Philosophers Map Engineering Science’s Ontology and Ethics

An open-access editorial published in the journal NanoEthics in February 2026 provides a comprehensive philosophical framework for understanding engineering sciences. Authored by Dazhou Wang and Aleksandra Kazakova, the article examines the distinct ontological, epistemological, and ethical dimensions that separate engineering from natural sciences. The piece serves as an introduction to a special collection inviting contributions from philosophy of engineering, science and technology studies, and engineering ethics. It argues that engineering science occupies a unique intermediate position between basic research and practical application, making it a fertile ground for philosophical inquiry that has historically fallen into the gaps between established disciplines.

The authors trace the historical divergence of philosophical traditions, noting that philosophy of science and philosophy of technology developed as relatively isolated fields since the nineteenth century. This separation was further complicated by debates in the 1960s regarding the distinction between technology and applied science, followed by the introduction of the concept of technoscience in the 1980s. In the late twentieth century, the philosophy of engineering demarcated itself from the philosophy of technology, focusing predominantly on the nature of engineering practice. Consequently, the specific philosophical problems inherent to engineering sciences were often overlooked, despite engineering science combining the features of both science and engineering in a manner that is ambivalent yet fruitful for analysis.

Recent decades have seen two key philosophical research directions regarding engineering sciences. The first involves comparisons with natural sciences concerning their ontological, epistemological, methodological, and axiological foundations. The second direction analyzes the relationship between engineering science and practice, including the role of other forms of engineering knowledge. The authors highlight that in China, the research program of philosophy of engineering, initiated by Li Bocong, developed as a five-theory-system including engineering ontology, methodology, and theory of knowledge. Parallel collective works in English-language literature, such as the Handbook of the Philosophy of Technology and Engineering Science and the Routledge Handbook of Engineering, represent the ongoing debate in this field.

A common consensus in contemporary philosophy of engineering includes several key positions regarding the nature of engineering practice. First, engineering practice is not reducible to the mere application of knowledge but involves imagination, normative judgments, and negotiation. Second, engineering knowledge itself is not reducible to scientific knowledge, as it encompasses a multitude of practical rules, traditions, heuristics, and contextual factors. Third, in contrast to science, knowledge in engineering is a means to the end of creating and operating artifacts or systems. Despite this distinction, the process of explicating and formalizing knowledge remains central to how engineering is organized and taught in contemporary societies, manifested in the growing role of research in industries and the content of engineering curricula.

The study of the structure of engineering knowledge is becoming critically important in the context of digitalization and the growing role of Artificial Intelligence in engineering practice and education. Understanding the epistemological and methodological foundations for modeling, design, testing, production, operation, and planning is a key determinant of both the potential and the risks associated with algorithmization across various industries. As in classical epistemology of science, questions concerning the relationship between observation, explanation, and anticipation, as well as the status of axiomatics, representations, languages, and scientific conventions, are reemerging in this new context. The authors sketch a map of current research in the philosophy of engineering sciences and discuss potential research strategies to address these emerging challenges.

The historical and theoretical demarcation of engineering sciences reveals a complex evolution of terminology and practice. The body of disciplines aimed at the creation of artifacts and systems, using mathematical language alongside visualizations and drawing from natural-scientific theories, is collectively termed engineering sciences in English and sciences de l’ingénieur in French. Initially in German and then in the Russian-Soviet context, these disciplines were identified as technical sciences. In Chinese, the term technical sciences was originally employed under Soviet influence but has gradually given way to engineering sciences, a shift notably cemented by the founding of the Chinese Academy of Engineering in 1994. Conventional usage of these terms was shaped by the conceptualization of technique, technology, and engineering within their respective languages, as well as by the social position of the engineering profession and politico-ideological contexts.

The scientification of engineering involved the growing usage of scientific results in production and increasingly systematic methods of practice, both contributing to the academization and professional closure of engineering. Established scientific theories like mechanics and electromagnetism were applied to characterize and construct machines, leading to new formalized disciplines like structural mechanics. Where theory fell short, the scientific method was applied directly to technology via prototyping and measurement. Historical analysis reveals diverse paths of interaction and co-evolution between science and engineering, ranging from older industries with long stages of practical knowledge accumulation to scientifically-laden latecomers. This diversity makes it particularly difficult to generalize the maturation process of engineering science, even within Western societies where cultural, political, economic, and social peculiarities of modernization have led to various proportions of theory and practice.

