  We propose, in this paper, both a presentation and a discussion of Paul
Alsberg's thesis on the supposed specificity principle of human evolution. The
author maintains a difference of nature between Man and Animal relying on an
opposition between "body-adaptation" - that of the Animal - and
"extrabodily-adaptation" - that of Man in which the means of adaptation are
switched outside of the organisms by tool-using. This difference is not a mere
difference of state, but of evolutionary dynamics. Here, Man is not simply
"Homo faber", as in Bergson's view, but produced and made possible by
technique; a technique which then appears as an hominisation factor. Thus, his
"principle of body-liberation" by tool-using is to be retrospectively
understood as a part of the logics of the modification of selection pressure
logics, which reminds us the seminal contemporary niche construction theory (F.
John Odling-Smee). It seems therefore possible to make Paul Alsberg, from his
1922 work, one of the most important precursors of the cultural niche
construction theory.
