Let us now think engineering: an interview with Carl Mitcham

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Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO 80401, USA; Renmin University of China; Colorado School of Mines. 1005 14th St.

Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas. 65 Lenin- sky Prospekt, Moscow, 119991, Russian Federation; Bauman Moscow State Technical University

Let us now think engineering: an interview with Carl Mitcham

Carl Mitcham - Professor Emeritus of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences.

International Distinguished Professor of Philosophy of Technology.

Aleksandra A. Kazakova - Senior Lecturer.

Carl Mitcham is International Distinguished Professor of Philosophy of Technology at Renmin University of China and Professor Emeritus of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at Colorado School of Mines in the United States. For more than four decades of his work in the field of philosophy of science and technology, he has made important contributions on its most controversial topics, including biotechnologies, IT, energy and many others. Of special interest is his philosophical and socio-historical study of engineering, which has become the area of his intellectual collaboration with V.G. Gorokhov. This year, Prof. Mitcham published a new book, “Steps toward a Philosophy of Engineering: Historical-Philosophical and Critical Essays". In the interview Professor Mitcham discusses the developments in engineering profession and education and the changing role of engineering societies; the relationships between engineering, science and philosophy; the engineering cultures and the meaning of engineering in the modern culture.

Keywords: philosophy of engineering, engineering education, engineering societies, engineering ethics

Осмысление инженерии: интервью с Карлом Митчемом

Митчем Карл - доктор философии, почетный профессор. Горная школа Колорадо. США, CO 80401, г. Голден, 14-я улица, д. 1005, Горная школа Колорадо; Народный университет Китая

Казакова Александра Андреевна - старший преподаватель. РГУ нефти и газа им. И.М. Губкина. Российская Федерация, 119991, г. Москва, Ленинский пр., д. 65; МГТУ им. Н.Э. Баумана

Карл Митчем, почетный профессор Народного университета Китая и Горной школы Колорадо в США, уже более сорока лет работает в области философии науки и техники, участвуя в дискуссиях по наиболее острым проблемам биотехнологий, информационных технологий, этическим вопросам энергетики. Особый интерес представляют его философские и социокультурные исследования инженерной деятельности, изданные в прошлом году в авторском сборнике «На пути к философии инженерии: историкофилософские и критические эссе». В интервью обсуждается предметное поле и основные темы философии инженерии, в институционализации которой Митчем принимает активное участие: эволюция инженерной профессии и образования и деятельность инженерных сообществ; взаимоотношения инженерии, науки и философии; разнообразие инженерных культур и роль инженерии в культуре.

Ключевые слова: философия инженерии, инженерное образование, инженерные сообщества, инженерная этика

Introduction

AK: Dear Professor, let me start with the never-ending definitional debate. Engineering is an umbrella term for many activities: making, applying, maintaining technologies. The rise of software engineering and bioengineering are the signs of our time. Engineering has become so heterogeneous that there seem to be no “typical" engineers anymore, if they ever existed. What is for you the core essence of engineering profession?

CM: Thanks for your question. You are right to take this as a foundational question. I begin working from the definition given in the official Charter of the Institution of Civil Engineering (in the UK). Because I recognize that engineering is different in different countries and different contexts, I will speak of “Englishspeaking engineering”. I do not know as much what is going on in France, Russia, or Germany. I know a little bit about China, and Chinese XS (gongcheng) is not the same as English “engineering”.

The ICE Charter says that engineering is “the art of directing the great sources of power in Nature for the use and convenience of man”. This definition has been very important to the ICE, so much so that on its 150th anniversary the organization revisited it with a special conference (which I chronicled in the Appendix to my new book) [Mitcham, 2019, pp. 365-384]. I went to the archives, to the hand-written little essay by Thomas Tredgold, which explains that the great resources in nature are revealed to the engineer by science. It says explicitly, that English-speaking engineering understands itself as an application of Baconian science. As application it is an “art”, because it is making (and not just thinking), and the purpose is “use and convenience”.

At this time in England, “use and convenience” had become a philosophical term. In “An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals” (1751) David Hume says that the basis of morality is use and convenience. Making the world more useful and convenient for people is a virtue, because it makes physical life easier and more commodious. Just as science makes available to the mind what is going on in nature, engineering makes useful and convenient the material goods of the world and increases the ease of their management. Just as the goal of doctors is to provide health, and of lawyers to render justice, what engineers originally conceived of themselves as providing was material use and convenience.

