we undertake to be a good doctor, mother, etc. Understanding technê´s normative authority as a practical identity (rather than as knowledge) solves several standard puzzles about virtue as technê. Moreover, the model can be defended against some common objections if virtue is taken as a kind of ‘super-technê’, with the human good as its end and, accordingly, some special features: it directs all the other technai, its adoption as a practical identity is non-optional for a rational human being, and its reasons for action are non-defeasible.

This chapter offers a fresh account of Aristotle's contribution to the long debate in antiquity among philosophers, rhetoricians and medical writers concerning the relative merits, or demerits, of accumulated experience (empeiria) and of theoretical know-how (technê) as powers for successful practical action. In pursuing this topic, Bolton offers an extensive investigation of the relation between the account of these powers offered by Aristotle in Metaphysics I.1 and that found in the Nicomachean Ethics. He carefully distinguishes the different notion of universal that are available to Aristotle in characterizing the object of technê, arguing that the notion of universal underlying Aristotle’s account of technê in Metaphysics I.1 is the one we find in the Posterior Analytics, thereby giving us a theoretically flavoured notion of technê. However, this notion is not generally presupposed by the accounts we find elsewhere in the Aristotelian corpus. Particularly, in the Topics a different conception of technê emerges as empeiria or experience, an account which coincides with those defended by the later medical empiricists.

These two chapters form a conceptual unity. Their aim is, first, to present and, then, to compare the concepts of technê (art, craft, discipline, expertise) used, respectively, by the Stoics and the Epicureans in different philosophical domains – notably, in cosmology, epistemology and ethics. The main issues to be discussed include the definition of a technê; the criteria determining a technê, the importance of rules and method, the role of experience and practice, the structure of every technê in so far as it is directed towards a goal, the necessary and sufficient conditions for the transmissibility of different sorts of technai and the common assumption that the technai are beneficial for life. Moreover, Tsouna argues that the notions of technê occurring in Stoic and Epicurean texts differ, and she explains how they differ. She suggests that one reason for that fact is that these two schools react in different ways to Plato’s rationalism about technê. On the one hand, the Stoics’ creative appropriation of Plato leads them to formulate a principally rationalistic notion of technê, which is manifest, for example, in their cosmological creationism (cf. the notion of technikon pur), the epistemological distinction between first-order technai and the epistêmê of the wise man, and their ethical conception of the art of living. On the other hand, the Epicureans react to the Platonic heritage in a more negative way and appear to modify their views about technê accordingly. Vis-à-vis the Stoics, they exhibit greater flexibility regarding the criteria of ‘technicity’ and attribute more value to common experience than many Stoics do. Their physical theory precludes any idea of divine craftsmanship. As for Epicurean epistemology and ethics, both involve uses of technê consistent with Epicurean empiricism and the ethical view that pleasure or the absence of pain is the supreme good.

In the early treatise Ennead V.9, Plotinus discusses whether the arts are there in the intelligible realm, and concludes that they are at least partly. The chapter’s first part discusses a number of questions that arise. What is exactly the principle of division for which arts or which parts of an art are in the intelligible realm? What is the status of the arts in the intelligible world? Are there Platonic Forms of the arts? In a later treatise, V.8., Plotinus argues that rather than imitating sensible objects, some artists concerned with producing beautiful sensible objects imitate the intelligible paradigm of beauty. Emilsson discusses this claim, which seems a clear deviation from the account of mimetic art in Plato’s Republic. In the latter half of the chapter, Emilsson addresses Plotinus’ demythologisation of Plato’s Timaeus. Plotinus replaces the Demiurge of the Timaeus with the universal intellect and the World-Soul, which do not deliberate. However, Plotinus does not reject entirely any craftsman model, for he appeals to performance arts, which do not involve deliberation, in explaining how natural processes flow from higher principles. Emilsson then discusses what sort of conception of the arts lies behind this view.

These two chapters form a conceptual unity. Their aim is, first, to present and, then, to compare the concepts of technê (art, craft, discipline, expertise) used, respectively, by the Stoics and the Epicureans in different philosophical domains – notably, in cosmology, epistemology and ethics. The main issues to be discussed include the definition of a technê; the criteria determining a technê, the importance of rules and method, the role of experience and practice, the structure of every technê in so far as it is directed towards a goal, the necessary and sufficient conditions for the transmissibility of different sorts of technai and the common assumption that the technai are beneficial for life. Moreover, Tsouna argues that the notions of technê occurring in Stoic and Epicurean texts differ, and she explains how they differ. She suggests that one reason for that fact is that these two schools react in different ways to Plato’s rationalism about technê. On the one hand, the Stoics’ creative appropriation of Plato leads them to formulate a principally rationalistic notion of technê, which is manifest, for example, in their cosmological creationism (cf. the notion of technikon pur), the epistemological distinction between first-order technai and the epistêmê of the wise man, and their ethical conception of the art of living. On the other hand, the Epicureans react to the Platonic heritage in a more negative way and appear to modify their views about technê accordingly. Vis-à-vis the Stoics, they exhibit greater flexibility regarding the criteria of ‘technicity’ and attribute more value to common experience than many Stoics do. Their physical theory precludes any idea of divine craftsmanship. As for Epicurean epistemology and ethics, both involve uses of technê consistent with Epicurean empiricism and the ethical view that pleasure or the absence of pain is the supreme good.

The Introduction sets the scene by addressing first the problems involved with translating the term technê and related issues with circumscribing the Greek concept. The social context of craft and craftsmen is briefly discussed. Criteria for technê are outlined, with the importance of the Hippocratic writings for Plato and Aristotle highlighted. The central role of technê as a model of knowledge is introduced, and its applications to a range of disciplines, including ethics, politics and cosmology.

This chapter discusses the use of technê to characterize the creator god in Plato’s Timaeus. Timaeus explains how a divine craftsman, the Demiurge, made the whole cosmos as a living being. He created the heavenly bodies, but left the creation of human and other mortal beings to these ‘lesser’ gods. But if the Demiurge was the best of all craftsmen, seeking to make the finest cosmos possible, why did he not make the mortal beings too? Having outlined Plato’s conception of craft, Johansen explains how this problem, which he calls the ‘technodicy’, arises for Timaeus, contrasting it with the classical theodicy. The Demiurge’s creation is limited by his craft. Timaeus therefore assigns another craft to the lesser gods to produce mortal beings. However, even this craft prevents the lesser gods from directly producing non-human animals, and so the problem is reiterated. The issue is sought to be resolved by making humans themselves responsible for their own reincarnation as lower animals. Timaeus’ position is comparable to the view in Laws X: the lesser gods, consistent with their role as craftsmen, have overall responsibility for the organization of lower kinds of living being, without causing any particular beings to belong to particular kinds.