What do bridges and software tell us about the philosophy of engineering?

Viola Schiaffonati, Mario Verdicchio

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

    Abstract

    One of the challenges in the emergent field of philosophy of engineering is to understand its position relative to philosophy of science. The call for a rigorous experimental methodology that has affected several fields in engineering should not make us equate good experimentation with traditional scientific experimentation. We have reason to believe that the primary role of artifacts and the human factor introduced by their designers affect the nature of experiments in engineering research and differentiate them from the traditional scientific method. We carry out our analysis with a specific focus on software engineering, a field in which the level of attention for scientific rigor in experiments has become very high in recent years.
    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationPhilosophy of Engineering, East and West
    EditorsCarl Mitcham, Bocong Li, Byron Newberry, Baicung Zhang
    PublisherSpringer International Publishing AG
    Pages137-148
    Number of pages12
    Edition1
    ISBN (Electronic)978-3-319-62450-1
    ISBN (Print)978-3-319-62448-8
    DOIs
    Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 7 Feb 2018

    Publication series

    NameBoston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science
    PublisherSpringer International Publishing
    Volume330
    ISSN (Print)0068-0346

    Keywords

    • Software Engineering
    • Philosophy of Technology
    • philosophy of science
    • experimental method
    • experimental testing

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