The enigma of the engineerHero of the industrial revolution: mere henchman in an age of science

O.H. Critchley, MSc, PhD, CEng, FIEE

Indexing terms: Engineering and society, Engineering administration and management, History, Philosophy for technology

Abstract: The fall of the engineer from the placeof adulation that he shared with the illustrioussavants when technology was the force that moti-vated the industrial revolution is attributed to thechanging needs of Empire when Britain turnedfrom the exploitation of science in technology tothe immediately richer rewards of imperialism.Although Britain is once again dependent on tech-nology and innovation in her industries, the con-sequent rise of the engineer cannot be automatic.Instead, he must fight his way back to the top andfor this he needs the inspiration and strength thatcan only be given by a unique philosophy for hisprofession, thereby taking a leaf from the books ofthe long established and honourable vocations ofadministration, law and medicine.

1 Engineering and the 'curse of Xenophon'

It has become commonplace to name technology as thetrue basis of the ascendancy of western civilisation, whiledecrying the relatively lowly status of the engineer as hermidwife. Although despised in antiquity, he rose to highesteem during the industrial revolution in company withthe illustrious savants of the time. Nonetheless, in thisage of science he has become a functionary, 'on tap, butnot on top'.

The demise of engineering prestige is attributable tothe shift of Britain's national interest, from wealth cre-ation through industrial achievement during the indus-trial revolution [circa 1760-1850], to the political task ofmanaging the great British Empire which its technologi-cal strength had won.

How then does engineering create and dispense tech-nology? It is by the practice of that essential skill which,according to many eminent engineers and, not least, thelate Lord Hinton of Bankside [1], is

'not science per se, but the scientific art of using thefindings of science to meet the needs of the com-munity'.

(Excerpt from 'Engineering' in the Report of the FacultyCommittee on Design, MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA, 1956[2].)

Paper 6015A (M2) received 18th December 1986The author is at The Old Manse', 29 Polton Road, Loanhead, Mid-lothian EH20 9BU, United Kingdom

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It seems that the denigration by Xenophon (444-354 BC), the great statesman/general of ancient Greece,still lies as a curse on engineering and in his words:

'What are called the mechanical arts carry a socialstigma and are rightly dishonoured in our cities. Fur-thermore, the workers in these trades ... are lookedupon as bad friends and bad patriots.'

(Alan L. Mackay: 'The harvest of the quiet eye'. Instituteof Physics, London, 1977, p. 165.)

It was echoed by Seneca (4 BC-65 AD), nearly 500years later, when he described the very considerable tech-nical achievements made in ancient Rome, such as trans-parent window glass, central heating by ducted flue gasesand a shorthand for scribes, as inventions created by'drudgery worthy only of the lowest of slaves' {ibidemp. 135).

Even more recently, after decades of slow progresswhen engineering had achieved recognition as a learnedprofessional discipline, Eric (Lord) Ashby could make thefollowing observation:

'And so the crude engineers, the mere technologists,are tolerated in the universities because the State andindustry are willing to finance them. Tolerated, butnot assimilated, for the traditional don is not willingto admit that technologists may have anything to con-tribute to academic life.'

(Eric Ashby: 'Technology and the academics'(MacMillan, London, 1966), p. 66.)

The engineer is thus still tainted with an 'oilcan image',not so much as a mechanic in a soiled boiler suit, but asan individual existing in an unloved outgroup in themanner described by C.P. Snow in his famous and con-troversial Rede lecture on 'the two cultures' [3].

2 An odd interlude of fame

Compared with the discontents due to his indifferentpresent-day status, the engineer enjoyed a brief period ofadulation during the industrial revolution when the'curse of Xenophon' seems to have been lifted. Aninstance of those auspicious times may be seen in thehalls of the Institution of Civil Engineers and of theRoyal Institution where hang copies of a compositepicture drawn in 1862 by J.F. Skill (see Fig. 1), aneminent engraver of the time. The Times described it as'an appropriate monument to our greatest scientific

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epoch'. As reproduced in the Figure and its key, it por-trays an imaginary assemblage of the most distinguishedsavants and engineers who were alive in the years 1807-1808. Among them stand such figures as Henry Caven-dish, Joseph Bramah, Sir. W. Hershell, Dr. EdwardJenner, Thomas Telford and Richard Trevithic. The

('Memoirs of the distinguished men of science in GreatBritain living in the years 1807-1808' (W. Walker andSon, London, 1862).)

