What does it mean to think about technology philosophically? Why try? These are the issues that Carl Mitcham addresses in this work, a comprehensive, critical introduction to the philosophy of technology and a discussion of its sources and uses. Tracing the changing meaning of "technology" from ancient times to our own, Mitcham identifies the most important traditions of critical analysis of technology: the engineering approach, which assumes the centrality of technology in human life and the humanities approach, which is concerned (...) with its moral and cultural boundaries. Mitcham bridges these two traditions through an analysis of discussions of engineering design, of the distinction between tools and machines, and of engineering science itself. He looks at technology as it is experienced in everyday life--as material objects (from kitchenware to computers), as knowledge ( including recipes, rules, theories, and intuitive "know-how"), as activity (design, construction, and use), and as volition (knowing how to use technology and understanding its consequences). By elucidating these multiple aspects, Mitcham establishes criteria for a more comprehensive analysis of ethical issues in applications of science and technology. This book will guide anyone wanting to reflect on technology and its moral implications. (shrink)

Taking stock of interdisciplinarity as it nears its century mark, the Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity constitutes a major new reference work on the topic of interdisciplinarity, a concept of growing academic and societal importance.

Public “upstream engagement” and other approaches to the social control of technology are currently receiving international attention in policy discourses around emerging technologies such as nanotechnology. To the extent that such approaches hold implications for research and development (R&D) activities, the distinct participation of scientists and engineers is required. The capacity of technoscientists to broaden the influences on R&D activities, however, implies that they conduct R&D differently. This article discusses the possibility for more reflexive participation by scientists and engineers in (...) the internal governance of technology development. It reviews various historical attempts to govern technoscience and introduces the concept of midstream modulation, through which scientists and engineers, ideally in concert with others, bring societal considerations to bear on their work. (shrink)

Who owns your genes? What does climate science imply for policy? Do corporations conduct honest research? Should we teach intelligent design? Humans are creating a new world through science. The kind of world we are creating will not simply be decided by expanding scientific knowledge, but will depend on views about good and bad, right and wrong. These visions, in turn, depend on critical thinking, cogent argument and informed judgement. In this book, Adam Briggle and Carl Mitcham help readers to (...) cultivate these skills. They first introduce ethics and the normative structure of science and then consider the 'society of science' and its norms for the responsible conduct of research and the treatment of human and animal research subjects. Later chapters examine 'science in society' - exploring ethical issues at the interfaces of science, policy, religion, culture and technology. Each chapter features case studies and research questions to stimulate further reflection. (shrink)

The movements to teach the responsible conduct of research and engineering ethics at technological universities are often unacknowledged aspects of the ethics across the curriculum movement and could benefit from explicit alliances with it. Remarkably, however, not nearly as much scholarly attention has been devoted to EAC as to RCR or to engineering ethics, and RCR and engineering ethics educational efforts are not always presented as facets of EAC. The emergence of EAC efforts at two different institutions—the Illinois Institute of (...) Technology and Utah Valley University —provide counter examples. The remarkably successful UVU initiative gave birth to EAC as a scholarly movement and to the associated Society for Ethics Across the Curriculum. EAC initiatives at the Colorado School of Mines, however, point up continuing institutional resistances to EAC. Finally, comparative reflection on successes and failures can draw some lessons for the future. One suggestion is that increasing demands for accountability and pedagogical research into what works in teaching and learning offers special opportunities. (shrink)

Bernard Stiegler’s contributions to political philosophy in the presence of technology are honored and complemented by imagining an encounter with the thought of Leo Strauss. The concept of sovereignty is taken as pivotal. Notions of sovereignty find expression not only in nation state politics but also in engineering and technology. Pierre Manent calls attention to further roots in Christian theology. The complexities and challenges of this interweaving point suggest the need for a “Tractatus Politico-Technologicus.”.

La filosofía de la tecnología ingenieril - La filosofía de la tecnología de las humanidades - Enfoque comparado de ambas filosofías - Ciencia e idea, tecnología e ideas - De la cuestión conceptual a la lógica y las cuestiones epistemológicas - Cuestiones de filosofía política - Cuestiones teológicas - Cuestiones metafísicas - Responsabilidad legal e industrialización - Ciencia y responsabilidad social - Los ingenieros, la responsabilidad profesional y la ética - La apelación teológica a la responsabilidad - El análisis filosófico (...) de la responsabilidad - La cuestión de la responsabilidad. (shrink)

