Let us now think engineering: an interview with Carl Mitcham

But let me comment more generally on the question of philosophical anthropology. Here the issue is ultimately to what extent humans are properly or best understood as tool makers and users. In regard to this issue I would recommend the work of Andrй Leroi-Gourhan whose “Le geste et la parole” (1965) provides one of the deepest reflections on technics and technology over the broad sweep of human history from prehistoric times to the contemporary world. And yet he never explicitly thematizes engineering. When reading this book (in its English translation, Gesture and Speech [Leroi-Gourhan, 1993]) with a small group of students in China last year, I found myself repeatedly saying to myself, “Let us now think engineering”. I don't think we have yet adequately thought what engineering is and the full extent of its central role in the mutation of history that is taking place all around us.

AK: The last question, which I am afraid may be more difficult than the previous ones. If you were in David Hilbert's position, trying to attract attention and consolidate intellectual efforts of the scientific community, what would you say are the major problems for philosophy of technology of the 21st century?

CM: The great challenge is speed and a need to slow things down. All the grand challenges are speeding things up. A few years ago I wrote a short piece about this, “Speeding Things Down” [Mitcham, 2018]. The pace or speed of life today is so disruptive. Recall that for Martin Heidegger, the horizon of being is time. My life occupies a span of time, and during this time span I become aware of many things, but not everything, because the time is limited. It takes us time right now to have this conversation, and we have to slow down every now and then and say: “Wait a minute, I want to come back to this”, or: “I did not say that right”. We need time to think and to get to know each other. We are too often being forced by the pace of engineered change to do things more quickly than we can comprehend.

AK: Dear Professor Mitcham, thank you for this thought-provoking talk. You are very welcome to visit Russia for further in-depth exchange of ideas with our philosophical and techno-scientific communities.

CM: My thanks to you as well and I sincerely hope that this will be only the beginning of our exchange on these topics.

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References

1. Bucciarelli, 2008 - Bucciarelli L.L. Ethics and Engineering Education, European Journal of Engineering Education, 2008, vol. 33 no. 2, pp. 141-149.

2. Ewen, 2008 - Ewen S. Captains of Consciousness Advertising and the Social Roots of the Consumer Culture. New York: Basic Books, 2008. 416 pp.

3. Gorokhov, 1990 - Gorokhov V.G. Engineering: Art and Science. Moscow: MIR, 1990. 248 pp.

4. Leroi-Gourhan, 1993 - Leroi-Gourhan A. Gesture and speech. Cambridge, Ma.: MIT Press, 1993. 453 pp.

5. Lieb, 1905 - Lieb J.W. The Organization and Administration of National Engineering Societies, Science, 1905, vol. 22, no. 551, pp. 65-73.

6. Marx, 1954 - Marx K. Capital. A critique of political economy. Vol. I. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1954. 549 pp.

7. Mitcham, 2018 - Mitcham C. Speeding things down. In: Technik denken. Philosophische Annдherungen, ed. by V. Friedrich. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2018, pp. 31-40.

8. Mitcham, 2019 - Mitcham C. Steps Toward a Philosophy of Engineering: Historico- philosophical and Critical Essays. Rowman & Littlefield International, 2019. 466 pp.

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