Engineering as Profession: Some Methodological Problems in Its Study

Abstract

Engineering is a function, discipline, occupation, and profession to which the term “engineering” is only a rough guide. Some activities not called “engineering” – applied physics and naval architecture, for example – are plainly engineering in the sense relevant to this volume. Other activities called “engineering”, such as driving a railway locomotive or overseeing the operation of a ship’s boiler, are just as plainly not engineering in the relevant sense (despite the participation of “engineers” such as Casey Jones or a sailor rated “marine engineer”). (These examples are all from English, my own language but not one known for its logic. It is therefore worth noting that other languages seem to have similar difficulties – or, at least, so I have heard from their native speakers – Italians, Japanese, Greeks, and so on. I’ll give one example here: The Dutch give the title “Ingenieur” to anyone who receives a bachelor’s degree from a technological university, even if the degree is in political science or philosophy. Anyone with that title is free to use it, much as anyone in the United States with a Ph.D. is free to call herself “doctor”. The Netherlands do not license or register engineers, yet everyone there seems to understand the difference between “engineers” who are just philosophers and “engineers” who are engineers strictly speaking.) The status of other activities is more controversial. Is “software engineering”, “social engineering”, “genetic engineering”, “re-engineering”, or “financial engineering” engineering in the relevant sense? What about architecture (strictly so called), computer science, industrial design, or synthetic chemistry? What separates those technological activities from engineering (in the sense relevant here)? The answer to such questions will (or, at least, should) determine what gets studied as “engineering” and therefore what conclusions we, those who study engineering, draw concerning our subject. What I propose to do here is summarize the answers I have elsewhere given these questions and then dispose of prominent objections to those answers. (See especially Davis M, Thinking like an engineer: essays in the ethics of a profession. Oxford University Press, New York, 1998; Davis M, Profession, code, and ethics. Ashgate, Aldershot, 2002; Davis M (Philosophia 37(2):211–225, 2009a); Davis M (The Monist 92(3):325–339, 2009b); Davis M, Distinguishing architects from engineers: a pilot study in differences between engineers and other technologists. In: van de Poel I, Goldberg D (eds) Philosophy and engineering: an emerging agenda. Springer, Dordrecht, 2010.) Most of the objections, it turns out, arise from disagreement about how to study engineering (method) rather than about ordinary facts concerning engineering (how certain people are trained, what they do, and so on).