Those confident men of science and the engineersamong them saw themselves as integral with the intellec-tual activity of the time, but the very technology for

Fig. 1 The distinguished men of science and technology of Great Britain in 1807-18081 Francis Baily2 William J. Frodsham3 Sir John Leslie4 Prof. J. Playfair5 Dr. Daniel Rutherford6 Peter Dollond7 Sir William Herschel8 Dr. Nevil Maskelyne9 Dr. Edward Jenner

10 Dr. Thomas Young11 Robert Brown12 Da vies Giddy Gilbert13 Sir Joseph Banks

14 Capt. Henry Kater15 William Smith16 Edward C. Howard17 William Allen18 Hon. Henry Cavendish19 Dr. William Henry20 Dr. W.H. Wollaston21 Charles Hatchett22 Sir Humphry Davy23 John Dalton24 Sir M.I. Brunei25 Matthew Boulton26 Henry Maudsley

27 Sir Sam Bentham28 Bishop Watson29 Capt. J. Huddart30 James Watt31 Thomas Telford32 Count Rumford33 William Murdoch34 Kohn Rennie35 William Chapman36 William Jefson37 Robert Mylane38 Sir William Congreve39 Samuel Compton

40 Bryan Donkin41 Edward Troughton42 Dr. Thomas Thomson43 Charles Tennant44 Dr. Edmund Cartwright45 Francis Ronalds46 William Symington47 Patrick Miller48 Alexander Nasmyth49 Charles Earl Stanhope50 Joseph Bramah of whom there

is no portrait extant51 Richard Trevithick

picture inspired Robert Hunt, FRS, a notable scientificpublicist of the time to write the following:

'We look at the group of fifty-one thoughtful men,. . .every face telling its tale of penetrating power — everybrow heavy with the intensity of Brain-Force activewithin it — and we learn to reverence, and to lovethose gifted mortals . . . (for the outcome of) . . . theirthought and powers of mind. Thought (that) has madethe subtile element of the thunderstorm its mostobedient messenger,. . . subdued the wild influences offire to propel our carriages of trains with birdlikespeed, and to urge in proud independence of windsand tides our noble ships from shore-to-shore (and soon).'

which their discoveries provided the basis was changingthe nature of the civilisation of which they were part.

All this was in a time under the spell of a supremelyconfident world view of the objectives of science whichthat present day historian of science, David Knight, hasdescribed as

' . . . a period before the disciplines became alienatedfrom one another when scientist, clergyman, writerand artist still spoke a common cultural language andwhen science was ambitious, cocksure of progress andits hegenomic role as the Church Scientific'

(That certain time in history', Nature, 6th November1986, 324, p. 28.)

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2.1 A scientist of a new kindAs inspection of Skill's picture (Fig. 1) suggests there wasthen little to distinguish engineer from savant, and bothshared the esteem in which science was held. Despitethat, a differentiation was in progress and, as AugusteComte [4] the eminent contemporary French 'socio-logue' observed in his 1825 study of the changes thatwere then occurring in society, a new class was emergingin the scientific body. They were 'the engineers as distinctfrom the savants, properly so-called', whose task it was tointerpret and apply the discoveries of the latter, formingthereby a link between scientific research and the entre-preneurs of industry. This is depicted in Fig. 2 which

humanities(letters, law, ethics,philosophy, religion,ideologies and the arts"

science(researchanddiscovery)

commerce(wealth creation)'

engineering(invention, design,artifact andsystems creation)

medical sciences(medicine andhealth care)

Fig. 2 The five branches of culture: the humanities, science, medicalsciences, engineering and commerce

shows engineering standing equal with the traditionalpillars of western culture, identified as the humanities,science, medicine and commerce, the latter being thecentre of the whole structure. Furthermore, it followsfrom Hinton's definition of engineering (see Section 1)that applied science embraces by implication a widerange of disciplines, a few of the more prominent of thembeing listed in Table 1.

