Engineering in Context

A new book of collected essays, 'Engineering in Context' was launched at Engineers Ireland on July 2 and 3 at a symposium with the same title. The full programme for the event is here.

I was invited to speak at the symposium, and chose the topic 'Making Fun: How Engineering Influences Leisure'. I wanted to look at the ways that engineering and society interrelate, looking both at how engineering shapes our wants, needs and desires and how our wants, needs and desires influence the path of engineering. I think this interplay is interesting, because it highlights just how sensitive engineering is to social context. In the philosophy of science, it is usually assumed that if science is taken to be sensitive to social context then it cannot succeed in describing the objective truth about reality - that is to say, assuming that science is formed in part by social factors leads to a kind of relativism. In engineering this is not so. Engineering is about making things that work, and whether or not an artifact works depends crucially on both the objective nature of reality and its laws, and the level of human interest and need for the artifact.

I am currently polishing up the paper, and hope to post a version here soon.