Workshop on Philosophy & Engineering

The workshop co-chairs have run into a bit of a problem with a family emergency that has caused an unanticipated delay in paper notifications.

We are hoping that the delay will be cleared up by the end of the week or by Monday, 13 October 2008 at the latest.

We apologize for the inconvenience, and request your patience as we work through these difficulties.

The tentative schedule for the 2008 Workshop on Philosophy and Engineering (WPE-2008), 10-12 November (Monday-Wednesday), The Royal Academy of Engineering is up on the web site (here). The schedule shows keynote talks, tutorials, breaks, meals, and receptions as well as accepted talk sessions and the poster session.

Polish those abstracts for the Workshop on Philosophy and Engineering (WPE-2008), November 10-12 (Monday-Wednesday), The Royal Academy of Engineering as they are due on Monday, 1 September 2008 under the extended deadline.  With the addition of Deborah Johnson’s title, the keynote speaker’s program is complete, and the workshop is hosting a range of tutorials on a variety of topics (here).

The 2008 Workshop on Philosophy and Engineering (WPE-2008) to be held 10-12 November 2008 in London at The Royal Academy of Engineering announced that the submission deadline for 1-2 page abstracts is extended until Monday, 1 September 2008. The extended call for papers is available here. Submissions are keeping pace with last year, but given the time of year, the extension will give those returning from summer vacation a bit of extra time to polish their extended abstracts.

Register for WPE-2008 at here.

The WPE-2008 abstract style is a modified ACM conference style that uses A4 sheets of paper.  Abstracts should be 1-2 pages as shown here.

The 2nd call for papers for the 2008 Workshop on Philosophy and Engineering (WPE-2008), 10-12 November (Monday-Wednesday) 2008, at The Royal Academy of Engineering is available here. The 2nd CFP contains details on the keynote and tutorial speakers. The lineup of keynote talks and tutorials may be viewed here.

With a little over a month to the submissions deadline its time to put pen to paper, fingers to keyboard, or chisel to tablet and start working on those extended abstracts for what promises to be a pivotal event in the history of Philosophy and Engineering.

Natasha McCarthy and I have gotten some questions about permissible topics at WPE-2008. The short answer is that we are interested in anything at the intersection of Philosophy and Engineering.

A longer more specific answer comes from looking at last year’s schedule (schedule here) and examining last year’s extended abstracts (abstracts here). As cursory examination suggestions, the admissible topic set is quite broad (and by no means constrained by the topics accepted at WPE-2007), but a word is in order about the three demes.

The idea of the demes is to get appropriate individuals reviewing appropriate submisssions. Because of the longstanding cooperation of engineers and philosophers in engineering ethics, the ethics deme is co-chaired by one philosopher and one engineer, and authors familiar with the literature of engineering ethics should be comfortable here. Of course, philosophers have been philosophizing about engineering and technology for some time, and so the philosophy deme is designed for trained philosophers familiar with the rough and tumble of that discipline. Engineers interested in epistemology or ontology or other philosophical topics should probably submit to the Reflections deme, which is chaired by and reviewed by other philosophically aware engineers.

Judging by the preliminary interest in the workshop, we expect to break attendance records of WPE-2007 by a good bit. For further questions write to Natasha McCarthy (here) or me (here).

The call for papers for the 2008 Workshop on Philosophy and Engineering to be held 10-12 November 2008 (Monday-Wednesday) at The Royal Academy of Engineering, London is available here.

The WPE web page has undergone the beginnings of an update for the 2008 workshop to be held at the Royal Academy of Engineering in London, 10-12 November 2008 (Monday-Wednesday).  More information will be made available as it becomes available.