Between the defeat of Napoleon (1815) and the out-break of the First World War (1914), Britain stoodastride the world as an industrial colossus with corre-sponding economic, military and political strength.Praise in The Times for Skill's picture and Hunt's eulogy(supra) were, in effect, 'official' acknowledgments of thecentral contribution the engineer had made to this greatnational achievement.

2.2 The price of EmpireBy 1870 the approbation which science and its applica-tions had enjoyed earlier was rapidly waning as thenation's leaders and upper classes generally sought thericher and more prestigious rewards of imperialism.However, in its preoccupation with the Empire, thenational Establishment overlooked the fact that thenecessary economic strength, and the military authorityneeded to continue to enjoy its fruits in the long term,required a strong industrial base sustained by tech-nology : and the name of the game was, and still is, engin-eering.

There was a concomitant loss of support for the pre-viously favoured mechanics institutes, as ThomasArnold's famous prescription for 'the education of themiddling classes' [5] was enthusiastically taken up. Bythe end of the 19th century, the institutes were almostextinct. Their primacy had been lost to grammar schools

Table 1 : Technology — the application through industry ofknowledge, particularly scientific knowledge, has its pro-ductive outcome from the interactions among all fivebranches of culture, but especially those between science(research and discovery) and engineering (invention, designand the creation of artefacts and systems) as mediated bycommerce (wealth creation)Salient among the topics, disciplines and practices peculiar to themare:

Sciencemathematicsastronomycosmologychemistryphysicsgeographyphysiography

psychologybiologybiotechnology

information science

meteorologymetrology

nuclear scienceshealth physics

Commercebusiness operationsfinancebankingstock marketscommodity exchangeinsurance

publicitypublishing

manufacturingservice industriescommunicationstransportationminingagriculture

Engineeringdesignarchitecturemodellinginformation technologiescontrolinstrumentation

inspectionquality assurancereliabilitysafetyoccupational hygiene

plant engineeringconstructionoperationproductionquality control

NB. The above list is far from complete. Certain topics and themodes of interaction with the generalist disciplines are lacking. Innuclear engineering, the work of a senior professional may oftenpertain to insurance, law and public administration in conjunctionwith his own specialisms. (See Fig. 3 and Section 7: 'trans-science'.)

where classics and the humanities were taught, replacingthe elements of engineering and the useful arts. But, theschools were then being called on to provide clerks, officeboys, potential district officers, midshipmen and sub-alterns instead of those embryonic engineers from whoseranks sprang more than a few of the great namesenshrined in Skill's picture (Fig. 1). The effect on therising generation was profound, and one foreseen byAlexander Pope (1688-1744) when he wrote

"Tis education forms the common mind,Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined.'

('Moral essays'. Epistle I, lines 150-151.)

And, thus, engineering lost its appeal to the literateyoung and the vocation suffered a consequent decline insocial standing. Likewise, the worldwide acclaimaccorded to British engineering and the products of ourindustries won at the great London exhibition of 1851was not repeated in Paris at the international tradeexhibition of 1867. On the relatively poor performance ofBritain at the latter, Lyon Playfair reported to LordTaunton, Chairman of the School Inquiry Commission(percursor to the Education Act 1870), that

'Many eminent men of many nations showed a similaraccordance that Britain had made little progress in thepeaceful arts of industry and her goods showed little ofthe earlier inventiveness.'

('Report relative to technical education'. Reports to theCommissioners, Parliamentary Papers 1867-1869,Vol. XXVIII, Pt 1 (see also The Times, p. 5, May 29,1867).)

