Ever since the “Galilean revolution” technological activity and scientific knowledge have slowly merged. The first was initially a source of inspiration for the second, only to be enriched by it at a later stage. The unprecedented efficiency of this coupling was such that science is henceforth being overtaken by its own success and overlaid by the very technologies that it engendered, giving rise to what is known as “technoscience”.

The paradox of this new form of organization of knowledge and know-how is that intellectual speculation is concealed by material action: the transformation of the world has priority over its understanding, thereby reviving the archaic configuration prior to the scientific revolution.