To enlarge the discussion of scientific responsibility for research integrity, this paper offers two historico-philosophical observations. First, in the broad history of ideas, modern ethics replaces social role responsibility with appeals to abstract principles; by contrast, discussions within the scientific community of responsibility for research integrity constitute a rediscovery of the continuing vitality of role responsibility. This is a rediscovery from which philosophy itself may benefit. Second, within the context of scientists’ concerns, the idea of role responsibility has undergone significant (...) evolution from “collective responsibility” to the notion of responsibility resting with a “trans-scientific community.” Further challenges nevertheless remain in order to relate scientific role responsibility for scientific integrity to the relationship between science and society. To promote a notion of integrity not just in science but in the science-society relationship, it may be useful to think in terms of a “co-responsibility” for scientific integrity. (shrink)

This article describes and accounts for variable interests in engineering ethics in France, Germany, and Japan by locating recent initiatives in relation to the evolving identities of engineers. A key issue in ethics education for engineers concerns the relationship between the identity of the engineer and the responsibilities of engineering work. This relationship has varied significantly over time and from place to place around the world. One methodological strategy for sorting out similarities and differences in engineers’ identities is to ask (...) the “who” question. Who is an engineer? Or, what makes one an engineer? While engineering ethics has attracted little interest in France and formal education in the subject might be seen as redundant, German engineering societies have, since the conclusion of World War II, demanded from engineers a strong commitment to social responsibility through technology evaluation and assessment. In Japan, a recent flourishing of interest in engineering ethics appears to be linked to concerns that corporations no longer function properly as Japanese “households.” In each case, deliberations over engineering ethics emerge as part of the process through which engineers work to keep their fields in alignment with changing images of advancement in society. (shrink)

From editors Carl Mitcham and Robert Mackey comes an unusually reflective and wide-ranging colloquium on technology as a philosophical problem. Organized into sections on conceptual issues, ethical and political critiques, religious critiques, existentialist critiques, and metaphysical studies, Philosophy and Technology features an introductory overview that suggests the aims of truly comprehensive philosophy of technology. Philosophy and Technology features essays by Jacques Ellul, Lewis Mumford, Ortega y Gasset, and C.S. Lewis. This revised and fully updated edition features a comprehensive bibliography.

Building on research in anthropology and philosophy, one can make a distinction between type I and type II energy ethics as a framework for advancing public debate about energy. Type I holds energy production and use as a fundamental good and is grounded in the assumption that increases in energy production and consumption result in increases in human wellbeing. Conversely, type II questions the linear relationship between energy production and progress by examining questions of equity and human happiness. The type (...) I versus type II framework helps to advance public debates about energy that address broad questions of profitability, regulation, and the environment, and in the process poses fundamental questions about the reverence for energy growth in advanced technological societies. (shrink)

This second companion volume on engineering studies considers engineering practice including contextual analyses of engineering identity, epistemologies and values. Key overlapping questions examine such issues as an engineering identity, engineering self-understandings enacted in the professional world, distinctive characters of engineering knowledge and how engineering science and engineering design interact in practice. -/- Authors bring with them perspectives from their institutional homes in Europe, North America, Australia\ and Asia. The volume includes 24 contributions by more than 30 authors from engineering, the (...) social sciences and the humanities. Additional issues the chapters scrutinize include prominent norms of engineering, how they interact with the values of efficiency or environmental sustainability. A concluding set of articles considers the meaning of context more generally by asking if engineers create their own contexts or are they created by contexts. -/- Taken as a whole, this collection of original scholarly work is unique in its broad, multidisciplinary consideration of the changing character of engineering practice. (shrink)

Engineering ethics calls the attention of engineers to professional codes of ethical responsibility and personal values, but the practice of ethics in corporate settings can be more complex than either of these. Corporations too have cultures that often include corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices and policies, but few discussions of engineering ethics make any explicit reference to CSR. This article proposes critical attention to CSR and role ethics as an opportunity to help prepare engineers to think through the ethics of (...) their professional practice. After a brief overview of the evolution of social responsibility within engineering ethics in the United States, this article shares empirical research with practicing engineers in the mining and energy industries to explore how their formal ethics training did and did not prepare them to grapple with the ethical dimensions of their professional practice. It then illustrates the ways in which these dilemmas and the strategies employed for navigating them are framed within CSR policies and practices and resonate more strongly with role ethics rather than ethical theory as currently taught in most US engineering programs. The article concludes that engineering ethics teaching and learning would benefit from explicitly incorporating critical discussions of role ethics and CSR. (shrink)

The trajectory of critical ethical reflection on technology has been from big issues to small ones. It is time again to think in large-scale terms.

