Abstract
In this chapter, I argue that engineering is, if any, the relevant discipline to mediate, revitalize, and transform the conversation between the sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities (SSH). However, to accomplish this, engineering must be fundamentally recovered, rethought and reconstructed as a practical endeavor that aims to solve problems rather than being construed as a discipline of applied science (or applied SSH). I propose that John Dewey’s critique of the nature/culture split—and his attempt to reconstruct philosophy along pragmatist, historicist, and naturalist lines stressing the fundamental primacy of practical endeavors—embodies the ethos of the engineering mindset. Engineering reconsidered as a problem-solving discipline that seeks to ameliorate living conditions can serve as an ideal platform for interdisciplinary dialogue and collaboration between the natural sciences and SSH. I argue that a pragmatist recovery of engineering lends us hope that in the future, engineering might serve as a discipline that will truly bring the conversation between science and SSH of age.
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Notes
- 1.
The title of this chapter is inspired by the title of Dewey’s The Need for a Recovery of Philosophy (2011).
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- 4.
A vulgar “practicist” interpretation of the pragmatic plea for testing theoretical knowledge by its practical implications must be avoided. Dewey did not oppose theoretical and esoteric science and scholarship but insisted that all knowledge ultimately must be evaluated according to its ability to solve the problems relevant to human concerns. These problems are not confined to trivial issues but also, Dewey insisted, related to issues that concern our existential and aesthetic lives.
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See Joseph Rouse (2015) for a contemporary systematic account.
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Buch, A. (2022). The Need for a Recovery of Engineering. In: Christensen, S.H., Buch, A., Conlon, E., Didier, C., Mitcham, C., Murphy, M. (eds) Engineering, Social Sciences, and the Humanities. Philosophy of Engineering and Technology, vol 42. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11601-8_18
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