More Engineering and Theology
Ok no interesting replies to my posting, but I don’t want to give up on this topic just yet.
On another forum, some comments suggested it would not be a good idea prescribing ever more “stuff” for inclusion in engineering curricula. I agree, and worry that this tendency to over prescribe leaves little time for deep learning and results in a spoon-feeding approach; and I ask myself is that good for the profession?
I have always seen my engineering career as a journey, a never ending path of learning along which I am driven by a love for the subject. As such the few years spent as university have long-since become only a small part of what makes me an engineer.
This may be likened to some form of religious devotion, something spiritual, something beyond the materialist and utilitarian application of scientific principles to problems. Rather it may be characterised by a desire to understand the nature of engineering knowledge and how that knowledge can be used for the benefit of mankind the universe and everything. To some extent, it seems this zeal is missing from new entrants to the engineering profession; it seems the profession may be losing touch with its soul.
And what can theology teach us? Well theology is very much about nurturing the soul and it serves as a reminder of what values we should focus on if we are to put the soul back into engineering. I would hazard a guess that a foundation for life-long learning and dedication is more about soul than about science.
To some extent this is exactly the sort of question that needs to be address by a forum exploring the philosophy of engineering and so I appeal to readers to consider this topic; for I wonder – How important is the soul to the profession? If it is, how do we nourish it? And if we do, when do we start?
posted by Andrew Fox @ 1:00 PM
2 Comments:
Hi Andrew,
Depending a bit on which 'school' of relevant thought your basing your polemic upon, but there is already a quite evolved discipline exploring how many considerations relevant to engineering could be reconfigured in a more 'philosophical' or theoretical format.
Architecture, a trade which inevitably entails a somewhat, call it, 'multi-faceted' mindset, has already an extensive library of material exploring the various, occasionally divisive, issues relating to how we perceive, define and construct our environment.
This prometean approach also acknowledges as well as involves related practices such as phenomenology (Heidegger, Marleau-Ponty, Pallasmaa), geography (Paul Rodaway), computer science (John Frazer, Paul Coates, Christian Derix), biology/ biomimesis (AA Mtech programme), etc. to mention a few. Obviously the demarcations dividing the disciplines are never as 'clear-cut'as the aforementioned might suggest. Within the practice of engineering there are individuals and companies that subscribe to an almost emotive form of engineering, such as executed by people like Cecil Balmond or Chuck Hoberman, and companies, or segements of companies, such as Arup's, Buro-Happold or Price Myers 3D, and people like Rupert Soar up at Loughborough (to mention a few off the top of my head) that are all involved in exporing truly inspiring, and remarcably 'blue-sky' variations of ideas.
If a generic description of engineering could be defined as asking 'how' things could or should work, there are already a number of instances of people and project exploring simultaneously the question 'why' we're involved in such practices.
Such hybrid approaches to how we consider the things we do, processes that allow us to expand the parameters and general considerations into more multi-dimensional realms, can only be for the good...
The one commentator goes in the direction of existential and other largely godless approaches for his spirituality. Another direction might be to look back at the Greco-Roman moralists who were largely concerned with practical applications of ethics and the good life. Authors such as Cicero, Seneca, and Plutarch might resonate with practically oriented engineers and engineering students in the same measure that existentialists, phenomenologists, and worse would not. See Luke Timothy Johnson's course Practical Philosophy at the Teaching Company www.teach12.com.
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