Why we need a philosophy of engineering: a work in progress

Abstract

Engineering problem solving employs a contingency based form of reasoning that stands in sharp contrast to the necessity based model of rationality that has dominated Western philosophy since Plato and that underlies modern science. The concept 'necessity' is cognate with the concepts 'certainty', 'universality', 'abstractness' and 'theory'. Engineering by contrast is characterised by wilfulness, particularity, probability, concreteness and practice. The identification of rationality with necessity has impoverished our ability to apply reason effectively to action. This article locates the contingency based reasoning of engineering in a philosophical tradition extending from pre-Socratic philosophers to American pragmatism, and suggests how a contingency based philosophy of engineering might enable more effective technological action.     

Complexity and participation: the path of strategic invention

Abstract

The epistemological basis of the participatory action-research (PAR) methodology in the so-called 'paradigm of complexity' is plagued with misconceptions, imprecision and significant omissions. The appropriate and contextualised translation of concepts from the natural sciences for use in the social sciences is particularly necessary in qualitative-structural and participatory-dialectic methodological trends. This paper focuses on the concepts of 'entropy', 'complexity' and 'strategic action'. Based on a general notion of complexity relating to the consideration of uncertainty, innovation and the contextualisation of systems, performance-related aspects indicative of actions implied by this paradigm may be highlighted. Thus, it is argued that the conceptualisation of operations such as 'acting in order to know' and 'act knowing/know by acting', encompassed in the notion of 'strategic invention', complement and exceed the scope of typical planning operations and even self-planning ('knowing in order to act'). In short, these definitions are coherent with an ecosystemic perspective of social and natural reality, in which it is necessary to contextualise what is more or less complex in the world, in our knowledge of the world and in our practical actions when acting in the world. Consequently, participatory action-research methodologies should adopt this complex ecosystemic epistemological perspective, and be designed through a 'strategic invention' approach, in order to clarify the concepts imported from other scientific disciplines.     

Measurements,figures and formulas for the interpretation of Western Norwegian boats and viking ships

Along the coast of Norway we find a family of closely‐related boats. The Nordlands boat is one of them, and in many respects it is the most modern. The plan for the shape of these boats is typically coded into figures. Thus the “secret” of the boat's structure is a sort of “number code”. The question addressed here is: to what extent can the shape of the hull in Viking ships be expressed as a number code similar to that of the 19th‐century west‐coast boats of Norway. The principles behind the methods used to explore this question will be illustrated by three basic concepts, which will be treated separately below.     

Contemporary rural imitation: a Tardean analysis of five Danish rural parishes

The objective of the article was to update Tarde's approach by directing attention to the rural space and the concept of rural imitation. It analyses an empirical study of people settling in five Danish rural areas using Tarde's key concepts of imitation and monads. Mixed methods were employed, including surveys, participant observation and photo-ethnographic interviews. The data analysis applied the grounded theory approach to add a structural dimension to Tarde's approach. The analysis revealed that Tarde's approach and his key concepts of imitation and monads can be used to develop contemporary perspectives on rural experiences. The pivotal point in the rural–urban relationship is the ability to be in contact with an identity constructed from decisions about specific emotional states and a sense of the present. Within a broader perspective, this view of identity building based on rural settlement in nature calls for attention to health studies regarding how nature is associated with coping and how it can help relieve stress, one of contemporary society's most common ailments. The analysis suggests the existence of a triangle of monads in contemporary rural imitation. This triangle of monads is what stabilises, reproduces and supports the creation of rural identities.     

The Meaning and Purpose of Interdisciplinary Studies As Applied to Development Economics

Abstract

There are three distinct reasons for interdisciplinary work in development studies. First, specialists in different disciplines may work together on a specific practical planning problem. Second, assumptions, concepts or method evolved in one discipline may yield fruitful results when applied to the problem previously treated by another. Third, the concepts, model and paradigms may have to be recast so as to encompass variable previously separated in distinct disciplines because of tbe demand of the social reality of a different culture. This is illustrated with the concept ‘capital'. There is a conservative and a radical version. In the former, new wine can be poured into old bottle; in the latter, wholly new concepts and models must be constructed.     