3 A renaissance for the engineer

Today, the once glorious Empire is a thing of the pastand Britain is again dependent on her industrial base,

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despite the persisting illusion of prosperity attributable tothe activities of the city supported by a service economy.And, that base can only be revitalised by a resurgenttechnology. Moreover, in an age marked by ever-increasing complexity and sophistication in that tech-nology and the science from which it is derived, theengineer is fated to emerge once again as the centralfigure in any rebirth of Britain's industrial prowess. He isaptly fitted to stand athwart 'pure administration'(Section 4, second paragraph) and theory on the onehand and expertise and practice in the pursuit of thatrenaissance on the other (see Fig. 3). Furthermore, recentfindings in neuropsychology suggest that the engineer'sintellect is peculiarly adapted to solve the daunting prob-lems associated with advancing technologies (see Section5 and Section 5.1). Strangely, despite the essential part itmust play in this present scientific age, engineering hasregained little of its earlier repute.

3.1 Unravelling the enigmaThe anomaly of the relatively low status of engineers hasevoked much interest of recent years, being the subject ofseveral official inquiries, the most notable being chairedby Sir Monte Finniston [6]. The favoured explanationsand remedies, many and diverse, tend to be associatedwith the profession's reputed reluctance to proclaim itsworth. Indeed, an aim of the recently created EngineeringCouncil is to make good this failing, an initiative that hasyet to demonstrate its success. Albeit, engineers are nodoubt largely the victims of their own reticence, but thatis too simple an answer. The cause of the malaise liesdeeper, and is probably in the constitution of westernsociety itself. If so, the reasons are less than obvious.

It is not improbable that the engineer is really morefeared than despised, because he is the agent of socialchange. More often than not major technical advanceshave had an adverse effect on specific social groups. Theprinting press made possible the spread of learning inEurope that preceded the turbulent revolutions of the18th and 19th centuries. The handloom weavers ofEngland tried to break the hated machines which weretheir ruin. Today, the once cosseted printers of FleetStreet riot in protest against the loss of jobs in a tradeoutdated by the new information technology. Technologyacts on the economic fabric of a community, alteringemployment patterns and dominance hierarchies, ofteninsidiously. The intercontinental submarine cable andship-to-shore wireless telegraphy undercut the indepen-dence of sea captains, depriving those in merchant ship-ping of a lucrative private source of wealth gained frominformal trading.

The extraordinary ability of the computer to store andorder information and, by no means least, the power ofthe word processor to enhance literary skills enable thebusy professional to marshall his stores of informationand to write with clarity and despatch. In consequence,much of the clerical and office organisation needed tosupport him may before long become redundant. It is notunreasonable to suggest that, by its very nature, tech-nology can be sensed as a vague menace to the stabilityof society, engendering hostility towards those thought tobe responsible.

4 The rise and fall of 'pure administration'

As suggested earlier, a seminal and highly significant con-sequence of modern technological progress is that the

engineer is set to move into higher management at theexpense of the generalist. Whereas undisputed sway inmatters of policy making has long been exercised byadministration officials and generalist directors in theboardroom, their prerogatives are becoming less assured.It may well be that a premonition of this incipient changehas induced a reaction that is working to the disadvan-tage of the engineering profession. For instance, dispar-agements seem to be in progress that aim at an artificialdivorce between certain complex and superior technicalfunctions and the policy in which they have to becarried out. The trend has recently been augmented. Forexample, in the NHS competent and broadly based man-agement committees are being replaced by, or subordi-nated to, a single executive official. Again, in the area ofpublic administration, policy units are being set up in theadministration line of management which are takingaway, or otherwise limiting, the authority and initiativesformerly exercised by engineers and other professionals.

The nature of 'pure administration' was approvinglydescribed by Bertrand Russell [7] as 'application of thekind of skill required at the top which is always the samebe it in the retailing of domestic commodities, the man-agement of a large industrial undertaking, exploration ofremote areas of the world or the organisation of interna-tional trade'. He saw it as a skill that needed no knowl-edge of those things whatever their technical nature, bethey groceries, motor engine crankshafts, oil, high moun-tains or transportation.

