2008 Workshop on Philosophy and Engineering, The Royal Academy of Engineering,
London, November 10-12, 2008
Toward an Epistemology of Engineering
Antonio Dias de Figueiredo
Centre for Informatics and Systems, University of Coimbra
Coimbra, Portugal
adf@dei.uc.upt
Keywords
Constructivism, design, critical discussion, engineering,
epistemology, methodology, ontology, philosophy of
knowledge, positivism, transdisciplinarity, wicked problems.
1. INTRODUCTION
Although engineering is considered, today, as clearly distinct
from science, the predominance of the components of basic
science in the education of engineers implicitly contributes to
convey the idea that engineering is, in essence, little more than
the mere application of the exact and natural sciences to the
reality of practice. To help challenge this vision and contribute
to a reflection on the epistemology of engineering, we propose
a model where engineering is seen as developing in four
dimensions linked in a transdisciplinary relationship. We then
articulate this model with the four key questions of the
philosophy of knowledge [1][2] to clarify the nature of this
relationship and illuminate some distinctive attributes of
engineering knowledge.
2. FOUR DIMENSIONS
In the discussion of engineering knowledge it is helpful to think
of engineering as comprising four major dimensions (Fig. 1):
the dimensions of the basic sciences, of the social sciences, of
design, and of practical accomplishment. This lets us think of
the engineer as a professional who combines, in variable
proportions, the qualities of a scientist, a sociologist, a designer,
and a doer.
Fig. 1 – The four dimensions of engineering.
The dimension inspired by the basic sciences views engineering
as the application of the natural and exact sciences, stressing the
values of logics and rigour, and seeing knowledge as produced
through analysis and experimentation. Research is the preferred
modus operandi of this dimension, where the discovery of first
principles is seen as the activity leading to higher recognition.
The social dimension of engineering sees engineers not just as
technologists, but also as social experts, in their ability to
recognize the eminently social nature of the world they act upon
and the social complexity of the teams they belong to. The
creation of social and economic value and the belief in the
satisfaction of end users emerge as central values in this
dimension of engineering.
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The design dimension sees engineering as the art of design. It
values systems thinking much more than the analytical thinking
that characterizes traditional science. Its practice is founded on
holistic, contextual, and integrated visions of the world, rather
than on partial visions. Typical values of this dimension include
exploring alternatives and compromising. In this dimension,
which resorts frequently to non-scientific forms of thinking, the
key decisions are often based on incomplete knowledge and
intuition, as well as on personal and collective experiences.
The fourth mode views engineering as the art of getting things
done, valuing the ability to change the world and overcoming
complexity with flexibility and perseverance. It corresponds to
the art of the homo faber, in its purest expression, and to the
ability to tuck up one’s sleeves and get down to the nitty-gritty.
In this dimension, the completed job, which stands before the
world, leads to higher recognition.
3. A TRANSDISCIPLINARY APPROACH
If we look at the aggregation of the four dimensions as an
exercise in transdiscipliarity, as defined by Gibbons et al. [3],
we may see engineering as resulting from the mutual
interpenetration of the epistemologies of the four dimensions in
the context of disturbances that shake up the corresponding
systems of knowledge production. This agrees with the
understanding of transdisciplinarity as the continuous linking
and re-linking, in specific clusterings and configurations, of
knowledge that is brought together on a temporary basis in
specific contexts of application, which makes it strongly
oriented to, and driven by, problem-solving [3].
If we now take the epistemological traditions of each one of the
four dimensions, we are led to acknowledge a likely positivist
contribution from the epistemologies of the basic sciences.
Identically positivist dominance can generally be recognized in
the epistemological dimension of the social sciences, although
the adoption of constructivist approaches in this dimension is
gaining ground. Design brings to our epistemological cluster
the most challenging contribution, as we will briefly discuss in
the next section. Finally, although the epistemology of practical
realization tends to be less contemplated in the literature, its
constructivist nature is strongly supported by the tradition of
pragmatist philosophers, the works of Schön [4] and his
followers, and the contributions by Mintzberg [5], Ciborra [6]
and many others to the theorization of crafting and bricolage.
