Engineering Hubris: Adam Smith and the Quest for the Perfect Machine

In Diane P. Michelfelder, Natasha McCarthy & David E. Goldberg (eds.), Philosophy and Engineering: Reflections on Practice, Principles and Process. Dordrecht: Springer. pp. 267-277 (2013)
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Abstract

I describe several historical cases of engineers or inventors obsessed with perfecting their products, illustrating how in some of those cases the perfectionist impulse led to tremendously valuable innovation, while in others to disaster, or at least to failure of the project to make the mark in history it otherwise could have. The psychological tendency towards perfecting an instrument for achieving some telos beyond what is pragmatically necessary or even desirable was diagnosed by Adam Smith, and may always be a source of mixed blessings.

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Scott Forschler
University of Minnesota

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