INTRODUCTION TO PART II

Wybo Houkes, associate editor

Ontology and epistemology are two of the oldest and best-established branches
of philosophy. Yet in the long histories of these fields, artifacts and technology
have seldom been topics of inquiry. Likewise, engineers have traditionally ignored
questions regarding the nature and categorization of the items they produce and
regarding the status of the knowledge they produce. Still, it seems obvious that
engineering activities change the world by adding objects, such as combustion
engines, and also add to our understanding of this changed world, by acquiring
knowledge of, for instance, combustion processes. Indeed, technology can be char-
acterized in at least two ways: as a system of artificial objects, and as a system
of (practical) knowledge [Mitcham, 1978]. Surprisingly, these intuitions and sup-
positions have not given rise to more thorough analysis. A short reflection on the
reasons for this lack of interest serves to introduce the background of the various
contributions to this part.
Mutual distrust partly explains the lack of mutual interest. Most philosophers
have, ever since Plato and Aristotle, been suspicious of technological advances,
and have subordinated the efforts of engineers to those of natural scientists. In
the works of Heidegger and Ellul, which shaped much of what is now called the
philosophy of technology, these anti-technological sentiments have culminated in
deeply pessimistic, essentialist evaluations of technology and of societies that have
become irredeemably technological. On their part, engineers largely equate philo-
sophical reflection with empty speculation. The metaphysical engineer, it seems,
only exists in poetry.1
More importantly, two standard ideas about artifacts make further philosophical
analysis seem useless. The first, ontological idea is that artifacts do not, properly
speaking, exist. Engineers cleverly rearrange physical stuff into suspension bridges
and combustion engines, but in doing so, they add nothing to the ultimate inven-
tory of the world. The second, epistemological idea is that technology is nothing
but applied (natural) science. Both in engineering design and in engineering sci-
ence, people solve practical problems, but in doing so, they add nothing – or at
least nothing fundamental – to the total body of human knowledge. This idea is
not exclusive to philosophy. There is a continuous, albeit not constant, tendency
among engineers to model their work after the natural sciences. Curricula at en-
gineering schools have become filled with courses in which students are taught to
1 “The metaphysical engineer” is one of the self-descriptions of Álvaro de Campos, a heteronym

of the Portugese poet Fernando Pessoa.

Handbook of the Philosophy of Science. Volume 9: Philosophy of Technology and Engineering

Sciences.
Volume editor: Anthonie Meijers. General editors: Dov M. Gabbay, Paul Thagard and John
Woods.
c 2009 Elsevier BV. All rights reserved.
188 Wybo Houkes, associate editor

apply scientific theories such as classical mechanics and thermodynamics to prac-

tical problems; and in practice, engineers have frequently attempted to “ground”
their designs with the experimental method. Alternative (e.g., design-oriented)
conceptions of engineering exist, especially since the 1960s, but they are typically
prominent countermovements instead of the new orthodoxy.
The two standard ideas are probably related, and may root in deeper convic-
tions, e.g., about the reducibility of all objects to physical matter and about the
subordination of practical reasoning to theoretical reasoning. What matters here
is that, in combination, the ideas entail that, ontologically and epistemologically,
engineering is a zero-revenue activity. While this view is clear and provocative,
and may be assumed as a null hypothesis, it should only be accepted, if at all,
after ample reflection.
Such reflection is mostly clearly shown by recent work on artifact ontology.
Several philosophers have argued against the ontological null hypothesis, and have
concluded that artifacts are a significant class of real objects. These arguments,
of which an overview is given in the chapter by Amie Thomasson, pave the way
for analyses of the nature of artifacts. A feature of artifacts that has commanded
particular attention is their functionality. Many artifacts come in functional kinds,
and all appear to be “for” doing something. Analyses of artifact function typi-
cally focus on its relation with the intentions of designers and users, but non-
intentionalist alternatives are possible. In her chapter, Beth Preston reviews these
accounts, with the aid of a set of analysanda.
Engineers also show an increasing interest in the nature and categorization of
artifacts, albeit from a different perspective. Two areas that illustrate possible con-
vergences between philosophy and engineering are presented in this part — both
by, necessarily, explorative papers. Firstly, the chapter by Pieter E. Vermaas and
Pawel Garbacz explores functional decomposition and function modelling. These
engineering practices revolve around artifact functionality, and its relation to the
structural or physical properties of artifacts. The practical value of these practices
depends partly on conceptual precision, meaning that philosophy and engineering
can strike up a mutually profitable relation. The same goes for the second area,
that of formal ontology. For various engineering applications, categorizations of
objects and their parts are vital. This has led to a veritable industry of domain-
specific ontologies. The chapter by Stefano Borgo and Laure Vieu provides an
overview of several ontologies and explores how, for one ontology in particular,
characterizations of artifacts and their properties may be included.
The last three contributions deal with epistemological issues. For these, the
blockade on artifacts and technology was lifted in the 1970s, as the applied-science
thesis grew ever more unfashionable. This led to some reflections of the nature
of technological knowledge, which often stress its autonomy from scientific knowl-
edge. Indeed, the knowledge produced by engineers and, more generally, knowledge
regarding artifacts appears to have some distinctive features, such as its tacit di-
mension and its relation to practical, rather than purely theoretical interests. An
overview of the work on technological knowledge, as provided in the chapter by
 Introduction to Part II 189

Wybo Houkes, may lead to doubt whether these features are sufficiently distinc-
tive, but this should not prevent — and has not prevented — philosophers and
other researchers from analyzing them. Outside philosophy, the tacit dimension
of technology and engineering design has attracted substantial attention. Paul
Nightingale reviews the results of this attention and their relevance for a bet-
ter understanding of engineering. Inside philosophy, such a better understanding
may be created by analyzing the role of practical reasoning in engineering. In his
chapter, Jesse Hughes explores ways in which this role may be conceptualized.
Research on artifact epistemology does not, at the moment, show the vitality of
research on artifact ontology, neither in philosophy nor in engineering. However,
the contributions make clear that there is room for substantial growth.
All papers make clear that philosophers and engineers have only begun to de-
velop an appropriate ontology and epistemology for the realm of artifacts. All
papers make specific suggestions for further research, from developing an account
of artifact functions that is fully adequate to the complicated phenomenology of
use and design to analyzing the role of specificationism in the reasoning of engi-
neers. Indirectly, they shed light on issues that have to remain unexplored in this
part, such as the relation between structural part-whole relations and functional
decomposition, and the difference between natural and artificial objects. In com-
bination, they also show the need for a richer account of what counts as a real
object and of our standards for knowledge and its relation to action – questions
that lie at the roots of the disciplines of ontology and epistemology.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
[Mitcham, 1978] C. Mitcham. Types of technology, Research in Philosophy and Technology 1,
229-274, 1978.