The Existential Pleasures of Engineering

by Samuel C. Florman

In a world where engineering plays an increasingly important role, one wonders about the exact nature of the engineering experience in our time. In this second edition of The Existential Pleasures of Engineering, Samuel Florman perceptively explores how engineers think and feel about their profession.
Dispelling the myth that engineering is cold and passionless, Florman celebrates it as something vital and alive. He views engineering as a response to some of our deepest impulses, rich in spiritual and sensual rewards. Opposing the "antitechnology" stance, Florman brilliantly emerges with a practical, creative, and fun philosophy of engineering that boasts his pride in his craft.

Genres: Engineering, Nonfiction, Science, Philosophy, Technology, Stem, Business

205 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1976

Reviews

[Heather · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm an engineer. I think engineering is fascinating. I was enthusiastic about a book by an engineer who was also literate (Florman has a Master's degree in English) and reflecting on the nature of engineering. And, let's face it, it's a hilarious title. I should have been Florman's target audience.

I hated it so much.

It's a book in three parts: first, a lament over the fall of the engineer from public adoration after the creation of the atomic bomb and an attempt to exculpate engineers from blame for the environmental crisis and the adverse effects of technologies. Second, an attack on so-called 'anti-technologists' {several of whom are *not* actually anti-technology, just against what they perceive is the current state of technology}. Third, an attempt at developing an 'existential philosophy of engineering.'

Florman's prose is often florid; he uses it to dress up what is ultimately a "shit-happens" shoulder-shrugging stance and disguise a lack of depth. He tries to make it appear as though engineers have with their long-suffering and noble patience (martyr complex) shouldered the responsibility inherent in their profession while at the same time shoving the blame for bad technology onto the government, the populace, and the corporations-- anybody but the engineers (ignoring the fact that engineers are part of every single one of those groups as well).

He is terrible at argumentation: he is lazy; he is inconsistent; he has a tendency to fence with straw men; he asserts without citing evidence; he often argues from what he considers 'common sense' and 'everybody knows'. He accuses "the other side" of using bogus rhetorical tactics that he himself uses in the book. He tries to sound reasonable or rhapsodic; much of the time he sounds petulant and petty.

What Florman did was what many engineers and scientists of his time did in the late '60s and early '70s in response to increasing public critique of technology: dismiss almost unilaterally any criticism of technology as a whole or of specific technologies as fundamentally anti-technology and anti-rationality. He accuses Mumford and the other "antitechnologists" of secretly wishing for a totalitarian state-- glossing over Mumford's terror of what he perceives as the totalitarian technocratic state in existence. He waves his arms, declaring this anti-technological attitude dangerous-- nevermind that it's largely illusory, and that his 'opponents' consider the "technocratic attitude" equally, if not more dangerous.

A few of his points might have been interesting ones, but overall he suffers from a lack of substance that makes it difficult to take his overall cheerleading for the engineering profession seriously. It seems as though he hasn't actually given thoughtful consideration to any of the well-argued and well-supported criticisms of technologies of the day, like Nader's "Unsafe at Any Speed" or Carson's "Silent Spring". Instead, he cites a figure that he says suggests that up to 50% of the data published in scientific journals are bogus, while trying to assert that engineers have a fundamental respect for science-- that science is what their work is *based upon*.

While I concur with Florman that the technological deterministic viewpoint is an overly simplistic one, and an incorrect view that tends to remove responsibility from humans, he does no better, and actually does much worse than many of his 'antitechnologists', in asking us to shoulder the burden of responsibility for poor decision-making. He shrugs bad side effects of technology off as the result of 'human nature' and states that you simply can't change it. This is not the fundamental argument that many of the technological critics of the 60s and 70s were making. They were asking the public-- not just engineers and scientists-- to make public health and safety (and by extension the environment) a higher priority in their decision-making than it had been previously. They argued-- quite reasonably-- that many people *had known* (or at least had an inkling) about the deleterious effects of certain technologies and had not made that information public, either through laziness or in the interests of saving face, saving money. Many believed that technology and engineers and scientists were all still essential, and it was merely the goals that needed adjusting. Changing one's perception of the purpose of technology from one of dominance over the earth and growth-for-growth's sake to one that asks for greater scrutiny over safety risks before placing a technology on the market is *not* changing human nature; it is merely inconvenient for one whose perceptions of his work were formed during a time when engineers were thought of as gods (quite foolishly, he admits) and could do no wrong.

