Engineering Identities, Epistemologies and Values
Engineering Identities, Epistemologies and Values

Author: Steen Hyldgaard Christensen

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2015-05-30

Total Pages: 442

ISBN-13: 3319161725

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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.

Steps toward a Philosophy of Engineering
Steps toward a Philosophy of Engineering

Author: Carl Mitcham

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2019-12-06

Total Pages: 466

ISBN-13: 1786611287

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The rise of classic Euro-American philosophy of technology in the 1950s originally emphasized the importance of technologies as material entities and their mediating influence within human experience. Recent decades, however, have witnessed a subtle shift toward reflection on the activity from which these distinctly modern artifacts emerge and through which they are engaged and managed, that is, on engineering. What is engineering? What is the meaning of engineering? How is engineering related to other aspects of human existence? Such basic questions readily engage all major branches of philosophy --- ontology, epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, and aesthetics --- although not always to the same degree. The historico-philosophical and critical reflections collected here record a series of halting steps to think through engineering and the engineered way of life that we all increasingly live in what has been called the Anthropocene. The aim is not to promote an ideology for engineering but to stimulate deeper reflection among engineers and non-engineers alike about some basic challenges of our engineered and engineering lifeworld.

International Perspectives on Engineering Education
International Perspectives on Engineering Education

Author: Steen Hyldgaard Christensen

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2015-05-25

Total Pages: 551

ISBN-13: 3319161695

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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.

Cultivating Professional Identity in Design
Cultivating Professional Identity in Design

Author: Monica W. Tracey

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2022-09-13

Total Pages: 136

ISBN-13: 1000638367

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Cultivating Professional Identity in Design is a nuanced, comprehensive companion for designers across disciplines honing their identities, self-perception, personal strengths, and essential attributes. Designers’ identities, whether rooted in education, workforce training, digital technology, arts and graphics, built environment, or other fields, are always evolving, influenced by any combination of current mindset, concrete responsibilities, team dynamics, and more. Applicable to designers of all contexts, this inspiring yet rigorous book guides practitioners and students to progress with ten key traits: empathy, uncertainty, creativity, ethics, diversity/equity/inclusion, reflection, learning, communication, collaboration, and decision-making. Though it details a complete journey from start to finish, this book acknowledges the varying paths of designers’ roles and is structured for a flexible, highly iterative reading experience. Segments can be read individually or out of order and revisited for new insights. Current and future stages of development – education experience, early-career opportunities, mid-career accomplishments, and/or career transitions – are factored in without hierarchy. Specific takeaways, activities, and reflection exercises are intended to work across settings and levels of experience. Design hopefuls and experts alike will find a new way to participate in and persevere through their work.

The Engineering-Business Nexus
The Engineering-Business Nexus

Author: Steen Hyldgaard Christensen

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-11-14

Total Pages: 533

ISBN-13: 3319996363

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Fascinating and compelling in equal measure this volume presents a critical examination of the multilayered relationships between engineering and business. In so doing the study also stimulates ethical reflection on how these relationships either enhance or inhibit strategies to address vital issues of our time. In the context of geopolitical, economic, and environmental tendencies the authors explore the world that we should want to create and the role of the engineer and the business manager in this endeavor. Throughout this volume the authors identify periods of alignment and periods of tension between engineering and business. They look at focal points of the engineering-business nexus related to the development of capitalism. The book explores past and present movements to reshape, reform, or reject this nexus. The volume is informed by questions of importance for industry as well as for higher education. These are: What kinds of conflict arise for engineers in their attempts to straddle both professional and organizational commitments? How should professionals be managed to avoid a clash of managerial and professional cultures? How do engineers create value in firms and corporations? What kinds of tension exist between higher education and industry? What challenges does the neoliberal entrepreneurial university pose for management, faculty, students, society, and industry? Should engineering graduates be ready for work, and can they possibly be? What kinds of business issues are reflected in engineering education curricula, and for what purpose? Is there a limit to the degree of business hybridization in engineering degree programs, and if so, what would be the criterion for its definition? Is there a place in engineering education curricula for reflective critique of assumptions related to business and economic thinking? One ideal of management and control comes to the fore as the Anthropocene - the world transformed into an engineered artefact which includes human existence. The volume raises the question as to how engineering and business together should be considered, given the fact that the current engineering-business nexus remains embedded within an economic model of continual growth. By addressing macro-level issues such as energy policy, sustainable development, globalization, and social justice this study will both help create awareness and stimulate development of self-knowledge among practitioners, educators, and students thereby ultimately addressing the need for better informed citizens to safeguard planet Earth as a human life supporting system.

