L'esprit d'ingénieur : pensée calculatoire et éthique économique

This paper focuses on the economic thought of engineers. By building on data of the history of the thought, we will search to define the «spirit of engineers», that is a way of construction of knowledge, characterized by a concern for the measurement, formalisation and calculation, but also pragmatic. We show that this way of thought did not ignore social values as is often believed. The challenge is to identify the social values and the economic ethics behind the apparent objectivity of the economic calculation of engineers.