It would be idle to deny the need for outstandingorganising abilities in top management and Russell hadthis in mind. In his times a gifted administrator ignorantof the relevant technology could rapidly acquire thoseelements of a technical process necessary to get by suc-cessfully. But that was in the world of a few decades ago,when such things were relatively simple or had long beenstable in their technical constitution, say in retail market-ing, marine, rail and road transport and postal services.That certain skill which Russell identified is a compoundof high intelligence, fluency in expression, will power, acharismatic personality, aggressive energy and doggeddetermination [8]. Although a less than common gift, itis not a talent exclusive to the generalist. Then, howmuch more successful would be the person at the top ifalso endowed with engineering or other appropriate pro-fessional capabilities?

In brief, 'pure administration' is proving unable tomeet the challenge it faces from the new technologies,and must give way to the professional who possesses 'thekind of skill' that Bertrand Russell held to be required at'the top'.

5 Engineering and full use of the brain

The administrative public servant or generalist businessexecutive can properly claim that 'words are his pro-fession'. Such work can be described as 'ideation' and itsproduct, which may be called 'the word', is of the natureof orders, directions, instructions, minutes and regula-tions. On the other hand, the work of the artisan, crafts-man, mechanic or technician is 'the deed' by which thecommands and prescripts of 'the word' are effected [9].In the times of Russell (supra), instructions from 'theword' in matters technical could still be passed in simpleterms for implementation by 'the deed'. However, theadvance of science and technology has made this transfer

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of information increasingly difficult and frequently ineffi-cient, if not impossible. It is the cause of the growingintellectual gulf depicted diagrammatically by Fig. 3 andsubcaption (ii).

ideation(the word)

(i)

technician and artisan skills

artefact creation(the deed)

Fig. 3 The widening disjunction between the theoretic realm of admin-istration and its associated pursuits and vocations and the pragmaticdomain of technology with its crafts and skills

(i) The role of engineering: Disjunction between the 'word' and 'deed' spanned bythe union of their specialities through engineering. NB Technical complexity pro-portional to the area of the sector OPQ.(ii) Owing to the growth of knowledge: As technology becomes ever more sophis-ticated with the advance of science, so the gulf between theory (the word) andpractice (the deed) widens accordingly.

defined. Despite the mystery sometimes associated withit, engineering judgment is no more than the engineer'sacute, vocationally enriched faculty of common sense,that is to say

'Plain, ordinary good judgement tempered by a criticalfaculty of mind that tests concepts for congruence withlearnt knowledge, previous experience and the corpusof commonly held beliefs and persuasions and person-al predilection. The faculty is, nonetheless, self-correcting by the evolution of new knowledgevalidated by further experience.'

(O.H. Critchley: 'A new treatment of low probabilityevents'. British Library, Doc. Supply Centre, Boston Spa,Wetherby, W. Yorks, LS23 7BQ, SIGLE D70836/86,Glossary, p. 10.)

Engineering judgment enables those who possess it tobe singularly efficacious in perception of the essentials ofa given situation and, as a consequence, their ability totreat certain technical problems is enhanced. Such prob-lems arise when designs and specifications for the con-struction and operation of plants and systems conceivedin the theoretical environment of the boardroom ordesign office have to be realised in practical situations onthe shop floor, test bench or in operational site reality. Incontrast, the 'pure administrator' is constrained to workat a distance through subordinates whom he mustassume to be technically competent, thereby lacking theengineer's contact with reality in both theory and prac-tice.

