ABSTRACT
Summary
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. By referring to a case study we will work out this concept in more detail. We differentiate between the structure, the context and the direction of a practice. We will show that this differentiation 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. From the analysis it emerges that different kinds of rules or norms apply in technological practices: foundational, qualifying and facilitating. An investigation is done into the nature of these different kinds of rules and norms. Finally we will show that 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.