4. EPISTEMOLOGY OF DESIGN
The epistemology of design has been suffering a dramatic
evolution since the positivist scientization of design introduced
by the ‘modern movement of design’, in the early 1920s. It then
witnessed the backlash of the 1970s, against the science-
inspired design methodologies and the claim that the
epistemology of science was in disarray and had little to offer to
an epistemology of design, that there were forms of knowledge
peculiar to the awareness and ability of the designer, and that
we should rather concentrate on the ‘designerly’ ways of
knowing, thinking and acting [7]. More recently, the troubled
relationship between science and design seems to have started
to head toward reconciliation, with the recognition that the
epistemology of design is, indeed, different, and has much to
contribute to a renewed epistemology of science [8].
This view, which expresses the transdisciplinary linking and re-
linking fields that are closely related, incorporates the ability to
take into account ‘wicked problems’. ‘Wicked problems’ are
problems that, because of their complexity and close
interdependence with social and organizational factors, cannot
be formulated [9]. To deal with wicked problems, which are
becoming increasingly common in engineering, in spite of the
fact that they cannot be handled through traditional scientific
approaches, the process of solving a problem becomes identical
with the process of understanding its nature, so that problem
understanding and problem resolution are concomitant, with the
information needed to understand the problem depending on the
designer’s ideas for solving it.
Important contributions to this debate have been developing
recently in the information systems field, where the evolution of
systems design has been described as incorporating four
categories: design as functional analysis, design as problem-
solving, design as problem-setting, and design as emergent
evolutionary learning [10].
Design as functional analysis assumes requirements to be fully
available at the outset, so that the designer just needs to analyze
the problem and deductively proceed to the solution, following
a path closely inspired by the traditional basic sciences [8].
Design as problem-solving resolves complex, namely
organizational, problems by simplifying them to a level where
they can still satisfy a minimal set of criteria leading to their
rational solution [8]. This category of design is inspired by
Herbert Simon’s concept of “bounded rationality” [11], which
reflects an epistemological standing closer to some popular
visions of the social sciences.
Design as problem-setting views design as a systemic activity
requiring the discovery and possible negotiation of unstated
goals, implications, and criteria before a problem can be
formulated and, subsequently, solved [8]. By accepting the
framing of problems in terms of their context, before they can
be solved, this vision of design takes a phenomenological
approach that expresses a constructivist epistemology.
Design as emergent, evolutionary, learning sees design as the
convergence of problem and solution in an emergent process of
learning about a situation and then planning short-term partial
goals that emerge as the process progresses [10][12]. Aspects of
the solution are thus explored in conjunction with aspects of
problem understanding: not only the problem is unclear at the
start of the process, but the goals of the design are also ill-
defined [10]. Design, emerging, in this case, in multiple circular
references, linking problem formulation and problem solution,
explicitly emphasizes the constructivist nature of this approach.
5. EPISTEMOLOGY OF ENGINEERING
Taking as a reference the proposed four-dimensional model and
the epistemology of design briefly discussed in the previous
section, the remainder of the talk analyses the epistemology of
engineering in light of the four key questions of the philosophy
of knowledge [1][2]: the ontological, the epistemological, the
methodological, and the axiological questions. For the case of
engineering, the ontological question inquires about what
reality can engineering know, the epistemological question
looks into what is engineering knowledge, the methodological
question asks how can engineering knowledge be built, and the
Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1314224
axiological question (which includes the ethical question),
inquires about the worth and value of engineering knowledge.
The talk answers these questions in the context of the proposed
model. It also stresses the key distinctive features of
engineering knowledge that emerge from the strong presence of
a design dimension. This includes the importance attached to
abductive reasoning and the acceptance of courses of action that
seize upon chance information, adopt capricious ideas, and
provoke creative leaps that seem to go against traditional
scientific rigour [8]. In this respect, Popper’s concept of
‘critical discussion’ [13] will be used to illustrate how the
epistemology of engineering can derive final and verifiable
rigour from such apparently unsystematic, imprecise, and even
random, intermediate steps [8].
6. REFERENCES
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