Philosophy of Gongcheng (Engineering): A Chinese Field Philosophy Case Study

ABSTRACT

Under the influence of natural science, twentieth century philosophy departed from its Socratic heritage and increasingly isolated itself within the discipline. This new disciplinary way of doing philosophy produced a greater amount of professional knowledge and expertise, but it also separated philosophy from its broader social context. Since the mid-20th century, various efforts were made under a variety of banners to reconnect philosophical thinking with society, with field philosophy representing the most genuine break from the disciplinary paradigm. It advocates collaborative work and rejects philosophic jargon. It also shares much in common with a parallel Chinese approach called ‘philosophy of gongcheng.’ The philosophy of gongcheng is mostly initiated by top-level engineers, especially academicians with real political power, with the aim of enhancing the real-world engineering practices. This paper traces the roots of philosophy of jishu in China to reevaluate the appearance of philosophy of gongcheng, and exposes the differences between these two parallel transdisciplinary approaches. Working with engineers deepens the understanding of engineering practices and provides some fresh insights on previous philosophical theories. Both field philosophy and philosophy of engineering need to ask, is there only one way to do philosophy?

KEYWORDS:

• Field philosophy
• philosophy of gongcheng
• interdisciplinarity

Acknowledgments

The author is grateful to Adam Briggle and Robert Frodeman for their helpful comments on the earlier versions of this manuscript as well as their assistance in editing my English.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Science Funding of the Chinese Ministry of Education [18YJC720029]; Chen Changshu Foundation of Northeastern University [201710].