Multiple Facets of Philosophy and Engineering

Abstract

Is there a philosophy of engineering (singular)? My answer is no, though I don’t intend that to discourage anyone who would want to produce one. I use the metaphor of a diamond with many facets to bolster my negative answer, but also to suggest the complexity if anyone were to do so. And this is not just my opinion. I base my view on a variety of discussions of engineering in the literature of the Society for Philosophy and Technology. And, following the guidelines of engineer Billy Vaughn Koen, I mark the time period as 1975–2005, from the beginning of the society until the SPT conference in Delft in 2005. The diamond metaphor seems useful to me, to suggest looking at the phenomenon of engineering both from the inside – the inner crystalline structure, so to speak – and from the outside of external criticism. Among inner facets, I look at engineering as a guild, with its own self-selected guidelines, professional associations, educational system, and place within the larger society in which it thrives. I hope that what I say reflects changes in the world of engineering, outside philosophical circles, in the same time period, not only in my home country of the USA but in the Netherlands, Germany, Great Britain, Spain (and indirectly in other countries, including Poland, Russia, China and Japan, among others), with which SPT has had contacts. But my primary focus is on what philosophers (and a few engineers) have said in publications associated with SPT.