Securing China's core interests: the state of the debate in China

As China has grown stronger, some observers have identified an assertive turn in Chinese foreign policy. Evidence to support this argument includes the increasingly frequent evocation of China's ‘core interests’—a set of interests that represents the non‐negotiable bottom lines of Chinese foreign policy. When new concepts, ideas and political agendas are introduced in China, there is seldom a shared understanding of how they should be defined; the process of populating the concept with real meaning often takes place incrementally. This, the article argues, is what has happened with the notion of core interests. While there are some agreed bottom lines, what issues deserve to be defined (and thus protected) as core interests remains somewhat blurred and open to question. By using content analysis to study 108 articles by Chinese scholars, this article analyses Chinese academic discourse of China's core interests. The authors’ main finding is that ‘core interests’ is a vague concept in the Chinese discourse, despite its increasing use by the government to legitimize its diplomatic actions and claims. The article argues that this vagueness not only makes it difficult to predict Chinese diplomatic behaviour on key issues, but also allows external observers a rich source of opinions to select from to help support pre‐existing views on the nature of China as a global power.     

What's Missing? Gender,Reason and the Post-Secular

Abstract

This article considers whether contemporary debate about the "post-secular" has overlooked the extent to which, as a concept or epoch, it may be "gendered." Jürgen Habermas has suggested that there is something "missing" from secular reason in the shape of transcendental and metaphysical values; but I will contend that the debate is in danger of neglecting the central role of gender—so integral to the conceptual and political formation of modernity—in any rethinking of the symbolic of the post-secular. As feminist theorists have long been reminding us, many of the same processes that gave birth to modernity's elevation of public reason, impartial and non-contingent subjectivity, and models of the free, self-actualizing autonomous agent facilitated by the formation of liberal democracy, were not actually neutral or universal; but highly gendered. They rested on binary representations of women and men's differential nature; and they conceived of differential and gendered division of labour which often precluded women's claiming full humanity, let alone full and active citizenship. So gender, and women, are also in danger of disappearing from this new post-secular chapter in the debate about religion, politics and identity. This article examines how this omission might be corrected, and will outline what might be some of the most significant issues at stake.     

Lucretius: Atoms and Opinions

Abstract

Since 1859 influential attempts have been made to fit the peculiarities of the human species into a 'Darwinian' frame. The most prominent have portrayed a human nature fixed by naturally selected genes. A more recent, alternative system is based on units called 'memes', analogous to genes. Memes include concepts and practices and are described as moving directly from mind to mind, as a result of imitation. They are also said to be selfish, to reproduce themselves, and to be subject to a process similar to natural selection. In its most extreme form, memetics reduces a human being to a 'memeplex' evolved for the benefit of memes. Ideas and skills do not, however, evolve merely by competition or by a form of natural selection. Imitation does not provide an account of how we learn from each other, and still less of social change, for this often arises from dissent and originality. Memetics also ignores the complexities of language, and it conspicuously disregards the elaborate exchanges during the crucial activity of teaching. Nonetheless, memetics has made an advance by turning away from the current obsession with genes, and by provoking interdisciplinary debates about humanity as a 'political animal'. If memetics can allow that human beings are argumentative and sometimes rational, it is possible to suggest ways in which it can generate fruitful studies.     

Human Development and Decent Work: Why some Concepts Succeed and Others Fail to Make an Impact

This article examines the impact of the International Labour Organization's concept of Decent Work on development thinking and the academic literature. We attempt to answer the question of what makes a development initiative successful by comparing the decent work approach to the United Nation Development Programme's Human Development concept (in conjunction with the human development indicator). We consider that the latter has been one of the most successful development concepts ever to have been launched, while the impact of decent work by comparison has been limited. Our hypothesis relating to the question of what makes a development initiative successful has three fundamental components: first, a solid theoretical foundation has to justify the launch of a development concept. A second vital factor is the availability of sufficient national and internationally comparable data that enables researchers and policy makers alike to apply the concept, preferably by means of a synthetic indicator. Third, the political will and institutional structure of the development institution that launches a concept is a key factor, particularly if data availability is limited as countries then have to be persuaded to generate new data.     

