TABLE OF CONTENTS Perhaps surprisingly, the engineering method was chosen as the model for the universale organum instead of the method of philosophy. This choice was made for a variety of reasons. First, the engineering method is undeniably a method. We validate it every time we drive a car, pick up the telephone, sit down at a computer, cross a bridge, take an airplane, turn on the lights, take our medicine, paint our house, put on a sweater, or fire a gun. If a universal method is to exist, certainly the engineering method is a proven exemplar.
The engineering method is a persuasive example of the universal method as it has been defined here. The engineer has been using rules of thumb, hints, best engineering judgment, and heuristics since the birth of man and has made no apology for doing so. Never has he measured his best against the shaky concepts of the truth, the absolute, or the universal. He has always been satisfied to measure it against his best view of what constitutes society's best. No method that aspires to be universal can be; the engineering method, by not aspiring to be, is.
Finally, establishing the proper relationship between t he universal method and philosophy is difficult because the boundary of the fuzzy set called philosophy is so diffuse and has changed so much over time. If we, as did Plato, consider that philosophy has its own method (dialectic) and its...