The ontology of engineering sciences is related to the dual structural and functional conceptualization of artifacts, which may be compared to similar categories in biological and social sciences. The primary objective of engineering science is the creation of novel artifacts, making its central ontological problem less one of existence per se and more one of creation. The existence of technological objects must be understood through the lens of creation, a perspective that contrasts with the flat ontology of Actor-Network Theory, which negates the distinctions between facts and artifacts. The authors discuss the distinction between scientific realism and engineering realism, a term coined by Li Bocong, noting that engineering sciences are oriented towards the creation of the possible, limited by both natural and social laws. This implies the existence of the impossible, unrealistic, untimely, or suboptimal objects and solutions that are systematically excluded.

Epistemology and methodology of engineering sciences focus on the specific structure of engineering knowledge, which includes natural-scientific alongside technical, organizational, economic, political, cultural, and other components. The unity of descriptive and prescriptive knowledge is characteristic to engineering across all domains of expertise. Despite progressive explication and formalization, alternative forms of knowledge such as tacit, personal, experiential, practical, working, embodied, haptic, visual, and thing knowledge cannot be fully eliminated. The complex division of labor gives rise to the collective production of knowledge, manifesting in interactional expertise and trading zones, thereby problematizing notions of epistemic agency and responsibility. The question concerning the scientification of engineering knowledge remains, particularly regarding the conditions under which engineering knowledge can be codified, systematized, and digitalized.

The ethics of engineering sciences is distinct from the ethics of science, which has developed as a separate discipline centered on the question of values in natural sciences. Engineering ethics has been institutionalized by the second half of the twentieth century, developing from professional ethical codes to contemporary engineering education standards and systematic theoretical research. Due to its intermediate position, engineering science is driven by the political, economic, and ethical orientation of engineering alongside internal scientific values. On the engineering side, values of practicality, feasibility, reliability, efficiency, and safety are integrated into research activities and the theoretical system of engineering science. On the scientific side, the results of engineering research are testified from the point of view of reproducibility and methodological rigor. The evolution of engineering had distinctive national features with regard to social structure and political, cultural, and economic contexts, revealing culturally embedded images of nature, society, and human action.

Since the role of engineering sciences is especially pronounced in potentially disruptive innovations, their specific ethical problems deserve special analysis. In the contemporary global competition, striving for technological leadership and sovereignty reproduces the view of innovation as an end in itself. The old scientific ethos, including universalist and communist norms, may not counterbalance the partial interests in innovation systems, but the common language of engineering sciences may serve a more open international debate on where the current technological wave is taking us. The discourse on potential innovations, such as human cloning or artificial general intelligence, first and foremost addresses the research phase with moral and legal precautions. Engineering science is often seen as a pathway, or even a final frontier where ethical principles can be embedded within technological systems, requiring interdisciplinary synthesis for ethical reasoning.

The conclusion of the editorial emphasizes that understanding the role of engineering sciences, the co-evolution between natural sciences and technology, and the relationship between basic and applied research informs innovation policies and engineering education. However, philosophical interest can stretch beyond these direct applications. The ontology of engineering sciences and the analysis of engineering languages constitute a case for a general metaphysical study, exploring the oppositions of natural and artificial, existence and creation, causality and teleology, necessity and volition, and matter and form. The ethics of engineering science may contribute to navigating humanity’s common fate amidst the conflicting interests behind innovations. The inherent tension of engineering sciences leads to broader questions in the philosophy of technology, including the convergence and divergence of innovation systems and the feasibility of global mechanisms for controlling technological risks.

This special collection opens with fundamental texts by Li Bocong and Carl Mitcham, two philosophers who, initially working independently and later in dialogue, developed the philosophy of engineering in the East and West. Their work is oriented toward understanding engineering as a historical phenomenon and a universal aspect of the human condition, representing a distinct mode of thinking, acting, and being in the world. The editorial aims to enrich both the philosophy of science and the philosophy of engineering by exploring the mechanisms of distinction and diffusion between them, highlighting the ambivalent yet fruitful nature of engineering science as a subject for philosophical inquiry.

Subject of Research: Philosophical analysis of engineering sciences regarding ontology, epistemology, and ethics

Article Title: Engineering Sciences in Philosophical Perspective: Ontology, Epistemology, and Ethics

Article References: Wang, D., & Kazakova, A. (2026). Engineering Sciences in Philosophical Perspective: Ontology, Epistemology, and Ethics. NanoEthics, 20(1), Article 8. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-026-00498-z

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s11569-026-00498-z

Keywords: engineering sciences, philosophy of technology, ontology, epistemology, engineering ethics, technoscience, knowledge production, NanoEthics, Engineering, Sciences, Philosophical, Perspective