Engineering and design skills

In various branches of society there is focus on the need for design skills and innovation potential as a means of communicating and handling constant change. In this context, the traditional idea of the engineer as a poly-technician inventing solutions by understanding the laws of nature and mastering various mathematical tools is challenged, and more interdisciplinary scientific approaches are emerging. In this article, the pragmatic semiotics of Charles Sanders Peirce will be introduced as a metatheoretical framework for understanding creative knowledge-based design processes. Especially his concept of diagrammatic reasoning to some extent incarnates the very method of engineering and design. On this background, it is argued how the work field and techniques of the engineer and the engineering scientist could be characterized in a broader creative context of learning and communication. This leads to considering the fundamental skills of the engineering practice as basic abilities to see the structures and dynamics of the world, to model it, and to create new solutions concerning practical as well as theoretical matters. Finally, it is assumed that the essence of engineering “bildung” in the polytechnological fields of knowledge engineering and engineering research can be related to a meta-level design-cultural setting.