Abstract
Philosophers aim for universal truths, but in that effort, when the empirical details are ignored, the philosophical story may end up missing the mark. Here it is argued that when attention is applied to the details, the Old Story that engineering is applied science falls apart. It is further argued that attempts to establish some kind of epistemic authority for science over engineering are simply misguided.
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Notes
- 1.
Talking about “technology” as if it is a thing in itself is unhelpful. I argue this case in my 2000 book. Likewise for “science”. In that work I argue for the need to look at some category of practitioners comparable to scientists if we are to learn anything of value. I lay out some criteria that lead me to identify engineers as the technological counterpart to scientists.
- 2.
Restrictions on the dissemination of research results often are found when scientific research is conducted for the military or by private laboratories funded by industrial or pharmaceutical companies.
- 3.
This description is based on a real episode.
- 4.
See Fink (2004) for some hard data on these issues.
References
Baird, D. 2004. Thing Knowledge; A Philosophy of Scientific Instruments. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Drake, S. 1978. Galileo at Work. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Fink, I. 2004. Research Space: Who Needs It, Who Gets It, Who Pays for It? Planning for Higher Education 33(1): 5–17.
Galison, P. 1997. Image and Logic. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Pitt, J. C. 2000. Thinking About Technology, originally published by Seven Bridges Press, New York, now: http://www.phil.vt.edu/HTML/people/pittjoseph.htm
Acknowledgments
I wish to thank Ashley Shew and Nikolas Sakalarious for very helpful comments on an earlier draft.
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© 2009 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
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Pitt, J.C. (2009). Philosophy, Engineering, and the Sciences. In: Poel, I., Goldberg, D. (eds) Philosophy and Engineering:. Philosophy of Engineering and Technology, vol 2. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2804-4_7
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