Engineering Philosophy

 PART 1 - Reflections on Practice Chapter 1 - The Ignorance of Engineers and How They Know It - Hans Poser The chapter starts with a reference to another book - What Engineers Know and How They Know It by Walter G. Vincenti. Mentioning here as a recommendation to the future.  I felt that this chapter was definitely more than what I could chew, but I will try my best to comprehend it succinctly over here.  We humans have a permanent struggle with Contingency. Our life world is full of uncertainties, imponderability, unforeseen accidents; and we as human beings try to overcome this situation through the sciences, which impose necessity – in the first place.  The main idea of this chapter is that Science can not operate alongside Ignorance, but Engineering can, and there is a use to Engineer's ignorance. In the field of Technology, the nature of knowledge can be of 4 types, this is useful to clarify so that their corresponding ignorance can be taken into acco...

This book is essentially a select group of research papers presented at the Forum on Philosophy, Engineering and Technology (fPET) conference, to prompt discussion and debate over the nature and purpose of engineering and the role and impacts of engineering within society. The primary mission of fPET is to encourage reflection on engineering, engineers, and technology by philosophers and engineers alike and to build bridges between existing organizations of philosophers and of engineers. They firmly believe that without a greater understanding of the issues involved in this engineer/philosopher link up, the ability of engineering to address global societal challenges is seriously compromised. Their subsequent missions also involve showing how reflective engineering can assist in the process of the construction of engineering identity: what it is to be an engineer and how integrating engineering and philosophy might lead to innovation in engineering design and curricula. As a college st...