(p.252) The technical object thus carries with it a broader category than that of work: operational functioning. This operational functioning presupposes, firstly, as a condition of possibility, an act of invention. Now, invention is not work; it does not presuppose the mediation between nature and the human species to be played out by somato-psychic man. Invention is not only an adaptive and defensive reaction; it is a mental operation, a mental functioning that is of the same order as scientific knowledge. There is an equality of levels between science and technical invention; the mental schema is what enables invention and science;...