Aristotle launched Western knowledge on a trajectory toward disciplinarity that continues to this day. But is the knowledge management project that began with Aristotle adequate for the age of Google? Perhaps an undisciplined discourse more evocative of Plato can help us constitute new, more relevant inter- and transdisciplinary forms of knowledge. This article explores the history of disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity, arguing for a new, critical form of interdisciplinarity that moves beyond the academy into dialogue with the public and private sectors. (...) Contemporary knowledge production should involve not only a horizontal axis stretching across academia but also a vertical axis where academic research is integrated into contemporary life. (shrink)

The concept of field philosophy challenges a common self-understanding in Western philosophy. One question regarding this challenge is the extent to which it might be relevant to a philosophical an...

This book takes steps to develop a philosophy of engineering not to promote an ideology for engineering but to stimulate critical reflection among engineers and non-engineers alike about our engineering lifeworld.

This is the introduction to a special, guest-edited issue of Philosophy Today. It lays out the extent to which the philosophy of science has ignored science policy and argues that policy issues deserve attention in parallel with epistemological ones. It further reviews the historical development of science policy in the United States since World War II, identifies some recent contributions to critical reflection on basic science policy assumptions, and outlines a set of issues to be addressed by any comprehensive philosophy (...) of science policy. (shrink)

This co-edited volume compares Chinese and Western experiences of engineering, technology, and development. In doing so, it builds a bridge between the East and West and advances a dialogue in the philosophy of engineering. Divided into three parts, the book starts with studies on epistemological and ontological issues, with a special focus on engineering design, creativity, management, feasibility, and sustainability. Part II considers relationships between the history and philosophy of engineering, and includes a general argument for the necessity of dialogue (...) between history and philosophy. It continues with a general introduction to traditional Chinese attitudes toward engineering and technology, and philosophical case studies of the Chinese steel industry, railroads, and cybernetics in the Soviet Union. Part III focuses on engineering, ethics, and society, with chapters on engineering education and practice in China and the West. The book’s analyses of the interactions of science, engineering, ethics, politics, and policy in different societal contexts are of special interest. The volume as a whole marks a new stage in the emergence of the philosophy of engineering as a new regionalization of philosophy. This carefully edited interdisciplinary volume grew out of an international conference on the philosophy of engineering hosted by the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. It includes 30 contributions by leading philosophers, social scientists, and engineers from Australia, China, Europe, and the United States. (shrink)

From editors Carl Mitcham and Robert Mackey comes an unusually reflective and wide-ranging colloquium on technology as a philosophical problem. Organized into sections on conceptual issues, ethical and political critiques, religious critiques, existentialist critiques, and metaphysical studies, Philosophy and Technology features an introductory overview that suggests the aims of truly comprehensive philosophy of technology. Philosophy and Technology features essays by Jacques Ellul, Lewis Mumford, Ortega y Gasset, and C.S. Lewis. This revised and fully updated edition features a comprehensive bibliography.

This co-edited volume compares Chinese and Western experiences of engineering, technology, and development. In doing so, it builds a bridge between the East and West and advances a dialogue in the philosophy of engineering. Divided into three parts, the book starts with studies on epistemological and ontological issues, with a special focus on engineering design, creativity, management, feasibility, and sustainability. Part II considers relationships between the history and philosophy of engineering, and includes a general argument for the necessity of dialogue (...) between history and philosophy. It continues with a general introduction to traditional Chinese attitudes toward engineering and technology, and philosophical case studies of the Chinese steel industry, railroads, and cybernetics in the Soviet Union. Part III focuses on engineering, ethics, and society, with chapters on engineering education and practice in China and the West. The book’s analyses of the interactions of science, engineering, ethics, politics, and policy in different societal contexts are of special interest. The volume as a whole marks a new stage in the emergence of the philosophy of engineering as a new regionalization of philosophy. This carefully edited interdisciplinary volume grew out of an international conference on the philosophy of engineering hosted by the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. It includes 30 contributions by leading philosophers, social scientists, and engineers from Australia, China, Europe, and the United States. (shrink)

Philosophy has not paid sufficient attention to engineering. Nevertheless, engineers should not use this as an excuse to ignore philosophy. The argument here is that philosophy is important to engineering for at least three reasons. First, philosophy is necessary so that engineers may understand and defend themselves against philosophical criticisms. In fact, there is a tradition of engineering philosophy that is largely overlooked, even by engineers. Second, philosophy, especially ethics, is necessary to help engineers deal with professional ethical problems. A (...) case study of ethics requirements for U.S. engineering curricula substantiates this point. Third, because of the inherently philosophical character of engineering, philosophy may actually function as a means to greater engineering self-understanding. (shrink)

