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Systems engineering has been plagued by the problem of how to separate a system from its environment or context, in particular from its social context. We propose to include anything in the system that is necessary for performing its intended function and that may be the object of design. For certain engineering systems, such as civil aviation systems, this implies that human agents and social institutions have to be taken as integral parts of these systems. These 'socio-technical' systems are of a hybrid nature because they are constituted by different kinds of elements, intentional and nonintentional: social institutions, human agents and technical artefacts. This paper analyses two different roles that human agents, as elements of socio-technical systems, may play with regard to technical artefacts. Furthermore, it discusses some conceptual problems concerning the modelling of socio-technical systems that are due to the hybrid nature of these systems. *

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The conceptualization of the notion of a system in systems engineering, as exemplified in, for instance, the engineering standard IEEE Std 1220-1998, is problematic when applied to the design of socio-technical systems. This is argued using Intelligent Transportation Systems as an example. A preliminary conceptualization of socio-technical systems is introduced which includes technical and social elements and actors, as well as four kinds of relations. Current systems engineering practice incorporates technical elements and actors in the system but sees social elements exclusively as contextual. When designing socio-technical systems, however, social elements and the corresponding relations must also be considered as belonging to the system.

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In our introduction to the book The Empirical Turn in the Philosophy of Technology we argued for a triple reorientation in mainstream philosophy of technology, namely (1) from a focus on the use of technology and its societal effects to the development of technology, in particular engineering design, (2) from a normative to a descriptive approach and (3) from moral to non-moral issues (Kroes and Meijers 2000 ). Our main reasons for arguing for this triple reorientation, referred to as "an empirical turn", was the treatment of technology as a black box and the dominance of (negative) normative starting points underlying many of the most infl uential analyses of technology in the philosophy of technology. We believed (and still believe) that "a better understanding of technology resulting from an empirical turn will contribute to better normative analyses and evaluations" (ibid, p. xxxiii). In this paper we analyze what a turn to better normative analyses and evaluations will imply for the philosophy of technology. We refer to such a turn as an axiological turn in the philosophy of technology. We distinguish between a descriptive and normative axiological turn. The former is very much in line with the empirical turn and the latter deviates from it by trying to reintroduce, in a specifi c way, a normative element in the philosophy of technology. Our analysis of what is involved in an axiological turn is not to be understood in the sense that we think that the empirical turn in the philosophy of technology has been completed and that now the time has come to turn to normative issues.