CFP: DLMPST Commission on the Philosophy of Technology and Engineering Sciences

DLMPST – Technology Commission

https://www.tudelft.nl/tbm/dlmpst-technology-commission/

Call for Papers

The DLMPST Commission on the Philosophy of Technology and Engineering Sciences calls for papers contributing to its second DLMPST symposium: Academic Means-End Knowledge in Engineering, Medicine and other Practical Sciences organized during the 16th Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science and Technology (CLMPST 2019); Czech Technical University, Prague, Czechia; 5–10 August 2019. 

Submission deadline [EXTENDED]: January 9th, 2019

The difference between Theoretical and Practical reason has a long history in philosophy. Modern discussions concentrate on the relation between know-how and knowing-that, and ask whether one of two reduces to the other, or, if not, what the nature is of know-how. During the last decades, practical scientists in the information and social sciences (management, psychology, and law) have recognized the need to discern ‘procedural or action means-end knowledge,’ which may often be paraphrased as follows: ‘if one wants to achieve goal G in (technical, medical, etc.) context C, perform action A.’ This type of explicit (intersubjective—not tacit), or normative action knowledge seems hardly to be directly deducible from declarative scientific knowledge. Nevertheless, it prominently precipitates in countless patents and valuable academic research projects aiming at means-end or intervention knowledge. Despite its fundamental importance it has escaped the attention of most epistemologists. The purpose of this Symposium is to draw attention to, discuss and foster further interest in the production and results of academic (explicit, action) means-end knowledge in engineering, medicine, management or any other branch of practical science.

The commission warmly welcomes papers on topics that include but are not restricted to:

- Identification of scientific action knowledge (know-how; means-end; intervention; design; action; procedural; practical; heuristics; grounded rules; prescriptive; technê)

- Its characteristics (goal; action guiding; intentional; normative; context dependent)

- Methodology (form; justification/validation by extended use; practical or thought-experiments; modelling; computational software; groundedness)

- Assessment (truth(?); trustworthiness; efficiency; efficacy; allowed by law or morals)

- Relation between action and declarative knowledge (reduction in practice or theory; coherence; intellectualism; hierarchical means-end relation; role mechanisms)

- Case studies regarding production and assessment of scientific means-end knowledge

- Similarities and differences between engineering, medicine and any other the branches of the practical sciences (criteria; object-based learning; model-based reasoning)

Contributors to the symposium are encouraged to submit a 500 word abstract (including the references) before January 9th, 2019 to https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=clmpst2019. Please, note the following instructions: a) select as Topic: C.8 Philosophy of the Applied Sciences and Technology; b) at the bottom of the EasyChair page you should indicate under the Heading "paper in symposium"; c) use the acronym AMEK in front of the title of your paper.

Accepted contributed papers will be allocated in total 30 minutes (Q&A included). 

For further details please consult the official CLMPST 2019 website (http://clmpst2019.flu.cas.cz/call-for-papers/).