Abstract
Engineers love to build ‘things’ and have an innate sense of wanting to help society. However, these desires are often not connected or developed through reflections on the complexities of philosophy, biology, economics, politics, environment, and culture. To guide future efforts and to best bring about human flourishment and a just world, our volume, Engineering and Philosophy: Reimagining Technology and Social Progress, brings together practitioners and scholars to inspire deeper conversations on the nature and varieties of engineering. The perspectives in this book are an act of reimagination: how does engineering work, how does it serve society, and in a vital sense, how should it. Our introductory chapter builds on the book’s perspectives to reframe notions of both technological and societal progress and the connection between the two. While there have long been philosophical and science and technology studies literatures that provide deeper perspectives on engineering, we worry that little of that reflection has actually shifted the practice and trajectory of engineering in a way that can better support societal progress. We seek to highlight how ‘reimagined’ conceptions of technological and societal progress can serve to provoke critical reflection about engineering among both engineers and everyday citizens. We conclude with a comment on what progress for the philosophy of engineering should look like, noting the need for both broad engagement and fundamental conceptual shifts.
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Notes
- 1.
To underscore the length of this history of reflection on engineering: The Society for Philosophy and Technology began with the first meeting in 1976. Much of the field of science and technology studies (STS) began in the 1970s, with the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) being founded in 1975. The history goes much deeper still: Layton (1971) traces the history of engineers’ ethical debates in the early 1900s, and Mitcham (2019) points to much earlier antecedants as well.
- 2.
This is partly based on our experience at seeing awareness of philosophy of technology and STS in Washington, DC policy circles. This seems broadly true of science policy professionals in the US.
- 3.
Our use of the phrase ‘reimagining’ is based on a general recognition of the potential value for major conceptual changes, here focused on technology and progress. We do not intend to ascribe to Jasanoff and Kim (2015) who refer to sociotechnical imaginaries, but recommend their work. A new account that we are just now studying is Schatzberg (2018), which likewise hopes to change action by revising our concepts of technology, in his case by highlighting cultural dimensions of technology in addition to instrumental ones.
- 4.
Epistemology is the structured study of knowledge and how we obtain it; ontology refers to the nature engineering and of engineering artifacts.
- 5.
Interested readers who are intrigued about philosophy and engineering would do well to explore future biennial meetings of fPET, as well as meetings of the Council on Engineering Systems Universities and the Society for Philosophy and Technology. fPET follows in the tradition of the 2007 Workshop on Philosophy and Engineering (WPE) at Technical University- Delft and the 2008 WPE meeting at the U.K. Royal Academy of Engineering. Rebranding to fPET, a 2010 meeting was held at the Colorado School of Mines, a 2012 meeting at the Graduate University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, in 2014 at Virginia Tech, and in 2016 at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg. A virtual meeting occurred in 2020, and a 2022 meeting is being planned at https://philosophyengineering.com/
- 6.
We are grateful for the over one hundred attendees at fPET 2018 for lively and fulfilling conversations, and also to our keynote speakers Robyn Gatens, William Wimsatt, Daniel Sarewitz and Malka Older.
- 7.
See Mitcham (2019) for further reflection on important nuances between technology and engineering that we gloss through here. We imagine that it would make for interesting work to look at notions of progress in technological areas that involve no engineers!
- 8.
A standard academic way of describing progress in philosophy and science is through increased problem solving capability. This is a sense that goes back at least to Kuhn and Laudan.
- 9.
We do recognize the IEEE Society for Social Implications of Technology as a uniquely deep and active source of reflection and potential change in engineering
- 10.
This certainly seems to be the implied view of some innovation advocates, though this does not necessarily line up to historical reality (Vinsel and Russell 2020).
- 11.
In a major engineering organization that the first co-editor has worked in, awareness of philosophy of technology or STS is virtually non-existant, where only a handful have heard of the topics out of many thousands of people. This is part of a broader problem of the influence and priority of the social sciences and humanities generally. Mark Solovey (2020) gives a recent history of social science research at the U.S. National Science Foundation, showing that generations of STEM leaders enter government with little awareness of social science research. Philosophers and STS scholars would do well to study this history (Pirtle in preparation).
- 12.
It is also not clear if there have been sufficiently influential decision makers who listen to the results of philosophical or science policy research (Sullivan 2018), which makes assessing the prospective extrinsic value of such research difficult to discern. Changing this attitude may require more grassroots advocacy within the political process (Pirtle 2021). Because we believe many engineers and decision makers have an inherent desire to do the right thing, we focus on reimagining concepts of engineering and progress, on the hope that changes of perspective among engineers and everyday citizens can enable them to make different decisions within their existing political authority and processes. But, as mentioned below, having the time for reflection requires resources and leadership.
- 13.
The Accreditation Board on Engineering and Technology (ABET) has in some ways created a community around engineering ethics through its requirements to teach engineering students engineering ethics. Debates over the nature and extent of what ethical requirements need to be taught to undergraduate and graduate engineers is important.
- 14.
Richard Nelson’s 1977 book The Moon and the Ghetto is a challenging volume that questions why engineers can figure out how to send humanity to the moon but cannot resolve broader societal issues. What is it about engineering that enables success in some contexts but not others?
- 15.
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Pirtle, Z., Tomblin, D., Madhavan, G. (2021). Reimagining Conceptions of Technological and Societal Progress. In: Pirtle, Z., Tomblin, D., Madhavan, G. (eds) Engineering and Philosophy. Philosophy of Engineering and Technology, vol 37. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70099-7_1
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