5.1 'Engineering judgment'As noted above, an outstanding, although characteristic,property of the engineering intellect is its conceptualability to span the gulf between 'the word' and 'the deed'and to work efficaciously across it. This is in accord witha long and widely held opinion that an engineer'sapproach to problem solving differs fundamentally fromthat of those people whose workday concerns are in thedomain of 'the word'. It has been given adventitioussupport by Trevor Kletz [10], whose safety stewardshipof a large ICI petrochemical installation required him towork across the disciplines. It seems that those whosevocations are in the liberal arts category preponderantlyuse those left-brain faculties which govern analytical,logical, mathematical and linguistic skills [11, 12]. Onthe other hand, technologists and those engaged in theuseful arts rely on the creative, intuitive, subjective,simultaneous and synthesising processes at which theright hemisphere is adept [13]. Besides, for fluentexpression and application of the ideas that emerge in thedomain of engineering science, the right brain uses ideo-graphic forms to supplement the inadequacies of the lexi-cals. The grammar of engineering has acquired therebyan added dimension of intelligence through its ability touse in its language the information conveyed by dia-grams, graphs and other figures. Creative right-brainimagery and synthesis combine with the above analytic,logical and verbal competences of the left hemisphere[14]. The competent engineer is thus able to exercise anintegrated command of the potentialities of both hemi-spheres which enables him to reason and solve problemsin a powerful way not open to the disciplines of 'theword'. During his technological education, subsequentvocational training and work experience, he acquires aspecial intellectual skill widely known as 'engineeringjudgment'. Although the term is much used, it is seldom

6 Problems facing western civilisation

Western civilisation is currently in crisis. Industries thatonce led the world are in decay, hamstrung by com-petition from the East. Unemployment runs into tens ofmillions, budget deficits and trade imbalances rate in bil-lions of dollars and famines decimate nations in theThird World while vast surpluses of food moulder inwarehouses in Europe and America. And all this is hap-pening in the face of a triumphant technology able tocreate prosperity on a scale previously unknown.

Technology, which has liberated man in the Occidentfrom the barbarities of the past and the oppression offeudalism, can be equally effective in rescuing him fromthe present crisis. It cannot rekindle the fires of defunctindustries nor give the power to compete with the regi-mented mass-production industries of the East. It canutilise instead the innate creative energy, initiatives andoriginality for which Britain was once famed, applyingthem to the development of new products, services andsystems. There is no doubt that to pursue such a coursewould drastically modify our conventional ways of lifeand the employment patterns of the western nations, butno other feasible way forward seems open.

6.1 Reinstating the engineer at 'the top'Technology is the use of science through engineering inthe service of mankind. Paramount requirements for thesuccess of any program for renewal of our industrial baseare the competence and dedication of the engineers whohave to implement a given program. The necessary orderof commitment will not so readily be given unless theyare responsible for its technical direction and accountablefor its progress. That means a management hierarchywith engineers 'at the top'. Despite that, the present dep-recation of the engineer in society, which has been the

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subject of earlier comment, stands in the way of such pre-ferment.

The time has come for the engineer to cast off thespells of Xenophon and Seneca and take his proper placein the echelons of senior management, particularly inthose positions where the nature of the country's indus-trial future is being determined. A lead has come from SirAlan Cottrell [15] in his call for 'the voices of engineers'to be heard in the discussion of public affairs and notonly in matters technical.

6.2 Overcoming the societal impedimentsUnfortunately, for those who move up in the social hier-archy, there are others who must come down. Entrenchedprivilege is never surrendered as an act of good will andstructural changes will inevitably be opposed. Thebureaucracy by its very nature can give little help. Theengineer must then strive to achieve his destiny, claimingentry to the appropriate level of authority by confidentdemonstration of his professional competence and jobsuitability. But, these things are not enough in themselvesbecause entry into or preferment within the target organ-isation turns, not only on possession of such qualities,but on the corporate staffing policy and on the criteriaused for candidate choice. The latter determinants areinfluenced by the traditional concept of the proper roleand status of the engineer in society.

Ambition per se cannot overcome identification withan outgroup of inferior standing. Hence, the image of theengineer in society must be changed. In this connection,Berger and Luckman [16] have pointed out that theimage of a distinctive body of experts, in our case theengineers, is formed by the way in which they are apper-ceived by the public. People see the engineer as a special-ist, judging him according to the observed perfection ofhis work and the confidence that he inspires. That con-fidence is a projection of his self-image. The latter is fash-ioned, not only by personal pride in command of hisprofessional knowledge and skills, but by the prestige ofthe exclusive specialist social group to which he belongsand by which he is identified. G. Tolley in his essay'Higher education and the professions' [17] noted thatthey all possess

(a) systematic theory,(b) authority,(c) community sanction,(d) ethical codes and(e) a culture.