In essence, Florman stumbles right into the label "technocrat" in his no-quarter-given defense of technology, while petulantly observing that as humble servants of humanity, "[engineers:] do not like being called technocrats for our pains."

Mumford, Ellul, Reich, and Roszak are all a little bit on the obscure and radical (okay, and sometimes downright weird) side of technological criticism; however, Dubos is quite readable and worth reading, as are Carson and Nader. In the same sort of line as Dubos, but with a more modern outlook (and much, much more detail) you might also read Jared Diamond. I can't think of any good, widely-read engineer's critical prose.

[Kiko]

The book's title was misleading. Hardly does this book dive into the existential "pleasures" of engineering, but rather it acts as a defense of it. The author is far too concerned with the anti-technological rhetoric that he doesn't even talk about what beauty and craftsmanship engineering contains until the last ~40 pages of the book (and even that is laden with the same insecurities previously mentioned).

[Mina Bahadori · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book broke as I read it which is ironic

Interesting at first but he did not argue against the anti-technology view well at all which was disappointing. I wish he had dug deeper into their frustrations and fears rather than just brushing them off. I also felt like he didn’t really come to a conclusion about the engineer’s role in the environment

[Mete Rodoper · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was looking for a book that was written by experienced engineers for the engineers. Also, I wanted to learn more about the feelings of these experienced engineers about the profession over years of practicing. I would say that this book has answers to most of these questions and additionally it sheds light on better engineering ethics and practices as well. However, I must say that this book's main area is to provide a reasoning for the internal driving force of an engineer with philosophy.

In order to do this, first, the author provides some definitions of engineering and what an engineer is/does. While doing these definitions, it refers to historical engineering examples and the great engineers behind them - such as the industrial revolution's projects. Moreover, it refers to some US-based engineering organizations' itemized definitions of an engineer and ethic codes that these individuals should compel to. Finally, the author based on his experience directly and sometimes indirectly describes who a good engineer is. After these informative descriptions, next author talks about the anti-technology movement; its reasons, logic, people defending it and so on. He disagrees with this movement and gives his arguments against theirs clearly. Therefore, by this time in this book, you get to learn the 19th and 20th-century engineering impacts and the responses of the society to them both in negative and positive terms. In the last portion of the book, the author tells the reader about what existentialism is and how engineering and this idea is tied together.

In general, all projects have some level of success, but nothing engineered is perfect. Given time and budget constraints engineers are building tools, solutions and such. Along with this process, they define themselves, express their ideas and want to contribute to society. In the long run, there will always be some level of unknown unknowns and we need to accept this fact. It is important to note that if a technology is ill-used and causes a problem, it is not technology to blame, but the human actors behind it. I really like the anti-technology movement explanations and the arguments that are given by this group. The author even though does not support this ideology clearly, explains their perspective and gives clear references. Then refutes the arguments step by step. Therefore, this book is also informative in terms general engineering acceptance by the society.

A reader with more experience on the philosophy side may find this book not fulfilling or the arguments may be insufficiently constructed. However, to me - engineer for ~10 years - this book is providing different perspectives about the profession over time and a glimpse on the effects of engineering in the last 2 centuries on society.

[Jeff]

"Our contemporary problem is distressingly obvious. We have too many people wanting too many things. This is not caused by technology; it is s consequence of the type of creature that man is."

"I do not believe that it is up to the engineering profession to decide what is good for society, to decide for example, whether we should favor mass transit or individual automobiles, allow drilling for oil off our coasts, authorize the use of public lands for mining, or determine how much of our national product should be devoted to armaments. In other words, I do not believe in technocracy... [But I do believe that:] in the pursuit of goals established by the entire community, engineers should be dependable."

[Kaycee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I must say, this is a truly wonderful read. It carries with it magical writing and tons of well researched references.

It handles its philosophical analysis of engineering and technology as a profession with logic that doesn't ignore emotions or culture.

It's an inspirational, yet refreshingly realistic read about what it really means to be human.

