The Epistemology Study Of Engineering Design

Engineering design is the system structure of the engineering practice and the important component of the whole life cycle process,is a man-made objects "ideas" into "knowledge" important node,which is the project decision-making by the form of "concept" artificial material,through the creative knowledge,building for symbols,knowledge forms of artificial engineering knowledge production process.From the perspective of epistemology,how does engineering design creatively construct the knowledge of the artifact itself? And "how to do" to implement the knowledge production and operation activities of the artificial object construction operation knowledge(Know how).Engineering design,as the main way of engineering knowledge production,is undoubtedly the core of engineering knowledge theory.Contemporary research on artificial objects is the most influence school in the Netherlands,due to its starting point is the analysis of philosophy,at first they tried to logically to investigate the relationship between the structure and function of the artificial objects,but the existence of the logical gap between them,and predicament of the dualism of mind and matter,they tried to jump out theoretical thinking,to the engineering practice.Since it always bears the brand of analytical philosophy,its practice is not thorough,and it is still in the "ready-made" artificial object to carry on the conceptual analysis of its structure and function,so it is difficult to grasp the "actual" occurrence of the structure and function of artificial object.The author believes that in order to really go deep into engineering practice,it is necessary to carry out the research in the context of specific activities of engineering practice by combining the standpoint,viewpoint and method of Marxist practical philosophy and the contemporaryachievements of artificial object research.From the specific situation of practice form,the system structure and life cycle process of engineering practice include 6 subsystems,such as engineering decision-making,engineering design,engineering implementation,engineering evaluation,and engineering operation,usage and retirement.The author finds that a common problem in the academic circles at home and abroad is the serious separation between the research of engineering philosophy,technology philosophy and design history.The internal reason for this split is that the former discusses the artificial object in the two categories of "structure" and "function",while the latter discusses the artificial object in the category of "form".In order to maintain the "purity" of their research,the former will not be reluctant to cut out artificial objects such as buildings,artworks,cultural relics,and so on,claiming that they are studying technological artifacts;The latter regards "structure" and "function" as established facts and does not discuss,but only discusses the evolution history of "form" of artificial objects in style,aesthetics and culture.In fact,there is no purely technical artifact,any artifact will always be in some form,form and we face,we feel,for our use.Therefore,it is necessary to get rid of this split state and study the three together.In this paper,based on the Marxist stand,viewpoint and method of practice philosophy,critical theory of the Dutch school of artificial objects,system structure and the engineering practice to study in the process of whole life cycle engineering design,and combining with the design history,around the function,structure,form three dimensions of relationship to knowledge construction of artificial material itself(Know what),and the artificial thing to build the construction of "how to do" operating knowledge(Know how),so as to realize the "idea" of engineering decisions determine form artificial objects to the "knowledge" form of artificial transformation,Philosophical reflection on how the practice of engineering design integrates the knowledge of science,technology,humanities and social sciences and social construction.