Initially such an art was acquired through apprenticeship, just like in many other arts; there was little theory behind it. But what has happened over the course of last 200-300 years was that this art has become increasingly explicated, increasingly conscious, methodologized, and engineers have constructed for themselves significant bodies of both rule-of-thumb knowledge and engineering science as a new kind of knowledge informing their art. It is a philosophical challenge to sort out what is going on in this process of engineering knowledge production. My former colleague Gorokhov wrote extensively about it (see, e.g., “Engineering: Art and Science” [Gorokhov, 1990] - AK).

AK: I would like you to comment a little bit more on what you said about “English-speaking engineering” in its relations with the Baconian tradition. Is it consistent, the co-evolution of the English-speaking philosophy, science and technology? Can we link the “high” philosophies of empiricism, utilitarianism and pragmatism, which include ontology, epistemology, ethics and political thought, to the peculiarities of English-speaking engineering culture - its hands-on approach and the special role of apprenticeship?

CM: Yes, I think this is reflected in the educational program of English-speaking engineers. Of course, there was cross-fertilization at some point: French-speaking and German-speaking engineering added something. The French have different version of science which engineers are going to use - it is a more Cartesian, mathematical science. This more rationalist science influenced English engineers; even as they criticized, they could not help but recognize some of the distinctive strengths of French engineering. American engineering, although influenced primarily by British traditions, has also selectively absorbed elements from especially French and German engineering practices. The pre- and post-World War II exodus of engineers from Germany to the United States could not help but infuse German engineering practices into American engineering, just like the immigration of German philosophers had an impact on American philosophy.

Let us take an example from the American system of manufacturing. American industrialists, such as Henry Ford (1863-1947), wanted to use division of labor, as it was developed in England. But they used division of labor together with interchangeable parts and the assembly line to produce new forms of convenience. With Ford, of course, it was the mass production of automobiles, a commodity peculiarly appropriate for a large, spread out and excessively individualistic country. Ford, as I'm sure you know, created the assembly line by adapting the dis-assembly line of the slaughterhouse, in which an animal carcass was hung on a moving track that carried it past a series of butchers, each slicing off a different cut of meat. Ford ran the dis-assembly line backward, starting with an automobile skeleton (the chassis) past a series of workers who drop in an axel, then an engine, then add tires, etc. until the finished product rolled out of the manufacturing plant and onto the street. What is useful and convenient for Americans will not always be the same as what is useful and convenient for the British maritime empire (e.g., textiles and ceramics).

With your reference to that distinctive American philosophy known as pragmatism you already hinted at another element in American engineering: its extreme individualism. American pragmatism goes beyond British empiricism to stress that the ideas need to be confirmed not just by experience but by functional utility. Additionally, pragmatist American culture tends to be quite individualistic. There is no real equivalent in the United States of the royally chartered Institution of Civil Engineers. Instead, there are multiple professional associations competing with each other for public recognition and power.

AK: Talking about professional societies and the national schools of engineering, I would like to ask, do you think we can talk of a “community of engineers” in the same sense as “scientific community”?

CM: I don't think so. The community of scientists rests on a transnational ideal of truth and method of knowledge production, whereas the community of engineers, who are always engaged in material building and economic production, will always be not only national, but also sectoral. The community of civil engineers in the United States is a real community, as is the community of bioengineers. But the community of bioengineers in the US is in competition with bioengineers in China, and both communities recognize this is the case, whereas bioscientists are not in some kind of material goods production competition. Of course, scientists compete in knowledge production, for example, to win Nobel Prizes, but it is not the same as competition of the companies and products. Knowledge is a non-rival good. Physical uses and conveniences are rival goods. Engineering communities are necessarily more rivalrous and even sector-limited, which is the reason why engineers have trouble speaking with a common public voice, especially in the United States.

Although medical doctors are segmented by specialization, they can all see themselves as members some overarching national medical association and speak with one voice. The brain surgeons are not in competition with heart surgeons, whereas mechanical or civil engineers are often in competition with electrical engineers. The sociology of engineering discloses this kind of rivalry, which is especially strong in the United States, because of the deeply individualistic American culture.