My favorite quote: "Attempts to escape the human condition are doomed to failure. To cope creatively with with our environment, to help our fellow humans survive with dignity, to undertake necessary tasks with courage and imagination, is to live out our destiny, and fulfill our existential yearnings."

[Taylor Barkley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Points for the title alone. Basically it’s why technology and those who create it are good, bending from the default negativity. His critique of “antitechnologists” had me nodding along. I enjoyed his highlight of the Old Testament and Homer as works that praise created things. I disagreed with his interpretation that the New Testament is anti-material.

[Riley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Worthwhile Moments Scattered Throughout
A deceptive title, but several chapters redeemed the book. The tone is often self-congratulatory, and Florman’s nostalgia for a golden age of engineering grows tiring. Many arguments defend cultural positions no longer relevant to the profession, mainly arguing against fringe anti-technologist worldviews.

He argues political policy, not company morality, must create the boundaries within a given engineering industry. Highlights also include the admiration of craft, at one point focusing on Homer’s extensive descriptions of everyday objects.

Disillusionment

Clearly we have saved nobody—or, more precisely, those we have saved are now endangered by poisons and other hazards that we have created. Where men have been released from drudgery, they do not appear to have become superior human beings. Hardly anybody seems to think that they are more content. Anxiety and alienation are the watchwords of the day, as if material comforts made life worse, rather than better. Dreams of the equality, brotherhood, and peace which were to follow in the wake of engineering triumphs have also proved to be vain illusions.
— Chapter 2, The Decline and Fall

Sobriety

But the main trouble with engineers has not been their lack of morality. It has been their failure to recognize that life is complex. For a century they put their faith, somewhat unthinkingly, in “efficiency” and “progress”. Now there is a danger that the same sort of mistake will be made with an abstraction called “social responsibility”. My warning is simply: Beware of slogans.
— Chapter 3, Conscience, Error and Responsibility

Acceptance

The young man is “trapped.” Yet we are all trapped. Attempts to escape the human condition are doomed to failure. To cope creatively with our environment, to help our fellow humans survive with dignity, to undertake necessary tasks with courage and imagination, is to live out our destiny, and fulfill our existential yearnings. As Camus says of Sisyphus, so can we say of the young man: “One must imagine him happy.”
— Chapter 11, "Then I was Carried Beyond Pleasure."

Resolution

The engineer does not find existential pleasure by seeking it frontally. It comes to him gratuitously, seeping into him unawares. He does not arise in the morning and say, “Today I shall find happiness.” Quite the contrary. He arises and says, “Today I will do the work that needs to be done, the work for which I have been trained, the work which I want to do because in doing it I feel challenged and alive.” Then happiness arrives mysteriously as a byproduct of his effort.
— Chapter 11, "Then I was Carried Beyond Pleasure."

[Nadine in NY Jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

I know I own a copy of this book, it's probably in a box somewhere. I'm pretty sure I never finished it, because Florman does NOT capture the "existential pleasures of engineering" in this text.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think it should be stated that any book with Existential in the title is probably not going to be an easy read. I naively thought that this book would be much easier and lighthearted than it was. Florman comes across as highly defensive of the profession of engineering in a way that gives me the impression that he had his hackles raised up from ongoing events.

The Existential Pleasure of Engineering was first published in 1976 though it originates to an address that Florman gave at a meeting of the New York Academy of Sciences. Florman believes that the golden-era of engineering had ended shortly after World War II. It had lasted nearly a century from 1850 to 1950 during which new strong alloys, new analysis techniques, and a strong scientific process had brought forth many technological advancements like railways, bridges, skyscrapers, dams and so on. After World War II the world was weary from war. Nuclear weapons, the beginning of the Cold War, The Korean War, and the advancement of Communism resulted in a lot of fear and pessimism in the general population. This pessimism gave rise to the Flower Power and Hippie movements of the ’60s in which people wanted to turn away from technology. Along with the Hippies were anti-technology and anti-technocrat philosophers that were highly critical of the technological advancements and utopianism of the 1950s

The blame for the horrors of war was at times shifted on to the shoulders of engineers as a whole and people questioned why engineers wouldn’t refuse to work on these projects. Florman makes the valid argument that engineers represent a similar cross-section of society than any other group. Some engineers did refuse to work on some projects, some felt that working on defensive weapons was warranted, while others felt working on any weapon that prevented the advancement of fascism or communism was for the betterment of society. Florman doesn’t hint at what his own beliefs are on this subject, instead, he makes the argument that engineers bear no more responsibility in society than any other group. Engineers do not represent a monolithic block of people with all the same political and moral views. Further, he makes the argument that it is contradictory to argue against a technocratic society while also making the argument that engineers should act as a monolithic block.

