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The exosomatic organ theory of technology was originated by Ernst Kapp, a German immigrant to America in the 1800s; he was a Hegelian who settled in Texas. On this theory, artifacts are exosomatic organs -- they are imitations or extensions of our natural organs (like eyes and hands) that are projected or externalized outside of our bodies. So, clothes are exosomatic skin -- they are an extension of the skin outside the body. This theory has many important consequences, since it ties technology to biology & life.
Though Kapp is the first to work out the exosomatic organ theory, it can be traced back to the 17th century British philosopher Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes defines the state as an artificial human organism, and he thinks of this artificial human organism in terms of a machine. So, the state as an artificial human organism is a sysystem of artificial organs, and this leads directly to the notion of technology (which is a social phenomenon) as a system of artificial organs. Here's how Hobbes defines the state:
"Nature, the art whereby God hath made and governs the world, is ty the art of man, as in many other things, so in this also imitated, that it can make an artificial animal. For seeing life is but a motion of limbs, the beginning whereof is in some principal part within; why may we not say, that all automata (engines that move themselves by springs and wheels as doth a watch) have an artificial life? For what is the heart, but a spring; and the nerves, but so many strings; and the joints, but so many wheels, giving motion to the whole body such as was intended by the artificer?" (Introduction, p. 5)
"Art goes yet further, immitating that rational and most excellent work of nature, man. For by art is created that greate LEVIATHAN called a COMMONWEALTH, or STATE, in Latin CIVITAS, which is but an artificial man; though of greater stature and strength than the natural, for whose protection and defense it was intended" (Introduction, p. 5)
The economic activity of the state is the metabolism of the artificial human organism; money is the blood:
"By concoction, I understand the reducing of all commodities, which are not presently consumed, but reserved for nourishment in time to come, to something of equal value . . . And this is nothing else but gold, and silver, and money. . . . and the same passeth from man to man, within the commonwealth; and goes round about, nourishing, as it passeth, every part thereof; in so much as this concoction, is as it were the sanguinfication of the commonwealth: for natural blood is in like manner made of the fruits of the earth; and circulating, nouresheth by the way every member of the body of man. . . The conduits, and ways by which [money] is conveyed to the public use, are of two sorts: one, that conveyeth it to the public coffers; the other, that issueth the same out again for public payments. . . . And in this also, the artificial man maintains his resemblance with the natural; whose veins recieving the blood from the several parts of the body, carry it to the heart; where being made vital, the heart by the arteries sends it out again, to enliven, and enable for motion all the members" (ch. 24, p. 160-165)
Here are some examples of the exosomatic organ theory:
"What civilized man can . . . perform outside his body tasks that were not possible to him when he was limited to his internal organs . . . an organ-artifact circuit has come into existence through which it is possible to do better outside the organism what had formerly been done only on the inside" (Feibleman, 1979, p. 39)
"The stove is an external stomach, and cooking is a form of pre-digestion, reducing intractable foods to assimilable form and making possible the consumption of hard fibers which cound not otherwise be eaten. Libraries are external memory banks; they contain more information than any single human brain could manage. Computers are external minds; they calculate faster than mathematicians and manipulate abstract thought with greater skill and acuracy. Motor cars and airplanes are external muscles; they provide external movement more efficiently than legs. Telescopes and microscopes are external eyes; they extend vision enormously and reveal aspects of the environment that otherwise would never have been known." (Feibleman, 1979, p. 39)
J. K. Feibleman, "Technology and human nature", Southwestern Journal of Philosophy 10 (1) (Spring 1979), 35 - 41.