Imagining middle powers

Discussions of middle powers in international relations scholarship are hampered by a lack of clarity about what the term ‘middle power’ actually means. This has not stopped increasing numbers of states that cannot claim great power ranking but resist being categorised as small powers imagining middle power status for themselves in regional and global affairs. In an attempt to shed light on middle power imagining, three concepts of middle power are identified. It is contended that one or more of these concepts influences the foreign policies of states ambitious for middle power recognition in regional and global affairs. Identifying which concept, or which combination of concepts, influences a state's middle power imagining may contribute to deeper understandings of the effectiveness, or otherwise, of its foreign policies.     

From “Holocaust” to “Rational Choice”: Generational Change in Political Science

Abstract

David Walsh has demonstrated a unique gift for reading modernity sympathetically, for discerning within it a certain luminosity, in fact a distinctly Christian luminosity, without losing sight of modernity's darkest possibilities. In the magisterial concluding volume of his trilogy, he seeks to elaborate a “coherence” of modernity that is revealed not in concepts but only “through existence itself.” Finally, though, Walsh's enthusiasm for a purely open and therefore purely formal understanding of practical existence, articulated through brilliant, original, and remarkably comprehensive readings of the greatest authors of the continental tradition, seems to me to draw him very far away indeed from actual moral and political practice, and thus from the reality of our human condition. A truer and more truly “performative” attention to “the nature of practice itself” would be less inclined to praise pure freedom or openness and more solicitous of the actual horizons of common worlds, including implicit metaphysical and hierarchical elements.     

Philosophy and Esotericism

Abstract

Arthur Melzer's Philosophy Between the Lines establishes the historical reality of esotericism, or at least the reputation for it, throughout Western and Islamic philosophy until late modernity. But Melzer wants to do much more than that: to establish that there is a whole new world of philosophy to uncover and explore, thus to promote the recovery of “a long lost art of philosophical literacy.” I argue that he fails in this task. Most of the evidence he has for esotericism concerns religious beliefs, and it does not show that a significant portion of the work of important philosophers is to be read esoterically. I offer a detailed analysis of his account of Aristotle's alleged esotericism to give some indication of the weakness of his evidence. I also argue against the Straussian assumption (regarding the dualism of human nature between theory and practice) that stands behind so much of his account of esotericism. I end with a discussion of pedagogical esotericism, contrasting Melzer's Straussian account with my Nietzschean account of what esotericism can contribute to philosophical education.     

The rise of the Indo-Pacific: understanding ideational change and continuity in India's foreign policy

In 2011, the concept of the Indo-Pacific began to appear in India's foreign policy discourse. This article argues that rather than signalling a dramatic shift in India's foreign policy, however, the way in which the Indo-Pacific has been interpreted by the Indian leadership suggests significant continuity as well as change, which is contrary to the goals of the concept's most fervent proponents in India. The article seeks to develop a framework for understanding ideational change and continuity in foreign policy by theorising the interplay between ideas, political and economic flux, and social expectations related to effective and legitimate state-building. It is argued that the Indo-Pacific concept has instigated a new emphasis on regional architecture-building to manage the ongoing regionalisation in the area between the Indian and Pacific Oceans as a result of heightened trade flows and production and investment linkages. Yet, the Indo-Pacific concept, like the new policy ideas on regional engagement that preceded it—the Look East policy and the ‘extended neighbourhood’—has been articulated in ways that are also compatible with long-standing ideas—such as non-alignment—about what constitutes appropriate international behaviour. This reflects the nature of the broader state project that has emerged since 1990, which, while encompassing a new focus on economic growth and competitiveness as being essential to effective state-building, continues to prioritise older ideas about what constitutes effective and legitimate state-building.     

Mathematics and painting

Abstract

Mathematics and painting are interrelated in many ways. At a technical level mathematics can be used to enhance our appreciation of paintings. This was recently demonstrated beautifully by Taylor, Micolich, and Jones in their analysis of Jackson Pollock's drip paintings, which led them to the conclusion that Pollock's paintings are in a way figurative pictures. Relations also exist at a more basic level. Painting and mathematics can share subject matter, as is illustrated here by a discussion of the mathematical concepts 'open' and 'closed', which are related to paintings by Pollock, Kandinsky, Turner, and van Gogh. It is suggested in conclusion that mathematics and painting are so closely related and have so many similarities that it is reasonable to consider them simply as two different but complementary ways of visualising aspects of the concrete or abstract reality in which we are embedded.     

