Abstract
Engineers have an identity crisis arising from questions regarding their influence, role and knowledge. These questions relate to ethics, ontology and epistemology respectively, and demonstrate that philosophy is indeed relevant to engineering. The tensions, differences and similarities between philosophy and technology, engineering and science, and theory and practice are explored, in order to shed light on some of the above crises. It is argued that engineers should remain proud of their contributions to society, but work at developing an acute awareness of technology’s ill effects. They should see themselves as holistic managers dealing with real world complexity, but possessing a kernel of scientific knowledge. They must recognize that the knowledge required for engineering is mostly practical, but should work at formalizing practice at both the conceptual and technical levels. It is concluded that while an engineer is primarily a homo faber, there is enough justification for him/her to be placed high on the scale of homo sapiens too.
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Dias, P. (2013). The Engineer’s Identity Crisis: Homo Faber or Homo Sapiens?. In: Michelfelder, D., McCarthy, N., Goldberg, D. (eds) Philosophy and Engineering: Reflections on Practice, Principles and Process. Philosophy of Engineering and Technology, vol 15. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7762-0_11
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