The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Engineering

Citation

Michelfelder, D. P., & Doorn, N. (Eds.). (2022). The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Engineering. Routledge.

Chapter Summary

This is a reference volume of about 770 to 790 pages (the catalogue records differ slightly) with an editors' introduction and 55 chapters in eight parts. Each chapter is by a different author or team, and the publisher says that the contributors combine established experts and newer voices from philosophy and engineering. The parts move from what engineering is, through how engineers reason and what they make, to values, responsibilities and the question of how engineering might change. The chapters are grouped below by part, with exact titles.

Introduction

Written by the two editors, Diane P. Michelfelder and Neelke Doorn, it opens the volume. The publisher describes engineering as a part of human life that has only recently become the subject of systematic philosophical inquiry, and presents the volume as a state-of-the-art survey that also lays a foundation for future conversations in the field.

Part I: Foundational Perspectives

Six chapters: "What Is Engineering?", "A Brief History of Engineering", "Western Philosophical Approaches and Engineering", "Eastern Philosophical Approaches and Engineering", "What Is Engineering Science?" and "Scientific Methodology in the Engineering Sciences". They define the subject, place it historically and in both Western and Eastern philosophical traditions, and ask how engineering science differs from natural science.

Part II: Engineering Reasoning

Eight chapters on how engineers think: "Engineering Design and the Quest for Optimality", "Prescriptive Engineering Knowledge", "Engineering as Art and the Art of Engineering", "Creativity and Discovery in Engineering", "Uncertainty", "Scenarios", "Systems Engineering as Engineering Philosophy" and "Assessing Provenance and Bias in Big Data". The chapters mix epistemology (what kind of knowledge engineers have), creativity, and decision-making under uncertainty.

Part III: Ontology

Six chapters on what engineers deal with: "Artifacts", "Engineering Objects", "Use Plans", "Function in Engineering", "Emergence in Engineering" and "Towards an Ontology of Innovation: On the New, the Political-Economic Dimension and the Intrinsic Risks Involved in Innovation Processes". Artifact, function and use plan are core concepts of the philosophy of technology.

Part IV: Engineering Design Processes

Six chapters: "Engineering Design", "Values and Design", "Design Methods and Validation", "Human-Centred Design and its Inherent Ethical Qualities", "Sustainable Design" and "Maintenance". This is the part that most directly links design practice to ethics.

Part V: Engineering Activities and Methods

Six chapters on the activities of engineering work: "Measurement", "Models in Engineering and Design: Modeling Relations and Directions of Fit", "Scale Modeling", "Computer Simulations", "Experimentation" and "On Verification and Validation in Engineering".

Part VI: Values in Engineering

Seven chapters: "Values in Risk and Safety Assessment", "Engineering and Sustainability: Control and Care in Unfoldings of Modernity", "The Role of Resilience in Engineering", "Trust in Engineering", "Aesthetics", "Health" and "Philosophy of Security Engineering".

Part VII: Responsibilities in Engineering Practice

Eight chapters: "Ethical Considerations in Engineering", "Autonomy in Engineering", "Standards in Engineering", "Professional Codes of Ethics", "Responsibilities to the Public-Professional Engineering Societies", "Engineering as a Political Practice", "Global Engineering Ethics" and "Engineering Practice and Engineering Policy: The Narrative Form of Engineering Policy Advice". This is the part closest to a conventional engineering ethics course.

Part VIII: Reimagining Engineering

Eight chapters: "Feminist Engineering and Gender", "Socially Responsible Engineering", "Engineering and Social Justice", "Engineering and Environmental Justice", "Beyond Traditional Engineering: Green, Humanitarian, Social Justice, and Omnium Approaches", "Engineering and Contemporary Continental Philosophy of Technology", "Engineering Practice from the Perspective of Methodical Constructivism and Culturalism" and "Reimagining the Future of Engineering". The last chapter has a long list of authors that includes both editors.

Key Concepts

Parts I-III: Foundations, reasoning, ontology

• Engineering science: the question of whether and how scientific work done for engineering purposes differs from natural science.
• Prescriptive engineering knowledge: knowledge about what to do in order to achieve a goal, as opposed to descriptive knowledge about how things are.
• Uncertainty and scenarios: two ways of reasoning about the future when outcomes cannot be predicted with confidence.
• Artifacts, use plans and function: the concepts used to say what a made object is and what it is for.
• Emergence: properties of a whole that its parts do not have alone, discussed in the engineering setting.