Towards justice in planning: A reappraisal

The concept of justice is central to a political activity such as planning. This is reflected in the initial influence of consequentialism, particularly utilitarian conceptualizations, in planning thought and more recently in the application of Rawls' notion of “justice as fairness” and Habermas' “discourse ethics”. However, contemporary normative planning theory has been vigorously criticized by studies which take as their starting point the material realities of planning practices. In this paper it is argued that notwithstanding the crucial contributions of Habermas and Rawls to political philosophy their constitutional level conceptualizations were never intended to be applied to the task of situated judgement associated with the highly contested decisions at the heart of the planning activity. Consequently, the issue for the planning community is not so much can the concepts of justice embodied in Rawls' “justice as fairness” or Habermas' “discourse ethics” be found in practice but could they ever. More generally it has been argued that the inevitable abstraction in liberal theories of justice comes so close to idealization that their ability to help individuals and societies to address the question of “what is to be done?” is seriously called in to doubt. This in turn has led to concern that an adequate account of justice should be able to link abstract principles to context sensitive judgement of particular cases. The paper explores some implications of these debates for the future development of theory and practice in planning.     

'Enlivening' Development Concepts through Workshops: A case study of appropriate technology and soil conservation

In comparison with the teaching of most other geography topics, where fieldwork can be conducted relatively easily and seminars can be based on some pre-existing knowledge and first-hand experience of the issues, the range of resources and approaches available to tutors teaching the geography of development is necessarily more limited. Tutors often have to rely more heavily on 'top-down' teaching and more passive learning approaches, such as using videos, slides and lectures. While students may gain a theoretical understanding of development concepts, issues and problems, they may be left without a deeper 'experience' of such material. This paper describes a practical workshop designed to communicate to students the idea of 'appropriate technology'. The workshop enables students to actively 'experience' a development concept rather than simply understand it in theory. It tests comprehension and understanding, through the application of a concept to real examples, stimulates discussion and debate, and draws upon problem-solving and critical thinking skills.     

Rationality and Decision-making in Australian Federal Government

The predominant view is that decision-making in Australian government is based on politics rather than rationality. This paper argues that while decisionmaking continues to exemplify incremental analysis, it does not for the most part exemplify incremental politics, that is, acts of negotiation, compromise and bargaining or 'partisan mutual adjustment'. This is the case for three reasons: decision-making conforms to models of rationality; the technical nature of most policy issues is amendable to rationality; and relationships between departments have grown more consensual since the 1970s.     

Hayden White: Beyond Irony

A crisis of our age that is usually identified with the loss of the sacred was one of the causes of the fall into irony in the nineteenth century. In the case of historians, asHayden White has shown in Metahistory, this irony was caused by a“bitterness” stemming from the failure of reality to fulfill their expectations. Anironic apprehension of the world arose in an atmosphere of social breakdown or cultural decline.A current stage of irony manifests itself in a doubt as to the capacity of language to grasp reality. Thus we live in a “prison house of language.” An intellectual parlor-gameproduces “second-hand knowledge” that cannot satisfy the needs of post-postmodern men and women still looking for another metanarrative. Therefore, the main purpose of this essay is to answer the question: how can we go beyond irony? This text is a “post-postmodern post mortem topostmodernism.” I am grateful to postmodernism for many things, especially for giving me an alternative apprehension of the world in terms of difference and continuity rather than binary oppositions, but I am tired of ontological insecurity and epistemological chaos. I need order. I miss metanarrative. In trying to break with some modern/postmodern “principles” andretain within my discourse the premodernist perspective, I follow the current trend in thehumanities. We observe at present the breakdown of methodology and the rise of a more poeticapproach in the human sciences. Evidence of this phenomenon is the more autobiographical formof writing in anthropology (James Clifford, Clifford Geertz) and a more literary style inhistorical writing (Natalie Zemon Davis, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Simon Schama). This trendis associated with a revaluation of the subjective aspects of research. Perhaps, and I wouldwelcome it, it also could be identified with a reappearance of a Collingwoodian idea of history ashuman self-knowledge, knowledge about human nature, knowledge about “what it is to be a man . . . what it is to be the kind of man you are . . . and what it is to be the man you are and nobody else is.”