Abstract The strength of a discipline is reflected in the development of a set of concepts relevant to its practice domain. As an evolving professional discipline, nursing requires further development in this respect. Over the past two decades in North America there have emerged three different approaches to concept analysis in nursing scholarship: Wilsonian-derived, evolutionary, and pragmatic utility. The present paper compares and contrasts these three methods of concept in terms of purpose, procedures, philosophical underpinnings, limitations, guidance for researchers, and (...) ability to contribute to nursing knowledge and disciplinary advancement. This work extends prior criticisms of concept analysis methods, especially as formulated by Morse and colleagues, by promoting further critical discussion regarding the direction and effectiveness of nursing efforts to meet the basic needs of disciplinary development. Its central thesis is that nursing concept analysis must advance beyond the Wilsonian-derived methods of Walker and Avant by devoting greater attention to understanding the domain of concepts to be analysed and deriving features from these contexts. (shrink)

The article analyzes the integration of a module on nanotechnology, ethics, and policy into a required second-year social science course at a technological university. It investigates not simply the effectiveness of student learning about the technical aspects of nanotechnology but about how issues explored in an interdisciplinary social science course might influence student opinions about the potential of nanotechnology to benefit the developing world. The authors find a correlation between student opinions about the risks and benefits of nanotechnology for the (...) developing world with their judgment of whether nanotechnology fits comparative, historical models for development. (shrink)

This inclusive cross-cultural study rethinks the nexus between engineering education and context. In so doing the book offers a reflection on contextual boundaries with an overall boundary crossing ambition and juxtaposes important cases of critical participation within engineering education with sophisticated scholarly reflection on both opportunities and discontents. -/- Whether and in what way engineering education is or ought to be contextualized or de-contextualized is an object of heated debate among engineering educators. The uniqueness of this study is that this (...) debate is given comprehensive coverage – presenting both instrumentally inclined as well as radical positions on transforming engineering education. -/- In contextualizing engineering education, this book offers diverse commentary from a range of disciplinary, meta- and interdisciplinary perspectives on how cultural, professional, institutional and educational systems contexts shape histories, structural dynamics, ideologies and challenges as well as new pathways in engineering education. Topics addressed include examining engineering education in countries ranging from India to America, to racial and gender equity in engineering education and incorporating social awareness into the area. -/- Using context as “bridge” this book confronts engineering education head on. Contending engineering ideologies and corresponding views on context are juxtaposed with contending discourses of reform. The uniqueness of the book is that it brings together scholars from the humanities, the social sciences and engineering from Europe – both East and West – with the United States, China, Brazil, India and Australia. (shrink)

Ethical questions posed by emerging technologies call for greater understanding of their societal, economic, and environmental aspects by policymakers, citizens, and the engineers and applied scientists at the heart of their development and application. This article reports on the efforts of one research project that assessed the growth of critical thinking and awareness of these multiple aspects in undergraduate engineering and applied science students, with specific regard to nanotechnology. Students in two required courses, a first-year writing and engineering ethics course (...) and a second-year social science course, went through nanotechnology modules as a part of their regular coursework. In the first-year humanities course, we observed self-reported increases in risk awareness, significant educational impact of the module, and a greater awareness of nanotechnology’s applications and social context. In the second-year social science course, we noted changes in risk/benefit analysis as well as in the character and depth of students’ historical analysis, but no change in comparative awareness of other topics, including labor issues and corporate motivations. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND COMPUTERS AS THEMES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF TECHNOLOGY Philosophical interest in computers and information technology ...

This inclusive, cross-cultural study rethinks the nexus between engineering, development, and culture. It offers diverse commentary from a range of disciplinary perspectives on how the philosophies of today’s cultural triumvirate—American, European and Chinese—are shaped and given nuance by the cross-fertilization of engineering and development. Scholars from the humanities and social sciences as well as engineers themselves reflect on key questions that arise in this relational context, such as how international development work affects the professional views, identities, practice and ethics of (...) engineers. The first volume to offer a systematic and collaborative study that cuts across continental boundaries, the book delineates the kinds of skills and competences that tomorrow’s engineering success stories will require, and analyzes fascinating aspects of the interplay between engineering and philosophy, such as how traditionally Chinese ways of thinking can influence modern engineering practice in the world’s most populous country. China’s problematic mix of engineering woes and wonders, from the high-profile crash on its high-profile rail network to its ‘bird’s nest’ Olympic stadium, adds to the urgency for reform, while Europe’s Enlightenment-informed legal frameworks are contrasted with Chinese mechanisms in their governance of the field of nanotechnology, a crucial element of future technical evolution. Fascinating and compelling in equal measure, this volume addresses one of the topics at the leading edge of humanity’s quest to survive, and to thrive.​. (shrink)