Ethics, Politics, and Whistleblowing in Engineering
Ethics, Politics, and Whistleblowing in Engineering

Author: Nicholas Sakellariou

Publisher: CRC Press

Published: 2018-11-09

Total Pages: 389

ISBN-13: 1351242393

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The aim of this book is to generate a strong operational ethic in the work of engineers from all disciplines. It provides numerous examples of engineers who sought to meet the highest ethical standards, risking both professional and personal retaliations. In short, it presents the fields of engineering ethics in the context of actual conflict situations on the job, and points to an urgent need for a strong ethical framework for the profession. This book is about engineering students and practitioners truly understanding, valuing, and championing their wider critical role. Ralph Nader, the consumer advocate and champion of engineers, wrote the preface. Presents various viewpoints which hail from a wide variety of disciplines in the engineering, science, and technology communities. Includes a mix of historical and contemporary examples, a list of relevant television series and documentaries for engineers, as well as links to informative websites for practicing engineers and engineering students. Examines engineering professionalism as related to the imperative of sustainable development. Provides numerous examples of corporate whistleblowing and ethical dilemmas in engineering. Includes a foreword written by consumer advocate Ralph Nader.

Philosophy of Technology after the Empirical Turn
Philosophy of Technology after the Empirical Turn

Author: Maarten Franssen

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-06-23

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 3319337173

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This volume features 16 essays on the philosophy of technology that discuss its identity, its position in philosophy in general, and the role of empirical studies in philosophical analyses of engineering ethics and engineering practices. This volume is published about fifteen years after Peter Kroes and Anthonie Meijers published a collection of papers under the title The empirical turn in the philosophy of technology, in which they called for a reorientation toward the practice of engineering, and sketched the likely benefits for philosophy of technology of pursuing its major questions in an empirically informed way. The essays in this volume fall apart in two different kinds. One kind follows up on The empirical turn discussion about what the philosophy of technology is all about. It continues the search for the identity of the philosophy of technology by asking what comes after the empirical turn. The other kind of essays follows the call for an empirical turn in the philosophy of technology by showing how it may be realized with regard to particular topics. Together these essays offer the reader an overview of the state of the art of an empirically informed philosophy of technology and of various views on the empirical turn as a stepping stone into the future of the philosophy of technology.

Thinking through Science and Technology
Thinking through Science and Technology

Author: Glen Miller

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2023-03-27

Total Pages: 583

ISBN-13: 1538176521

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Groundbreaking in its range of disciplines and cultural backgrounds, Thinking through Science and Technology explores how individual and societal beliefs, values, and actions are transformed by science, technology, and engineering. Practical and theoretical insights from philosophers, policymakers, STS scholars, and engineers illuminate the promise, perils, and paradoxes that arise with technoscientific change. This collection of original research develops a philosophical understanding of technology and its inscription in a wider web of social and political meanings, values, and civilizational change. It explores foundational beliefs at the core of engineering education and practice, with an emphasis on the movement of ideas between Western and Chinese scholars, as well as the complex interwoven relationship between ideas from religion, science, and technology as they have evolved in the West. Contributors also critically examine the forces and frameworks that shape the development and evaluation of scientific practice and the innovation and adoption of technology, with an emphasis on national and global policy. The volume offers a critical and timely reflection on science and technology that counters trends toward technological optimism, on the one hand, and disciplinary and cultural regionalization, on the other. Chapters written by prominent and promising scholars from around the world make this a global resource; its breadth and clarity make it a superb introduction for those new to its fields. It serves as an essential reference for established scholars as well as anyone seeking a more comprehensive understanding of social and technoscientific entanglements that permeate contemporary life. List of contributors: Gordon Akon-Yamga, Jennifer Karns Alexander, Andoni Alonso, Pamela Andanda, Larry Arnhart, Li Bocong, Albert Borgmann, Adam Briggle, Jose A. López Cerezo, Mark Coeckelbergh, Daniel Cérézuelle, Neelke Doorn, Jean-Pierre Dupuy, Andrew Feenberg, Jose Luís Garcia, Tricia Glazebrook, Janna van Grunsven, J. Britt Holbrook, Helena Jerónimo, Tong LI, Yongmou LIU, Lavinia Marin, Glen Miller, Carl Mitcham, Suzanne Moon, Byron Newberry, Jean Robert, Sabine Roeser, Taylor Stone, Sajay Samuel, Daniel Sarewitz, Jen Schneider, José Antonio Ullate, Carlos Verdugo-Serna, Nan WANG.

Spaces for the Future
Spaces for the Future

Author: Joseph C. Pitt

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-08-09

Total Pages: 482

ISBN-13: 1135007748

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Focused on mapping out contemporary and future domains in philosophy of technology, this volume serves as an excellent, forward-looking resource in the field and in cognate areas of study. The 32 chapters, all of them appearing in print here for the first time, were written by both established scholars and fresh voices. They cover topics ranging from data discrimination and engineering design, to art and technology, space junk, and beyond. Spaces for the Future: A Companion to Philosophy of Technology is structured in six parts: (1) Ethical Space and Experience; (2) Political Space and Agency; (3) Virtual Space and Property; (4) Personal Space and Design; (5) Inner Space and Environment; and (6) Outer Space and Imagination. The organization maps out current and emerging spaces of activity in the field and anticipates the big issues that we soon will face.