INTRODUCTION TO PART IV

Sjoerd D. Zwart, associate editor

A crucial characteristic, and one that sets technology and the engineering sci-
ences apart from the natural sciences, is the fact that engineers are not only
concerned with the production side of knowledge for the sake of artifacts but also
with goal-oriented action based on that same knowledge. The engineering orienta-
tion towards action has important consequences for the philosophy of technology
and for the engineering sciences. These consequences are especially apparent in
Parts III, IV and V of this Handbook. Part III focuses on an important differ-
ence between science and technology in the form of design. Design has to do with
the construction of artifacts or technical processes. Part V is also very connected
to action because it deals with norms and values in technology and engineering.
These norms and values steer action. The present part of the Handbook, Part
IV, focuses on modeling in the engineering sciences. How is this modeling aspect
related to action, the reader might ask, since models and modeling have been sub-
stantially researched in the field of the philosophy of the natural sciences? And
how does the focus on action affect the character of engineering models and the
ways in which these models are produced and used?
Traditionally, philosophers of science discerned at least three important features
of models: the representational facet, the abstraction from details side, and finally
the goal or purpose of the model or the modeling activity (e.g., Stachowiak [1973,
p.131–132]). It is this last characteristic, the goal of a model, which might shed
light on the special character of engineering models, as in engineering the ultimate
purpose of modeling is to realize reliable artifacts or technical processes. This
contrasts substantially with the natural sciences where, conceptually at least, the
aim underlying the modeling activities is to gain knowledge for knowledge’s sake.
The practical aim of models in the engineering sciences will become apparent from
almost all the contributions included in Part IV. It especially comes to the fore
in the chapters on models as epistemic tools, model-based reasoning and scale
models.
Apart from the possible differences between modeling goals in the engineering
and the natural sciences, we have at least two other reasons for wanting to fo-
cus on modeling in the present part: the first relates to the disappearance of the
‘technology as applied science’ paradigm, and the second has to do with renewed
interest in the use and function of models in science. Traditionally, philosophers of
science took technology to be nothing more than applied science [Bunge, 1966] and
were therefore not very interested in the engineering sciences. Detailed research
into the history of technology carried out by, amongst others, Edwin Layton, John

Handbook of the Philosophy of Science. Volume 9: Philosophy of Technology and Engineering

Sciences.
Volume editor: Anthonie Meijers. General editors: Dov M. Gabbay, Paul Thagard and John
Woods.
c 2009 Elsevier BV. All rights reserved.
634 Sjoerd D. Zwart, associate editor

Staudenmaier and Walter Vincenti did, however, lead to the claim that techno-
logical knowlegde is relatively detached from scientific knowledge (see for more
details the chapter by Houkes in Part II of this Handbook). This independence
and autonomy challenged the notion that technology is an applied science and
urged philosophers of technology to open the black box and see for themselves
how engineering knowledge is generated. The second reason is the renewed in-
terest in the use and function of models involved in knowledge production. It all
started with [Morgan and Morrison, 1999] and it went on to produce many inter-
esting approaches to and unconventional views on the functions and uses of models
and modeling. Still, much of this renewed interest in models fails to consider the
distinction between specific engineering uses of models, such as design and artifact
behavior, and the use of models in the natural sciences. (See for a clear overview
[Frigg and Hartmann, 2006].) The focus of the present part on modeling in the
engineering sciences should therefore be contemplated against the background of
the two developments just sketched.
The eight chapters in Part IV revolve around three focal points concerning mod-
els: conceptual issues, empirical issues and methodological issues. In the first two
chapters, we address the conceptual issues surrounding the notion of a model. The
two chapters can be seen as complimentary. The first chapter is dedicated to an
historical overview of the notion of a model. There Roland Müller surveys the
range of entities known as models ranging from the tools that are used to support
manufacturing and design to various educational and mathematical models. In the
second chapter, Wilfrid Hodges provides a systematic analysis of functional model-
ing and mathematical models. He considers the role of semantic models serving as
intermediate entities between theories and systems in the case of various kinds of
scientific and engineering practices. One aspect of the renewed interest in models
has directly to do with the status of the semantic view of theories and the claim
that the semantic view disregards the autonomous character of models.
The second major focus of Part IV is on the use made of models by engineers
when they design or develop further understanding of technical phenomena. Mieke
Boon and Tarja Knuuttila conceive of models in the engineering sciences as epis-
temic tools and so present their approach as an alternative to the semantic view
of models. From their pragmatic perspective the authors focus primarily on the
modeling activity rather than on the models themselves. They illustrate their
approach by referring to Carnot’s heat engine, which according to the authors
is an important example of an engineering model with practical implications. In
the fourth chapter on ‘Model-Based Reasoning in Interdisciplinary Engineering’,
Nancy Nersessian and Christopher Patton study what the researchers themselves
call the ‘model-systems’ of two biomedical engineering research laboratories (a
tissue engineering and a neural engineering laboratory). The claim is made that
model-based reasoning differs substantially from formal deductive reasoning, be-
cause it also depends on content and is thus not purely formal. The fifth chapter
discusses engineering scaling methodologies and reveals that one of the founding
fathers, William Froude, did not base his well-known scaling methodology on di-
 Introduction to Part IV 635

