Reviewed by:

• Steps toward a Philosophy of Engineering: Historico-Philosophical and Critical Essays by Carl Mitcham
• Cyrus C. M. Mody (bio)

Steps toward a Philosophy of Engineering: Historico-Philosophical and Critical Essays By Carl Mitcham. London: Rowman and Littlefield International, 2020. Pp. 466.

Philosophy has many specialties: the "traditional ethics-politics-epistemology-ontology fourfold" of Western philosophy as well as narrower "regionalizations" such as bioethics or the philosophies of science, language, mind, religion, art, etc. (p. 352). One region that was missing from the philosophical map until recently—and is still hardly colored in—is the philosophy of engineering. Sure, many universities offer engineering ethics courses, and there is a long tradition of philosopher-engineers such as Walter Vincenti. But philosophers interested in what engineers do—well, that's a select group.

No one has done more to put engineering on philosophy's map than [End Page 602] Carl Mitcham, both through his own writing and teaching and via tireless institution-building and collaboration. The present volume collects some of those writings (several of them co-authored) as a kind of survey of the field of philosophy of engineering. As the book's title hints, philosophy of engineering is still so new—especially compared to philosophy of science and even philosophy of technology—that any overview must be fragmentary, tentative, and tangled. Anyone looking for a synoptic presentation of the philosophy of engineering will have to wait. But as an introduction to a terra incognita, this collection of Mitcham's essays is a clearly-written, generous, and thoughtful guide. In other words, the volume as a whole should be assigned reading in graduate and advanced undergraduate courses, and some of the individual essays can go on syllabi for introductory or survey courses with an ENG, PHIL, STS, or HUMA prefix.

As a book to read cover-to-cover, Steps toward a Philosophy of Engineering possesses both the charms and tics of any collection of previously published essays. There is, for instance, a fair bit of repetition. In particular, Thomas Tredgold's definition of engineering is offered at least six separate times. Not that repetition is all bad—some of Mitcham's points are planted in one essay and bloom in another. The essays also sometimes lurch from one topic to something entirely different, reflecting Mitcham's diverse interests. Thankfully, the conclusion summarizes all the chapters and shows how they relate to each other. Several chapters end with strange codas, perhaps to set them apart from their published versions. Some are quite interesting—for example, one on Harry Truman's penchant for Hegel—but others are rather elusive. Finally, I have to note that the copyediting is mediocre, especially in the later essays. Whomever Rowman and Littlefield assigned did not do a job worthy of this volume.

Mitcham's starting point is the observation that engineering is philosophically "inadequate." That is, whatever philosophical definition of engineering you choose, it has something to do with the social good, and yet critical understandings of the social good and how to contribute to it are almost entirely missing from engineering's technical canon and curriculum. This may or may not separate engineering from other professions—Mitcham makes that claim but then very generously offers (and mostly defers to) David Goldberg's counterargument. Either way, engineering sorely needs a critical perspective on its aims and conduct; and that requires engagement with philosophy, science and technology studies, and other fields comprising the interdisciplinary constellation of engineering studies. History is in that mix; Mitcham is a fan of this journal, and several essays survey the history of concepts and movements such as sustainable development, humanitarianism, and engineering ethics, sometimes via crossnational comparisons.

Mitcham explores various ways of overcoming engineering's philosophical inadequacy by offering various critical analyses of concepts like [End Page 603] "energy," "policy," and more. But the theme that runs throughout is what he calls engineering plus respicere—the obligation for engineers to take more into account and acknowledge the limits of technical knowledge. The profession's military roots and managerial responsibilities mean...

审核人：

• 迈向工程哲学的步骤：卡尔·米查姆的历史哲学和批判性论文
• 赛勒斯CM么（生物）

迈向工程哲学的步骤：卡尔·米查姆 (Carl Mitcham) 的历史哲学和批判性论文。伦敦：Rowman 和 Littlefield International，2020 年。Pp。466.

哲学有许多专长：西方哲学的“传统伦理-政治-认识论-本体论四重”以及更狭隘的“区域化”，如生物伦理学或科学、语言、心灵、宗教、艺术等哲学（第 352 页） ）。直到最近，哲学地图中还缺少一个领域——而且仍然几乎没有着色——是工程哲学。当然，许多大学都提供工程伦理课程，而且像沃尔特文森蒂这样的哲学家工程师有着悠久的传统。但是哲学家们对工程师的工作感兴趣——嗯，这是一个精选的群体。

没有人比[End Page 602] Carl Mitcham 通过他自己的写作和教学以及通过不懈的机构建设和合作，在哲学地图上做了更多的工作。本卷收集了其中一些著作（其中一些是合着的）作为对工程哲学领域的一种调查。正如这本书的标题所暗示的那样，工程哲学仍然如此新——尤其是与科学哲学甚至技术哲学相比——任何概述都必须是零碎的、试探性的和纠结的。任何人寻找的概要介绍了工程的理念，将不得不等待。但作为对未知土地的介绍，这本 Mitcham 的散文集是一本清晰、慷慨且深思熟虑的指南。换句话说，整个卷应该在研究生和高级本科课程中分配阅读，并且一些单独的论文可以作为带有 ENG、PHIL、STS 或 HUMA 前缀的介绍或调查课程的教学大纲。

作为一本从头到尾阅读的书，迈向工程哲学的步骤拥有任何以前发表的论文集的魅力和抽搐。例如，有相当多的重复。尤其是，托马斯·特雷德戈尔德 (Thomas Tredgold) 对工程学的定义至少被提供了六次。并不是说重复就全是坏事——Mitcham 的一些观点植根于一篇文章并在另一篇文章中绽放。这些文章有时也会从一个话题转向完全不同的话题，反映了米切姆的不同兴趣。值得庆幸的是，结论总结了所有章节，并显示了它们之间的关系。几章以奇怪的结尾结尾，也许是为了将它们与已发布的版本区分开来。有些非常有趣——例如，一个关于哈里杜鲁门对黑格尔的偏爱——但其他的则相当难以捉摸。最后，我要指出的是，文案编辑很一般，尤其是在后来的论文中。Rowman 和 Littlefield 指派的任何人都没有完成与这本书相称的工作。

Mitcham 的出发点是观察到工程学在哲学上“不足”。也就是说，无论您选择何种工程的哲学定义，它都与社会公益有关，但工程的技术规范和课程几乎完全没有对社会公益以及如何为之做出贡献的批判性理解。这可能会也可能不会将工程与其他职业分开——Mitcham 提出了这一主张，但随后非常慷慨地提供了（并且主要是遵从）David Goldberg 的反驳。无论哪种方式，工程都非常需要对其目标和行为的批判性观点；这需要参与哲学、科学和技术研究，以及包括跨学科工程研究群的其他领域。历史就是这样。

Mitcham 通过对[End Page 603] “能源”、“政策”等概念的各种批判性分析，探索了克服工程哲学不足的各种方法。但贯穿始终的主题是他所谓的工程加respicere——工程师有义务更多地考虑和承认技术知识的局限性。该职业的军事根源和管理职责意味着……