Group confidence of this kind is inspired by the cohesiveprofessional Weltanschauung so characteristic of the lawand medicine. It is the kind of confidence shown in thefaces that appear in J.F. Skill's 1862 picture. These menwere, no doubt, adherents of the 'Church Scientific' (lastparagraph of Section 2), that in its time provided a uni-fying philosophy by which they knew themselves, oneanother and their place in society. But gone are the cer-tainties that Newtonian mechanics, the Dalton atom andthe physics of Boyle had so assuredly established. Thoserocks of faith were overwhelmed by a rising tide of doubtfed by the mysteries of Einstein's relativity, quantumchemistry, wave mechanics, the uncertainties of life andnature exposed by probability and the chaos in ethicsbrought about by the First World War. Moreover,today's engineers are bereft of any cohesive vocationalcreed. As yet, there is no philosophy of engineeringscience, and the existing philosophy of science is neitherappropriate nor adequate.

7 Towards a philosophy for engineering

Philosophy may be described as a system of ideas createdout of attempts by the human brain to understand thenature of the reality outside its locus of consciousnessand the causes and principles of things, and, not least, ittries to understand itself. In a vocational sense, philos-ophy has to do with the purpose, ethics, obligations tothe community, duties and standards to be observedwithin a given group of experts, and, last but not least,preservation of the morale of that group. Such a schoolof thought will of necessity be influenced by the culture ofwhich the group forms a part. This might seem to raise adifficulty in the case of engineering, because the disciplineis not fully accepted in the conventional culture of Britishsociety (penultimate paragraph of Section 1). However,that may be more illusory than real.

There are reasons why a philosophy of engineeringwill be of a different genre from the accepted westernschools. The latter are of Aristotelian origin, beingmainly the product of left-brain activity as suggested bySkoyles [11]. His thesis gains support from the salientplace that such things as formal logic, epistemology andethics take in the schools of western philosophy. Thesethings are ideas from the realm of 'the word', with scantattention being paid to the materialism of appliedscience. Contrariwise, a philosophy of engineering, farfrom eschewing the theories of knowledge, would be athing of 'the deed' which is ruled by the right brain. Itwould, therefore, embrace both areas of cerebral activity,combining the thought patterns characteristic of each. Byidentifying philosophy as a higher order creation of thehuman brain in its cultural melee, Patricia SmithChurchland [13] proceeds to give it a conceptual outlinein the following terms:

'Such a synoptic vision, transcending disciplinaryboundaries but informed by the relevant disciplines,testing the integrity of the governing paradigm andinvestigating alternatives, is philosophy.. . . Moreover,discoveries in neuroscience will undoubtedly changeout of all recognition a host of orthodoxies beloved inphilosophy'.

An important factor in its genesis is that much of an engi-neer's work lies in the 'ambiguous junction betweenscience and society' that Alvin Weinberg [18] named'trans-science', where politics and the irrationalities ofhuman behaviour can prevail over the logic of scientificmethod and there are few precise answers to problems.

The required philosophy might then be expected to berealist and allied to the early pragmatism of CharlesSanders Peirce [19, 20], the American scientist, logicianand philosopher, which he propounded in the latter partof the last century. Much of its terminology and many ofits concepts will be derived from the empirical wisdomlearnt by engineer, technician and craftsman, from experi-ence of the design office, shop floor, construction site andcontrol room. Elements of it already exist in the theory ofdesign which has attracted recent attention, in which areaone can mention the contributions of Professors M.C. deMalherbe [2] and Bruce Archer [21]. Further pursuit ofthe topic involves profundities beyond the scope of thistext.