mension analysis, as is commonly assumed. The important questions addressed

are: What is the basis of Froude’s scaling method if the author himself did not
found it on dimensionless numbers? What is the status of model laws within scale
modeling? Do these laws have empirical content or are they merely analytical?
The third and final focal point of Part IV is the methodological issues regarding
modeling. In the sixth chapter, Susan Sterrett considers dimensional analysis in
similarity-based reasoning. Although similarity and dimensional analysis remain
important in philosophy, science and technology, they have not received the at-
tention they deserve in contemporary philosophy of science studies. The chapter
starts by explaining ratios, physical similarity and quantities, and arrives—via di-
mensions and coherent systems of units—at dimensionless homogeneity; it ends
with Buckingham’s Π-theorem, and with partial similarity. In the process the au-
thor also deals with interesting questions such as, for instance, ‘what has logical
priority: scales, units of measurement or the quantities measured?’ She bases the
answer on Lodge’s concept of ‘quantity equations.’ The seventh chapter is closely
connected to the previous one as it concentrates on measurement theory in engi-
neering. Its author, Patrick Suppes, who is of course one of founding fathers of
the representation view of measurement theory, characterizes a measurement pro-
cedure using two fundamental problems. The first is the representation problem
which dictates that the structure of the phenomena must be the same as the struc-
ture of a set of numbers. Since the answer to the representation question does not
uniquely determine the theory’s structure, an invariance theorem must be proved
for the representation and that answers the second fundamental question relating
to the determination of the measurement procedure’s scale type. After that the
author gives the representation and invariance theorems for four scale types. The
second part of this chapter deals with measurement errors, a compulsory topic for
any theory of measurement applied to engineering practice.
Since many technological explanations make use of models and simulations,
these explanations form the core subject-matter of the last chapter of Part IV.
Unlike scientific explanations, technological explanations have, in the past, at-
tracted very little attention from philosophers of science. Therefore, in many
respects this chapter is as much an attempt to explore the territory as to supply
an adequate theory of technological explanation. At first sight, one might expect
technological explanations to be similar to scientific explanations since both con-
cern the physical processes that explain natural phenomena or the way a technical
artefact works. Joseph Pitt argues, however, that technical explanations involve
much more. For instance, if we want to explain how an artifact has come to be
what it is we cannot confine ourselves to efficient causes, (to use the Aristotelian
terminology), in the way that has become customary in scientific explanation. In
addition, technological explanations need to allude to other Aristotelian causes:
the material, formal, and final causes. The reason for this lies in the involvement
of a multiplicity of factors, including social ones.
Clearly, Part IV does not cover all the issues relevant to engineering models.
At least three further areas come to mind. Firstly, there are many interesting
636 Sjoerd D. Zwart, associate editor

philosophical questions related to the numerical and approximating methods and

techniques that pervade engineering sciences and practices. An important example
is the finite element method (FEM), which has been developed to cope with the
intractability of the analytical solution to the equations that describe the physics
of airplane foils. Secondly, engineering models are often used as blueprints for the
design, manufacturing and maintenance of technological artifacts and processes.
In that respect the unified modeling language (UML) forms an interesting sub-
ject of philosophical analysis as UML functions as a general language for these
blueprints. Thirdly, important topics for philosophical analysis are to be found in
the domain of engineering simulation techniques of the kind frequently deployed for
explanatory purposes. For the broader range of subjects and further philosophical
reflection the reader is referred to the editorial introduction.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
[Bunge, 1966] M. Bunge. Technology as Applied Science. Technology and Culture, 7:329–347,
1966.
[Frigg and Hartmann, 2006] R. Frigg and S. Hartmann. ‘Models in Science’. The Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2006 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), http://plato.stanford.
edu/entries/models-science/.
[Morgan and Morrison, 1999] M. S. Morgan and M. Morrison. Models as Mediators. Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, 1999.
[Stachowiak, 1973] H. Stachowiak. Allgemeine Modelltheorie. Springer, Wien, 1973.