Learning Research: History and Philosophy of Science for the Engineering Sciences

This contribution will present a history and philosophy of science course for graduate students in the engineering sciences. The content resulted from a research-project Philosophy for the engineering sciences funded by a grant from the Dutch National Science Foundation, and a close collaboration with research groups in the MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology. The general context is scientific research in the context of technological applications. Its general aim is developing in-depth understanding of scientific knowledge and scientific research. Our two-tiered approach, on the one hand illustrates by means of appealing and challenging historical examples ‘how scientific theories were produced,’ and on the other hand clarifies by means of a body of helpful philosophical ideas ‘how scientific knowledge is made’. General issues that justify the relevance of aiming at in-depth understanding of scientific knowledge and scientific research relate to ‘becoming a better scientist’, such as, adequate uses of scientific knowledge; adequate reading of the scientific literature; translating technological problems to scientific research; and working inter- or multi-disciplinary. The course starts with learning a general conceptual framework of philosophical notions that are familiar in scientific practices, such as, phenomena, laws of nature, truth, observation, proof, explanation, scientific concepts, scientific discovery, fundamental theories, scientific models, and fundamental versus applied science. Subsequently, students learn ‘to think as a scientist’ by guided study of historical texts of great scientists (e.g., Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, Carnot and Prandtl). The aim is understanding – by applying the conceptual framework – how these scientists constructed their theories. As a concrete skill, students learn to use a conceptual tool for analyzing the scientific modeling of phenomena, such as phenomena that are held responsible for the (dis-)functioning of technological materials, processes and devices. In this way, they learn that most scientific research concerns modeling of phenomena. Moreover, scientific models presented in scientific literature have a general structure. The analytical tool enables better reading and understanding of scientific articles, even in fields that are unfamiliar. Also, it facilitates structuring and explaining research-projects. And it assists inter- and multi-disciplinary communication. Altogether, it has been shown that this approach enhances their understanding of scientific research.