Abstract

This paper describes several examples of recent practices in systems engineering and aerospace engineering research and development of interest to the philosophy of technology community. These examples include cases in which philosophical and social concepts and practices are used in engineering, cases in which engineers use philosophical strategies, and cases that philosophers have investigated and found of interest in the past.Engineers implicitly use some philosophical practices. Rhetorical ploys are quite common. One common practice is to change key terms to distinguish one engineering approach or practice from another. This is often used to attempt to influence a discipline or acquire funding. Quantification is a key form of engineering rhetoric. Attempts to create engineering disciplines, establish an engineering organization, or win an argument about a design or operational method can succeed or fail depending on the ability to generate and present quantitative results.There are several cases in which philosophical and social concepts have been implicitly or explicitly used in engineering. One important example is the growing importance of “goals” in the engineering of autonomous systems. Autonomous systems are designed with “intelligence” to enable them to change goals based on changes in the external environment or internal health. These goal-based approaches are inherently teleological. Another case of interest is the use of concepts of social communication and cognitive limitation, which are core principles in the newly forming discipline of system health management, and in the older field of systems engineering. Engineers are also developing axiomatic and model-based approaches to systems engineering disciplines.Finally, philosophers using hermeneutical and pragmatic approaches argue that active engagement with the world profoundly influences the way in which individuals understand and interact with the world. I argue that both engineering and philosophy have this in common, and that using these approaches is useful to understand the nature of both.