SOCIAL-VALUE CONCEPT OF ENGINEERING ACTIVITIES

Abstract

All existing models for analyzing the goals and objectives of engineering activities can be divided into two groups. Instrumentalistic (or engineering), considering engineering activity from a technological point of view, and socio-humanitarian, considering the influence of engineering activity on a person and society, possible transformations that occur to a person as a result of the development of technical and technological sphere. The philosophy of technology in its instrumentalistic concepts represents, on the one hand, an attempt by technicians and engineers to develop the philosophy of their professional field. On the other hand, the philosophy of technology in social humanitarian concepts is a combination of the efforts of humanities scholars to comprehend technology as a subject of interdisciplinary reflections.

The purpose of this article is to examine the philosophical foundations of the socially-valuable basis of modern engineering activity in a post-industrial society.

Original works in this field have been published by both domestic and foreign authors: V. G. Gorokhova, B. I. Kozlova, P. Kozlowski, X. Lenk, N. M. Mamedova, K. Mitchchem, X. Ortegi-i-Gasset, A .N. Pavlenko, V. M. Rozina, M. A. Rozov, V.S .Stepina, P.A. Florensky, M. Heidegger, M. L. Shubas, P. Yanikh, K. Jaspers, and others.

The current level of engineering activity shows that it radically transforms nature, society and man. The need for a social and philosophical understanding of engineering activity is determined by the fact that it is the technical subsystem (product of engineering activity) that is a key characteristic in determining the level of development of modern society. Needs, incentives and motives explain how objective determination is realized in the process of subjective engineering activity and act as the mechanism of this realization. The starting point of this determination is objective living conditions of people, which give rise to their needs and goals, which transform objective determination into subjective. Thus, engineering activity, by virtue of its functional purpose, contributes to the creation of technical means for achieving social goals.

There are two groups of factors determining the development of engineering activities. The first group: endogenous (internal) patterns, the internal logic of the development of engineering activity, associated with the development of technical knowledge, which affects its substantial side, its elements and structure. The second group: exogenous (external) consistent patterns, caused by social needs and cultural characteristics - the subject of humanitarian philosophy of technology.

These patterns determine the conditions for the development of engineering activity and general logic of its development. The process of formation of value concepts about the profession of future engineers is the transfer of the internal socio-cultural content inside their personality. This process is not only the adoption of cultural content by a person, but at the same time it reveals its essence, which is external to a specific sociocultural environment. The process of formation of value concepts about the profession among future engineers is the transfer within their personality of external socio-cultural content (the process of interiorization). This process is not only the adoption of cultural content by a person, but at the same time it reveals its essence, which is external to a specific sociocultural environment.