Florman also defends engineers from arguments of being boring dullards who are completely detached from the natural world, that there is no joy found in their endeavors. He argues that it is quite the opposite, engineers are closer to the natural world than most people through their understanding and application of the physical sciences in their creations. He does agree that engineers can at times be dull because of their serious focus and dedication to their projects, but at the end of a project there, is a great joy and celebration to be had.

I feel that I’ve barely scratched the surface of this book. There are a lot of references to articles, editorials, and literature that I feel would be of benefit to read in full to get the context of what Florman is arguing against. The Existential Pleasures of Engineering is well worth a read for the engineer, technologist, or layman to understand an engineer’s place, or more correctly, many places in society. Like the few other books of philosophy I have read like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, I will be coming back to this book again after doing some further reading based on Florman’s references.

One final thought, I felt that this book would have been better titled In Defense of the Engineer. Florman had a bone to pick with those that questioned the advancement of technology in society and the role that engineers played in that advancement. That tone was felt throughout the book.

[Krayfish1 · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's always interesting to read an older book which is arguing against what was a contemporary argument at the time it was written. This book is a refutation of "anti-technologists", but the 1970's version of anti-technologists. The anti-technology view has since shifted and morphed from what this book argues against.

I was hoping for a look at what the author likes about the engineering profession.

What I got was a defense against an argument that engineers are dead inside. Also quoting poets who talked about how great civil & mechanical engineering feats are. And an argument that engineers get satisfaction from having created something (the existential pleasure).

I like that he dragged "Zorba the Greek" briefly. I hated that book. He mentioned the book "Wisconsin Death Trap" about Wisconsin from 1880 to 1910, which sounds fascinating.

He had a chapter about women entering the engineering profession in greater numbers. It was utter confusion. "Women are more in touch with the humanities and that will be good for the profession!" "But they should definitely try to fit in with their colleagues (who aren't as in touch with the humanities)(god forbid they should rock the boat at all)" It was, at least, positive about the change.

He had a chapter about "The Engineering View" which tried to pin down what engineers have in common with each other -- belief in science (experimentation), belief in hard work to understand things, a willingness to set perfection aside to get something out the door, willingness to accept responsibility for failure, desire to be dependable, some level of seriousness, desire for social order (with no restrictions on the form of that order), and desire to tinker/create/make new things.

[Wayne Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book at the Duke University bookstore in December 2000, started to read it over the holidays that same year, but soon lost interest. At the time, I was immersed in my engineering career and was not in the mood to read about the existential pleasures of something that I lived every day.

After I retired, I picked up the book again with a whole different attitude and with a different objective. I was looking for guidance on what overall direction my reading should take now that I am in my Third Age -- science/engineering, nature/outdoors, history, humanities, etc. I enjoy reading on a diverse set of subjects. But after a 40-year career of engineering, I was reluctant to read anything more about science and engineering. I looked to The Existential Pleasures of Engineering to give the discipline more relevance and more respectability while showing a more human quality to the engineering profession. This book succeeded in doing just that.

Florman ably defends the engineering profession from the antitechnology dogma that is fairly common in modern society. He presents a cogent case for why practicing engineers should feel proud about their profession in spite of what non-technologists believe.

[Russell Mohn · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit wordy at times, it is a wonderfully researched argument and rumination on what it means to be an engineer, to the level of how it feels, and why it feels that way. He starts out by explaining the arguments of anti-technologists and the back-to-nature movement. He then breaks down their arguments one by one, and goes on to make clear that essentially engineering is a hopeful, courageous endeavor that leads to ecstasies of achievement and disappointment. He takes a very balanced view that technology itself is neither good or evil, and its effects are usually a bit of both, with the benefits outweighing the detriments. I really enjoyed how he brought in history, art, and philosophy from all different times throughout human history to his writing.

[Kyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fact fueled, philosophy loaded rocketship driven into the question; what is the essence of technology? An eleven chapter book, each chapter addressing the philosophical problems and accomplishments related with the profession of engineering. Samuel C. Florman’s “The Existential Pleasures of Engineering” can be broken into three main parts. Part one, the triumph and the fall of engineers, their inhuman designs, how the public came to love them, the role they play in the the environmental crisis and the role of technology in society. Part two: the argument of the anti-technologist and Flormans response to these arguments which are about as unbiased as an engineer can be towards them till conclusion. Part three: the philosophy of engineering with an existential point of view. Florman made many good arguments and did just as good of a job at dissecting others arguments making it as entertaining as informative, Florman did a wonderful job outlining the philosophical views related with the profession but, makes engineers out to be some celestial being who can do no wrong and lays blame on other parties for engineerings failures. “The Existential Pleasures of Engineering” is a book for those thinking about pursuing a career in engineering or the already engineer looking for a deeper look into his or hers profession or simply someone who enjoys philosophy connected with science.

[Marcelo Melo · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book The Existential Pleasures of Engineering - written by the American civil engineer Samuel C. Florman, and originally published in 1976 - is highly recommended for those who are curious or interested in the relationship of the professional engineering career with the society in general, in particular with the problems that civilization has needed and still need to solve over the centuries, but also with regard to how societies come and perceive the impacts of engineering, industrialization, and / or technology.

Briefly, and without presuming to replace the reading, the book encompasses themes such as the following:

- The rise and subsequent decline of euphoria around the advances provided by engineering throughout the 20th and 21st centuries;
- The emergence and argumentation of the anti-technology movements, riding on the failures and negligences that technology, engineering and industrialization inevitably entailed and entail;
- Discussion of cliché clash of the rational vs. irrational mind, repudiating that the engineer does not have a relation and behavior compatible with arts and creativity;
- It addresses the problem of the lack of a clear and unique voice within engineering, and how the latter is preserved plural as to how to behave and solve problems;
- It covers the lack of expressiveness and brilliance of engineers in explaining the pleasure associated with studying and practicing their profession and engineering field;
- It questions the cult of the craftsmanship of the past and reinforces the pertinence in technological progress, showing how, in the classic text of the Odyssey (Homer) as in the Old Testament (Bible), there are references and interest on/about materials, technologies, and objects;
- A critique of the "small is beautiful" movement, showing that it is unsustainable and counterproductive to ideologically abandon scalability when it is clearly advantageous and safer;
- The role of greater gender parity in engineering, and the contribution that women can make to the better humanization of engineering, as well as the intersection with other areas of knowledge, namely artistic.

In the whole, it is a book that is rich in ideas and that allows to broaden the notion of the spiritual and social dimension of engineering as a profession, positioning the engineer as one who can get a view on and to the world, and who conciliates attributes such as being artistic, thinker and sensitive, and at the same time mathematical, materialist, and pragmatic.

[Masha · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first part of the book is quite remarkably relevant in the present day. Although we have developed new technologies, the problems experienced on a deeper level of being a human and living in a society remain.

The second part seems a bit too emotional to me. The author used so many quotes from various antitechnologists, but, being an engineer, I’d prefer to see their arguments in a neatly organized list.
The defence of technology that followed exposed that the author took such attacks personally:

“I can imagine the antitechnologists throwing such evidence back in our faces as another example of single vision, or lack of transcendent energy, or some other such poppycock.”

The second part, in my opinion, is no longer relevant and only partially interesting.

The third part gets to the point of pleasures of engineering. The author used various works of literature to support his view: a mysterious process that blooms in devices useful and magical to an outsider.

To an engineer, the process is the goal.

[Casey · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a retired engineer (and a long-time environmentalist), I read this book with interest. It was a little dry at times, but there were plenty of ideas worth chewing on. Most of my engineering jobs gave me great pleasure, for the creativity, accomplishment, and attention to details. Despite the stereotype of engineering being heavy on math, much of the work required clear communication and report-writing, which I excelled at. So it should be no surprise that my outside hobbies included writing poetry and short stories, which also require creativity and attention to details.

