Abstract: Dias

Prof. Priyan Dias – University of Moratuwa, Moratuwa, Sri Lanka

“Constructing a Philosophy of Engineering”

Although the Philosophy of Science is now a well-established discipline, there is litte if any literature on the Philosophy of Engineering. This research attempts to draw out the relevance of four 20th century philosophers to engineering. The philosophers chosen are Popper, Kuhn, Polanyi and Heidegger. While engineering is rooted in science, the study will highlight the points of departure that engineering makes from science, especially through an exploration of the concept of design in its widest sense. It is also shown that one of the ways in which an engineering philosophy can be reinforced among its practitioners is by providing them with (computerized) tools for capturing, structuring and processing practitioner knowledge and experience to complement the scientific “number crunching” tools they are already conversant with.

Priyan Dias is a Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka and currently a visiting Fulbright Senior Scholar at Carnegie-Mellon University’s Institute for Complex Engineered Systems. Although his doctoral degree from Imperial College, London (in 1986) was in Concrete Structures, his research interests now also include Artificial Intelligence Applications and Philosophy of Engineering.