Parts IV-V: Design, activities and methods

• Values and design: the idea that design choices embody values, taken up in Part IV.
• Human-centred and sustainable design: design approaches that carry ethical commitments of their own.
• Models, scale models and simulations: the ways engineers represent systems in order to study them.
• Verification and validation: checking that a design was built correctly and that it meets its purpose.

Parts VI-VIII: Values, responsibility, reimagining

• Risk, safety and resilience: values around harm and recovery from it.
• Trust: what it means to rely on engineered systems and the people behind them.
• Professional codes and standards: the instruments through which responsibilities are formalised.
• Social justice and environmental justice: lenses applied to what engineering is for and who benefits.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Wide coverage in a single volume. Fifty-five chapters under eight parts cover foundations, reasoning, ontology, design, methods, values, responsibility and critique. Besides ethics, the volume gives sustained attention to the nature of engineering knowledge, objects and methods.
• International and interdisciplinary authorship. The publisher stresses contributions from both established experts and fresh voices, and Part I includes a chapter on Eastern philosophical approaches written by a team of four authors, alongside a Western one.
• Reviewed as a first of its kind. Reviews carried by the publisher come from Deborah G. Johnson (University of Virginia), Shannon Vallor (University of Edinburgh) and David E. Goldberg (University of Illinois). Johnson calls it the first book of its kind to define the territory of the field, and Goldberg praises its serious treatment of engineers, their methods and their responsibilities.
• Useful to practitioners as well as philosophers. The publisher says that engineers working inside and outside academia who want a more fundamental understanding of their profession are among the intended readers.

Limitations

• A reference, not a textbook. The chapters are independent essays by different authors. The volume has no single line of argument and is organised as essays rather than cases or exercises, so it cannot replace an engineering ethics textbook.
• Ethics is only part of the book. Conventional professional ethics sits mainly in Parts VI and VII. Much of the rest concerns epistemology, ontology and design theory, and several chapters (for example on use plans, emergence or provenance and bias in big data) assume interest in philosophical debate rather than workplace dilemmas.
• Length and uneven entry points. At roughly 770 pages, selection is essential. The publisher addresses philosophers and engineers alike, so a given chapter may be familiar ground for one group and demanding for the other.

Where It Fits in the Course

The other books on this course list are textbooks for students; this is the research-oriented companion. Fleddermann's Engineering Ethics is a compact introduction to professional ethics with a structured method for analysing dilemmas, and McGinn's The Ethical Engineer is a case-based introduction built on 18 detailed cases. Harris and colleagues' Engineering Ethics: Concepts and Cases is also case-based, and Martin and Schinzinger's Ethics in Engineering presents engineering as social experimentation with attention to safety, risk and workplace rights. Van de Poel and Royakkers' Ethics, Technology, and Engineering is a philosophically grounded introduction that extends to design, risk and responsibility in organisations.

The Handbook comes after one of these. It is most useful to a student who has met the standard topics (safety, whistleblowing, codes) and wants to know what the underlying philosophical questions are. Its Parts IV, VI and VII line up with the design, risk and responsibility discussions of van de Poel and Royakkers, and a reader of that book will find the Handbook the natural next step.

How to Use This Book

The Handbook is for advanced undergraduates, graduate students and researchers in engineering, philosophy of technology or science and technology studies, and for practising engineers curious about the foundations of their field. An introductory engineering ethics course is a sensible starting point; some familiarity with philosophy helps in the more theoretical chapters.

Because the chapters are independent, read by need rather than front to back:

• Start with: the Introduction and the first chapter, "What Is Engineering?", which frame the rest.
• For an ethics course: Parts VI and VII, with "Values and Design" and "Human-Centred Design and its Inherent Ethical Qualities" from Part IV.
• For design or systems students: Part IV, with "Uncertainty", "Scenarios" and "Systems Engineering as Engineering Philosophy" from Part II.
• For a research project or thesis: use the chapters in Parts III and V as entry points to the philosophy-of-technology literature, and the chapter on a topic of interest as a map of current debates.
• To finish: Part VIII, whose closing chapter, "Reimagining the Future of Engineering", gathers a large group of contributors around the future of the field.