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Wikipedia has an article about the philosophy of engineering. There are also papers related to this indexed by PhilPapers. I wonder what philosophical questions can be asked about engineering other than the obvious ones (ethical and aesthetic). Wikipedia claims that the philosophy of engineering has an epistemic and an ontological component but doesn't give examples? Can someone here give me examples of epistemic or ontological aspects of the philosophy of engineering?

J D
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Amr
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Answer

The primary philosophical question of any philosophy of a discipline, is "what constitutes this discipline?". In this case, what is engineering? Is it fixing things, building things, repairing things? It is none of these of course. Engineering is a method. And how does it differentiate from the scientific methods and its associated problem of demarcation? Simply put, it has it's own ontological and epistemological fundamentals and questions of demarcation.

  • Is software engineering the same method as civil engineering? If not, what do they have in common; how do they differ?
  • How does engineering relate to technology, science, and mathematics? Clearly they are not the same, but they seem to occupy a similar niche.
  • Is engineering more empirical in nature than science? Epistemologically, how does engineering knowledge-how and knowledge-that differ from other branches of knowledge?
  • What exactly constitutes a good prototype, a good specification, a good process of validation? What sort of normativity is inherent in these ontological primitives and how does that normativity impact society?
  • You mentioned ethical and aesthetical dimensions.
  • I'm going to pose a very narrow one. How does the epistemology of modality of the engineering processes differ from those of mathematics and science?

To be an engineer is similar to being a mathematician or scientist, and just like the philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of science has discourse that contains metaphysical presuppositions, ontological and epistemological, so too does the philosophy of engineering. In fact, all three share a core of trying to solve problems, albeit in different ways.

One might argue that science is induction-centric, mathematics is deduction-centric, and engineering is abduction-centric particularly since engineering involves accomplishing goals in complex physical systems where the development and application of causality relies on non-montonic logic.

For an excellent example of the process of engineering, watch this YT video on Liquid Metal Battery Engineering and Manufacturing. Note how the professor, Donald Sadoway, discusses how he created a battery that is likely to rival and replace Li-Ion batteries in grid-centric power storage. Note he talks a little about the math and science, but the arguments he puts forth for the use of this product are decidedly much more than mere math and science, and the informal logic that drove and continues to drive the engineering is much more complex than a mathematical proof of a statistical evaluation of causation.

For more information, checkout PhilPapers and their index on "philosophy of engineering".

J D
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  • Thanks for your answer. Can you elaborate on how engineering is abductive centric? As for the question What constitutes engineering ? I think it can be defined as the discipline concerned with techniques of manipulating nature to (some?) humans advantage using science and mathematics. – Amr Oct 26 '21 at 16:36
  • Reason and argumentation in engineering relies more on inference to best explanation. Whereas mathematical theories are largely exercises in formal, deductive logic, and science uses induction by way of repeated experimentation, engineers spec, prototype, and validate. Yes, the essence of engineering is translating goals into reality, and it does often rely on scientific and mathematical principle, but engineering a rocket ship, for instance, is more than math and science. It involves making arguments for specification development, evaluating and impplementing by materials and technologies... – J D Oct 26 '21 at 17:08
  • Here's an entry for definition: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/engineering. But, the definition doesn't do it justice. For instance, when I'm developing software, I have to ask, which tools? What features? Whose involved in needs elicitation? Do I write using design patterns? Object-oriented or functional language? What's the best way to organize to improve? How will the life-cycle of the code occur? Who will maintain it. Now look at those software engineering questions. Which of them are mathematics or science? They're much more, and they require informal reason... – J D Oct 26 '21 at 17:12
  • [Informal logic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informal_logic) is nothing like mathematical logic, because semantics strongly inheres to the process in a way that makes automation difficult. That's why [IBE](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abductive_reasoning) dominates in engineering which is very much a social activity. – J D Oct 26 '21 at 17:18