7.1 Application to real situationsThe problems that could be addressed in the context ofthe envisaged philosophy of engineering are legion, and

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are not only of a scientific and technical orientation.Among a few topical interests are:

(a) A zero-infinity dilemma: A decision situation inwhich the risk is indefinitely small, unquantifiable andnotionally zero, but the consequences of a catastrophicfailure would be ruinous in economic, environmental orhuman terms and are therefore infinite. The dilemma isnot uncommon in nuclear power, aerospace activities,transportation and certain intimate human choices.

(b) Automatic control versus the operator: Control ofthis kind has become so sophisticated that, in manycases, the operator has no duty other than to be a watch-man. But what happens when the plant or system fails todanger? Should the operator intervene or an automaticdamage control program take over?

(c) Exposure to risk to save life: To what extent may aperson be put in jeopardy by exposure to a lethal hazardin order to save the life of another?

8 Summary

The part played by the engineer, as midwife to tech-nology in western society, has been examined against itshistorical background. Although long enduring a rela-tively lowly rank in the social hierarchy, the engineertransiently enjoyed pride of place among the eminentsavants during the first half of the 19th century. Thiscame with the remarkable success of Britain's industrialrevolution, which was due to the efficacious exploitationof a creative science by a series of outstanding engineers,an achievement duly recognised by society at the time.The subsequent decline in status followed the diversion ofnational interest from industry to Empire, when imperial-ism took precedance over technology.

Today, the Empire has gone and Britain is becomingever more dependent on its technology and thus on itsengineers. Despite that, the engineer will not rise auto-matically to his earlier eminence because he (or she) nowfaces entrenched opposition, whereas he entered a greenfield at the turn of the last century. Technology createshostility because it is an engine of change that destabi-lises the social structure. If the engineer is to take hisplace appropriately 'at the top', he (or she) must displaceexisting incumbents in the managerial hierarchies. Realis-ation that a change of the foregoing kind is in prospectinevitably evokes opposition.

As the expected social change proceeds, engineers arelikely to face increasing hostility and their upward mobil-ity is likely to be actively opposed. Group identity, theinspiration to go forward and the confidence to overcomethe obstacles ahead would be well served by a uniquevocational philosophy from which a cohesive and distinc-tive Weltanschauung could be structured. Not onlyshould it be a source of professional self-esteem, but onelikely to make it easier to secure public recognition of theengineer's importance in the community at large as well.This is the case for the great professions of public admin-istration, law and medicine, but unlike them no suchthing exists for engineering. An elementary attempt hasbeen made to fill the gap. It is suggested that the desiredphilosophy should be realist, taking account of the recentseminal developments in neuropsychology. It would havemuch to learn from the pragmatism that has been afeature of American thought, from the latter part of thelast century onwards. Again, it would incorporate, asappropriate, empirical wisdom deriving from engineeringpractice in the field. Three issues of topical relevance

have been cited to which such a philosophy might beapplied.

9 Acknowledgments

The views expressed and the conclusions drawn arebased on the author's lifetime of experience in scienceand technology. They are wholly his own and he takesfull responsibility for them. Nonetheless, he acknowledgeswith gratitude the constructive discussions that helped intheir formation, noting in particular those with his erst-while colleagues in the Nil and HSE, with Dr. P.Gummett and Dr. P. Price of the Departments of SciencePolicy and Government and of Nuclear Engineering,respectively, and with other academics during his fortu-nate tenure of a Simon Fellowship in the University ofManchester. He also wishes to recall with gratitude theencouragement he received from Professor F. Jevons ofthe then Department of Liberal Studies in Science andfrom Professor (emeritus) W. Hall of Nuclear Engineer-ing, whose sponsorships were instrumental in his beingawarded that Fellowship.

Moreover, he is indebted to Mr. E.C. Williams(deceased) and to Mr. Brian Harvey, one time ChiefInspectors of Nuclear Installations and of Factories,respectively, in the Health and Safety Executive whoarranged for his secondment. And last, but by no meansleast, he wishes to note help and encouragement he wasgiven by Professor M.M.R. Williams and Dr. J. Shawwho were, until recently, members of the Department ofNuclear Engineering, Queen Mary College, Univeristy ofLondon, during his time there as a mature part-timeresearch student.

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