The book was a bit dated, as it was published in 1976 -- after the women's movement, but before women started flooding the engineering schools. A decade later, 14% of my engineering class were women (which included me), and I'm sure the percentage of women is higher now. Regardless, the author can be forgiven for his term "the engineering man" as he was a product of his time.

A recommended book if you are an engineer or a techie type, or even if you're not.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being now 45 years old, the book certainly is a bit dated in some respects. It was obviously written in an era when the environmental movement was first taking off and justifiably so I think based on history. It is interesting that today a similar movement exists, but without the apparent backlash against technology and engineering. I think that today we do feel that technology of the right kind can in fact save us.

As an engineer who is also very much into reading and been told that I am a good writer, I was very appreciative of the efforts of Florman to connect this profession, which is generally viewed by the public in a light that is the opposite of the artist, to classic literature and poetry as well as to say that artistic ability begins first with simple good craftsmanship.

[Aminul Haque · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful chronicle about the dilemmas of a modern man - an engineer. Not only a great work by itself but also a treasure trove of references. It refers to the many great work that has been written on engineering, its motivation, its virtuosity, its limitations, and the very real possibility of an unfulfilled life of its practitioners who quest completion and perfection.

This book is a backfill to my own realization that science and logic are necessary but not sufficient. One needs to complement the pursuit of engineering knowledge with a sense and understanding of history, morality, conflicts, and conundrums. An engineer, like any other modern man, is always a work in progress.

[Sandy Maguire · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were lots of great quotes in this book, and several times it made me stop to think deeply about something else. So that's lovely, in that it encouraged a lot of great thoughts.

But the book itself? Nah. I was looking for books that were like Hamming's "The Art of Doing Science and Engineering," and somehow this kept coming up. BUT IT'S A LIE. This is not even a tenth of that book's greatness.

I said I was going to talk about this book. It's a bunch of arguments against viewpoints that don't seem to exist anymore. The arguments themselves are unconvincing, and it's hard to care about. Maybe this was a great read in the 70s but it's a flop in 2025.

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

Looking back one half century in engineering. Based on a 1968 article that was expanded into this book, the author bemoans the fact that tech people are considered the villains and not the saviors of mankind. Engineers tend conservative and the 60-70s were more liberal than recent years, that combined with the lack of engineering unions/guilds means that we are still in the same boat that we were in 150+ years ago. The bosses and owners still control and set outputs, schedules, etc. An OK read from a historical perspective.

[Paul Moscarella · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book as both existentialism and engineering are two interests of mine. Florman is a thoughtful writer and he carefully walks the reader through the evolution of engineering design and the engineers place in society. It is a slow read and one that never grabbed me and took several attempts to finish. In the end I don't fully know what I was supposed to experience after the reading experience.

[Julian · Rating 1 out of 5]

I found the first half of this book poorly reasoned, and full of mischaracterization of people's arguments, and it soured me on the book for a long time. Eventually I got around to reading the second half, which is better, but it fails to achieve what I'd hoped from it. There are a few choice quotes, but I didn't find much substance that was relevant to either engineering or philosophy, today.

[Sharada Poudel]

This is a must-read book for first-year engineering students as it opens the reader's eyes to the bigger picture of what philosophy the engineering profession carries. This bigger picture acts as a guiding vane that the initial year students utterly need to locate themselves while they deal with the exhausting engineering coursework.

[Alesia · Rating 2 out of 5]

As an engineer, it was tough to get past the stereotypes Florman makes. While some are true, it was difficult to get past because of some stereotypes he droned on and on about and it almost seemed like he was an antitechnologist when he himself is an engineer.

[Conor Primett · Rating 2 out of 5]

Samuel Florman’s The Existential Pleasures of Engineering proclaims itself a meditation on the vocation of the engineer, yet what it delivers is a technocratic apologia masquerading as philosophy. It cloaks itself in existential language, invoking authenticity and meaning, but collapses into what Heidegger would diagnose as Gestell — the enframing of human thought within the self-legitimating logic of technological necessity. What begins as a promise of philosophy becomes, on closer examination, an act of rhetorical self-mythology, designed to protect the prestige of the engineer rather than interrogate the ethical dimensions of the craft.

