Philosophy and Engineering: Reflections on Practice, Principles and Process

by Diane P. Michelfelder, Natasha McCarthy (Editor), David E. Goldberg (Editor)

Building on the breakthrough text Philosophy and An Emerging Agenda, this book offers 30 chapters covering conceptual and substantive developments in the philosophy of engineering, along with a series of critical reflections by engineering practitioners. The volume demonstrates how reflective engineering can contribute to a better understanding of engineering identity and explores how integrating engineering and philosophy could lead to innovation in engineering methods, design and education. The volume is divided into reflections on practice, principles and process, each of which challenges prevalent assumptions and commitments within engineering and philosophy. The volume explores the ontological and epistemological dimensions of engineering and exposes the falsity of the commonly held belief that the field is simply the application of science knowledge to problem solving. Above all, the perspectives collected here demonstrate the value of a constructive dialogue between engineering and philosophy and show how collaboration between the disciplines casts light on longstanding problems from both sides. The chapters in this volume are from a diverse and international body of authors, including philosophers and engineers, and represent a highly select group of papers originally presented in three different conferences. These are the 2008 Workshop on Philosophy and Engineering (WPE-2008) held at the Royal Academy of Engineering; the 2009 meeting of the Society for Philosophy and Technology (SPT-2009) at the University of Twente in the Netherlands; and the Forum on Philosophy, Engineering, and Technology (fPET-2010), held in Golden, Colorado at the Colorado School of Mines.

452 pages, Hardcover

First published November 30, 2013

Reviews

[Darshan Shetty · Rating 3 out of 5]

I started reading this book on November 1st, 2021, and today, on January 12th, 2024, I have finally turned its last page. It has been a substantial journey, spanning precisely 802 days to complete.

I must admit, this book tested my perseverance, leading me to set it aside on multiple occasions. Its content, candidly speaking, ventured far beyond my usual reading terrain. While I have a fondness for philosophy, I am no philosopher by any stretch.

I was drawn to this book because around that time I had just accepted a new role at an engineering firm. Having spent the past eight years immersed in diverse engineering positions, each distinct from the last, I wanted to explore the foundational value systems underpinning the field of engineering and weave together a cohesive narrative for myself about Engineering in an epistemological sense. In this quest for deeper understanding, philosophers seemed like the ideal guides.

This book is essentially a select group of research papers presented at the Forum on Philosophy, Engineering and Technology (fPET) conference, to prompt discussion and debate over the nature and purpose of engineering and the role and impacts of engineering within society. I would particularly like to highlight the mission of fPET here -

The primary mission of fPET is to encourage reflection on engineering, engineers, and technology by philosophers and engineers alike and to build bridges between existing organizations of philosophers and of engineers.
They firmly believe that without a greater understanding of the issues involved in this engineer/philosopher link up, the ability of engineering to address global societal challenges is seriously compromised.
Their subsequent missions also involve showing how reflective engineering can assist in the process of the construction of engineering identity: what it is to be an engineer and how integrating engineering and philosophy might lead to innovation in engineering design and curricula.

My immediate thought after reading fPET's mission was that although I am not in any particular rush to address global societal challenges right now, but this "reflective engineering" does sound like what I been searching, so I decided to give this book a chance.

Over the course of attempting to read this book like its some feel good self help non fiction, I soon came to realize its nature was quite different. It was filled with too many avant-garde concepts, complex sentences, and unfamiliar philosophical jargon, all presented with the dryness typical of academic research papers.
So to enhance my comprehension of this book and spark my imagination, I decided to write a blog synopsis for each chapter of the book, which will also serve as a valuable reference for the future. Coincidentally, this period also aligned with the emergence of ChatGPT, which played a crucial role in helping me process and understand the content I encountered in the book.

Anyways, back to the book now - The book is divided into 3 Parts - Part I Reflections on Practice, Part II Reflections on Principles, and Part III Reflections on Process

Part I captivated me the most, closely followed by Part III. However, I found Part II less engaging, primarily because it focused extensively on ethics, which was not what I was seeking.

This book introduced me to a myriad of intriguing concepts that I would not have encountered otherwise. Below, I briefly mention a few for reference:
Chapter 1 - Ignorance itself can be content-rich with meta-knowledge
Chapter 4 - Narrative building in for well rounded education and formulating identities
Chapter 5 - Ove Arup - A real life example of an Engineer Philosopher
Chapter 7 - How Philosophical Analysis can be leveraged to enhance anything
Chapter 8 - How Philosophy and Engineering got seperated over time and became what they are today.
Chapter 9 - Engineering is all about heuristics
Chapter 10 - History of Engineering, its way way way older than we think it is.
Chapter 11 - Engineer's identity crisis beween theory (thinker), practice (maker), philosophy, engineering and science. Also, introduction to my next adventure - System Dynamics
Chapter 13 - What constitutes a human engineered artifact?
Chapter 14 - Aspirational Ethics
Chapter 15 - Introducing a jury of Lay people into engineering
Chapter 19 - How every technology is actually a Socio-technical system with its own ethos.
Chapter 20 How values can be introduced into Design
Chapter 23 Modeling How technology gets accepted by public
Chapter 24 Nature of Innovation
Chapter 27 Methodological Ladder to invention - Lateral thinking
Chapter 29 Innovation is not always a function of R&D alone
Chapter 30 Influence of the architecture of the institutions on weak philosophical foundation of Engineering

In conclusion, while navigating through this book can feel like a laborious task, it undeniably holds the promise of uncovering several rare and invaluable insights, unique to its pages. For those interested, my blog offers concise synopses of each chapter. However, I must caution that these summaries might not fully convey the depth of the content to first-time readers.

https://dsengineeringphilosophy.blogs...

I will give this book 3 out of 5 stars.