我们需要什么样的工程哲学  

What Philosophy of Engineering Do We Need

作　　者：盛晓明[1] 王华平[1] 

机构地区：[1]浙江大学哲学系,浙江杭州310028

出　　处：《浙江大学学报（人文社会科学版）》2005年第5期27-33,共7页Journal of Zhejiang University:Humanities and Social Sciences

基　　金：国家社会科学规划基金资助项目(04BZX022)

摘　　要：工程在人类活动中的地位变得日益重要的同时,也对社会、政治和环境提出了日益严峻的挑战。思考这些问题,我们应该立足于作为一门有别于传统科学技术哲学的工程哲学。古希腊以来,科学与工程一直被认为代表了西方文化两种不同的传统。但在哲学发生历史主义转向后,两种不同的合理性走向融合。在科学的社会研究变得时髦的今天,我们对工程这种物质性活动进行哲学研究的进路就再也不能采用传统哲学那种单一的规范化方法,而应该将其视为一种特殊的文化活动,从多维外部视点来理解。工程知识和工程实践的特性使得工程哲学应该超越传统的规范化方法,而去描述作为一种社会活动的工程实践,并在容纳各个外部视点后综合每个视点所形成的视图,为工程活动“拼凑一种更好的描述”。As a kind of human beings＇ activity, engineering exists in all ages, but has never played such an important role as today. As engineering becomes a chief way of being, it brings forward increasingly serious challenges to society, politics and environment. Considerations of these problems give birth to philosophy of engineering. However, we should not look upon philosophy of engineering as the extension of philosophy of science and technology, for engineering has its own form of culture, with its own sets of rules and bodies of practice——a culture different from science and certainly not a mere appendage to or an application of science. Science and engineering have always been supposed to represent two different traditions in Western culture since ancient Greece. The former has been admired for its objective necessity and universal validity, while the latter has been undervalued for its limits of established value judgments and contexts. However, after a historicist turn happened in Western philosophy in the 20th century, the two different rationalities which science and engineering represent respectively became merged. It is argued that science, like engineering, is less simply an intellectual undertaking than creative activities conducted in a certain context, and may and should include such practical wisdom as sophists advocated. Nowadays, as social studies of science gain ground, our approach to philosophical studies of engineering as a kind of material activities can no longer adopt such a single normative method as traditional philosophy did. Rather, engineering should be taken as a specific kind of cultural activity and be investigated from manifold outer perspectives. Engineering knowledge is neither pure scientific knowledge nor pure social knowledge, for it includes more “know-how” and Peter＇s “cookbook knowledge”. Engineers have their own methods, procedures, and bodies of skills whereby they create and construct knowledge. Engineering knowledge is orientated to engineering, and it actu

关 键 词：工程哲学 描述 工程知识 工程实践 

分 类 号：N02[自然科学总论—科学技术哲学]