Philosophy and Engineering

Philosophy of Engineering and Technology 15 Diane P. Michelfelder Natasha McCarthy David E. Goldberg Editors Philosophy and Engineering: Re ections on Practice, Principles and Process Philosophy and Engineering: Refl ections on Practice, Principles and Process Philosophy of Engineering and Technology VOLUME 15 Editorial Board Editor-in-chief Pieter E. Vermaas, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands General and overarching topics, design and analytic approaches Editors Christelle Didier, Lille Catholic University, France Engineering ethics and science and technology studies Craig Hanks, Texas State University, U.S.A. Continental approaches, pragmtism, environmental philosophy, biotechnology Byron Newberry, Baylor University, U.S.A. Philosophy of engineering, engineering ethics and engineering education Ibo van de Poel, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands Ethics of technology and engineering ethics Editorial advisory board Philip Brey, Twente University, the Netherlands Louis Bucciarelli, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, U.S.A. Michael Davis, Illinois Institute of Technology, U.S.A. Paul Durbin, University of Delaware, U.S.A. Andrew Feenberg, Simon Fraser University, Canada Luciano Floridi, University of Hertfordshire & University of Oxford, U.K. Jun Fudano, Kanazawa Institute of Technology, Japan Sven Ove Hansson, Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden Vincent F. Hendricks, University of Copenhagen, Denmark & Columbia University, U.S.A. Don Ihde, Stony Brook University, U.S.A. Billy V. Koen, University of Texas, U.S.A. Peter Kroes, Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands Sylvain Lavelle, ICAM-Polytechnicum, France Michael Lynch, Cornell University, U.S.A. Anthonie Meijers, Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands Sir Duncan Michael, Ove Arup Foundation, U.K. Carl Mitcham, Colorado School of Mines, U.S.A. Helen Nissenbaum, New York University, U.S.A. Alfred Nordmann, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany Joseph Pitt, Virginia Tech, U.S.A. Daniel Sarewitz, Arizona State University, U.S.A. Jon A. Schmidt, Burns & McDonnell, U.S.A. Peter Simons, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland Jeroen van den Hoven, Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands John Weckert, Charles Sturt University, Australia For further volumes: http://www.springer.com/series/8657 Diane P. Michelfelder • Natasha McCarthy David E. Goldberg Editors Philosophy and Engineering: Refl ections on Practice, Principles and Process Editors Diane P. Michelfelder Natasha McCarthy Macalester College Royal Academy of Engineering St Paul , MN , USA London , UK David E. Goldberg ThreeJoy Associates, Inc. Douglas , MI , USA ISSN 1879-7202 ISSN 1879-7210 (electronic) ISBN 978-94-007-7761-3 ISBN 978-94-007-7762-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-7762-0 Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg New York London Library of Congress Control Number: 2013957884 © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifi cally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfi lms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. Exempted from this legal reservation are brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis or material supplied specifi cally for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the Copyright Law of the Publisher’s location, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer. Permissions for use may be obtained through RightsLink at the Copyright Clearance Center. Violations are liable to prosecution under the respective Copyright Law. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specifi c statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. While the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication, neither the authors nor the editors nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility for any errors or omissions that may be made. The publisher makes no warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com) Foreword Prospects in the Philosophy of Engineering: An Exchange between the Editors and Carl Mitcham 1. From the outset, we editors (Diane P. Michelfelder, Natasha McCarthy, and David E. Goldberg) have thought of this volume as a sequel to Philosophy and Engineering: An Emerging Agenda (edited by David E. Goldberg and Ibo van de Poel). To what extent does the new volume make a contribution to this emerging agenda? Philosophy and Engineering: Refl ections on Practice, Principles, and Process is clearly a companion to Philosophy and Engineering: An Emerging Agenda . The Agenda volume was divided into sections dealing with philosophy, ethics, and refl ection. In the new volume, refl ections have become primary and are addressed to practice, principles, and process. There is thus less reliance on the categories of past discourse and more of an effort to develop appropriate categories for the future. Complementary differences in the spectrum of authors also deserve notice. Agenda has 32 authors in 28 chapters. Refl ections has 38 authors in 30 chapters. What is more signifi cant is that 31 of the Refl ections authors did not contribute to Agenda and thus bring new perspectives; 21 Agenda authors are not repeat contribu- tors to Refl ections . Whereas what might be called the usual suspects dominate in Agenda , new suspects play a major role in Refl ections , expanding representation from three new countries (Ireland, Italy, and Sri Lanka) beyond the old Agenda representations (Canada, China, Germany, Netherlands, New Zealand, United Kingdom, and United States). Obviously, many countries still wait to be included. Refl ections also includes three times more women than Agenda . Finally, it can be observed that whereas two-thirds of the Agenda chapters have “engineer” or “engineering” in the titles, closer to only half of the Refl ections chapters do so. Refl ections appears slightly more interested in drilling into the particulars of engineering. 2. Our second question is a direct follow-up to the fi rst. In the concluding session of the fPET 2012 meeting in Beijing, Pieter Vermaas made a comment to the effect that the philosophy of engineering, as a sub-discipline, has already emerged. To what extent do you agree with Pieter’s remark? To what extent has the philosophy of engineering successfully emerged as a sub-discipline? To what extent is it still emerging? How does this volume contribute to establishing the philosophy of engineering? v vi Foreword: Prospects in the Philosophy of Engineering… Vermaas’s comment may be more rhetorical than substantive. Let us consider some possible meanings of “sub-discipline” and “emergence.” First, sub-disciplines come in different granularities. Philosophy as a whole is commonly divided into the branches of logic, ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics. A different branching occurs with regionalizations such as philosophy of art, of religion, and of science. But since the mid-twentieth century, the philosophy of science itself has been sub-divided into philosophy of physics, of biology, of chemistry, and more. The philosophy of technology has sometimes been treated as a related sub-division (as in Gabbay, Thagard, and Woods, eds., Handbook of the Philosophy of Science); at other times and more commonly (as in some of the basic introductions to philosophy of technology) as on a par with philosophy of science as a whole. So the fi rst question is, at what level of granularity is the philosophy of engineering emerging? There is a debate—which is perhaps refl ective of its emergence—with regard to whether philosophy of engineering should be conceived as a sub-discipline of the philosophy of technology or as its own regionalization. Among the general introductions to philosophy of technology, only my Thinking through Technology: The Path between Engineering and Philosophy (1994) gives engineering any promi- nence. Don Ihde’s Philosophy of Technology: An Introduction (1993), Frederick Ferré’s Philosophy of Technology (1995), and Val Dusek’s Philosophy of Technology: An Introduction (2006) all give engineering short shrift. The Olsen, Pedersen, and Hendricks, eds., A Companion to the Philosophy of Technology (2009) includes engineering in the titles of only two (“Engineering Science” and “Engineering Ethics”) of 98 chapters. Both the Agenda and Refl ections volumes give technology more attention (in three and four chapter titles, respectively) than the Ihde, Ferré, and Dusek books give engineering. Second, there is the issue of emergence, which takes place in at least two different forms: as a self-conscious pursuit among a group of like-minded scholars and as a discourse or research program that is acknowledged by non-participant scholars and even the non-scholarly public. On the basis of the Agenda and Refl ections volumes themselves

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