ABSTRACT
This chapter offers an analysis of the activity of engineers taking as its point of departure the concept of practice as developed by the American philosopher Alisdair MacIntyre. It shows that differentiation between the structure, the context and the direction of a practice does justice to the complexity of technological practices, giving insight into the influence of power, values and norms, and life-view on the development of technology. It also shows a technological practice is in a class of its own and is characterised by the fact that the qualifying rules have a technological or formative character. In the Ceramic Multilayer Actuator case study engineers played an important role: they developed new products, negotiated with the client, supervised the production process and gave guidance to the business-unit. MacIntyre made that internal goods are values specifically realised in practice and the external goods on the other hand, are values which are external to the practices.