AK: The proliferation of engineering societies is interconnected with the standards, regulating the specialization in technical education. Back in 1905 John W. Lieb questioned in his presidential address to the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, how many professional societies at the national and regional level, do the USA really need [Lieb, 1905].

CM: You are correct. This has been a consistent debate within American professional engineering. What is taking place with ABET (a non-governmental organization to accredit engineering education programs, originally called the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology), which is becoming a de facto international accrediting agency, is unique in the history of engineering, and I am not sure where it will go. The most international professional engineering society is the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), and it is interesting that from the early ages radio and electrical engineers were more international than mechanical and civil engineers. Radio waves do not remain within the national borders. Gorokhov was a radio engineer, and we once talked about this.

AK: Can we suggest then that software engineering will be even more transnational, or more globalized?

CM: That is an interesting question. I'm not sure about the answer and would need time to think about it more. But there are certainly efforts to decouple software from national economies, although I'm not sure this will ever succeed more than at the margins: as in the “open source” and “free software” movement.

AK: Is it one movement or movements with different ideologies? Eric Raymond (one of the leaders of Open Source Initiative) is libertarian, while Richard Stallman (Free Software) is leftist.

CM: You're right, these are not the same. Some years ago I wrote an article about this (a version is included as a chapter in my new philosophy of engineering book [Mitcham, 2019, pp. 119-137]) arguing for their synthesis as a “free and open source” software movement. But such movements are up against the vested powers of Microsoft and Google and more, a highly leveraged cartel determined to commodify software and cyberspace. Issues of information control and cybersecurity are inherently national and power related. Remember, too, that we are currently in the middle of political backlashes against globalization. The early 20th century utopian vision of electronic mass media as promoting democracy followed by late 20th century fantasies of Internet information freedom have less and less political philosophical purchase as the electronic media are colonized by corporations, governments, and special interests of all types (including those who have an interest in controlling knowledge access if not disseminating lies). The idea that “software wants to be free” seems just another ideological illusion (unless it means free to be manipulated).

AK: In the accelerationist debate these paradigmatic problems are discussed on very general level: whether the current sociotechnical transformations will lead to the new kind of capitalism or some kind of post-capitalism. Do you think these visions of future inspire the everyday practices in software engineering, such as sharing or protecting the software?

CM: One of my TAs in China was a software engineer and worked in the industry for a while before changing for philosophy. I asked what she used to do then, and she answered: “Finding and fixing software bugs”. That is what she said she did all day. She left software engineering for philosophy precisely because of the absence of philosophy in software engineering. People like Raymond and Stallman are few and far between.

AK: Let me return then to the special character of engineering and ask about distinctions between science, technology and engineering. You and many interdisciplinary science and technology studies (STS) scholars you quote accentuate the non-technological (social, cultural, political and economical) factors in engineering.

CM: I' ve already mentioned a distinction between science as knowledge production and engineering as building and material product creation. Although the two are increasingly fused in technoscience, it is still possible to distinguish them analytically. Now I would add another simple (perhaps simplistic) distinction between engineering as the agency that produces technologies, although in another sense “technology” includes all forms of engineering (as in the “Massachusetts Institute of Technology”). I also think it necessary to distinguish techne, technics, and craft from engineering and technology. It is a distortion of history to describe the builders of the pyramids or medieval cathedrals as engineers; “architects” was the traditional name for such builders. The word engineer did not come on the scene until the 1500s to name a new kind of architect.

Now with regard to “non-technological” or cultural factors of engineering, here is something that has struck me. Ethics seems to be outside of engineering. It is not like in medicine, where the concept of health is built right into the science of medicine. In every course in medical school, as in anatomy and physiology, there is a built-in notion of what is health. In law, the notion of justice is also built-in - if you study it, you make an assumption that the law is just, and then you try to figure out how to apply the law in particular cases. But in engineering school, the only purpose is “use and convenience”, without much indication for what (except, perhaps, as having a job to make money). Engineers seem to be “guns for hire”. Doctors are not guns for hire; they do not study to poison or hurt somebody, as well as lawyers normally do not study the law to break it. Gorokhov gave me this example: When the Soviet troops took over Siemens factory, a delegation of engineers, technicians, and workers came to ask: “When will you give us work?” They did not care who they worked for, they just wanted to work.