The book is structured in three movements: first, a lament over the loss of the engineer’s public prestige in the aftermath of Hiroshima and environmental catastrophe; second, a polemical attack on so-called “anti-technologists” (Mumford, Ellul, Roszak, Carson), caricatured as hysterics or reactionaries; and third, an attempt to articulate an “existential” philosophy of engineering. But at each stage, Florman falters. His prose, florid and overindulgent, is deployed to dress up what is essentially a “shit-happens” fatalism. Engineers, he argues, are noble martyrs, unfairly blamed for technological disasters, while responsibility is displaced onto government, corporations, or “human nature” — anywhere but the profession itself.

This evasiveness would be troubling enough at the level of rhetoric, but it is catastrophic at the level of engineering practice. For what Florman refuses is precisely what engineering demands: a confrontation with constraint, with failure modes, with systemic responsibility. He speaks of “pleasures” but never of margins of safety. He invokes “existence” but never acknowledges the disciplines that actually guard against catastrophe: systems engineering frameworks, probabilistic risk assessment, HAZOP studies, fault-tree and event-tree analysis, FMEA, redundancy design, and lifecycle management. He ignores the reality that Tacoma Narrows, Three Mile Island, and Challenger were not accidents of fate but predictable consequences of neglected test data, flawed assumptions, and organisational blindness. Indeed, the Challenger disaster — in which Thiokol engineers warned against O-ring failure at low temperatures, only to be overruled under pressure — exemplifies exactly what Florman refuses to face: that engineering failures are rarely metaphysical inevitabilities, but managerial, ethical, and procedural breakdowns that demand accountability.

Here, the contrast with Henry Petroski could not be starker. In Design Paradigms, Petroski seizes upon catastrophic failures — the Tay Bridge collapse, the Kansas City Hyatt walkway disaster, Tacoma Narrows — and dissects them as moments of learning, paradigm shifts that reveal the hidden assumptions of design. For Petroski, failure is not shrugged away as “human nature,” but studied, diagrammed, and re-integrated into the discipline’s collective memory: an engineering epistemology by way of failure. Florman, by contrast, refuses even to look. Where Petroski transforms catastrophe into pedagogy, Florman turns it into evasion. One is engineering as responsibility; the other, engineering as denial.

Philosophically, his argument is equally hollow. Existentialism, whether Sartre’s radical responsibility or Camus’s lucid revolt, demands an unflinching acceptance of consequences. Florman, by contrast, preaches authenticity while excusing evasion. He rails against his critics — Ellul’s La Technique, Mumford’s technocratic warnings, Carson’s empirical indictment in Silent Spring — but reduces them all to straw men. His discourse is the very one-dimensionality Marcuse warned of (cf. One-Dimensional Man): critique absorbed, neutralised, and rebranded as irrationality. Rather than philosophy of engineering, he produces a self-sealed catechism of ressentiment, technocratic self-pity disguised as existential depth.

Why, then, 2/5 rather than 1/5? Because, as cultural history, it has a residual value: a fossilised expression of mid-20th-century engineering’s self-image under critique, useful less as philosophy than as a mirror of professional anxiety. In this way, it can be read, not as wisdom, but as evidence — a document of the technocratic unconscious trying desperately to preserve itself against its critics. What would have made it stronger is precisely what Florman avoids: a willingness to engage rigorously with failure, constraint, and the ethical stakes of engineering practice.

As philosophy, it is evasive. As an engineering reflection, it is negligent. The Existential Pleasures of Engineering is not an existential exploration but a cathedral of denial, a hollow baroque façade erected atop foundations of sand, collapsing under the very weight of the responsibilities it refuses to bear.

“Ciò che non può essere giustificato, non deve essere scusato.” — What cannot be justified, ought not to be excused.

If you want a truer philosophy of engineering, read Petroski’s Design Paradigms or Perrow’s Normal Accidents, where engineering responsibility emerges not from denial but from an unflinching study of failure.

[Tom · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm an engineer and I enjoy philosophy, but this turned into a skim...

[Vladi Joestar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Its text is like a tragedy, but it brings hope for those with a passion in this field of engineering.

[Yago Molano Gomez · Rating 3 out of 5]

In my opinion, quite one sided in its arguments

[Joseph Theis]

I come back to this book every year or two, to help recharge the engineering batteries.