system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Philosophy of thermodynamics

I'm starting my PhD in engineering in two months on the topic of 'sustainable and energy efficient building'. Because I am very into philosophy, I want to tackle this subject in a deeper way than the normal engineering approach. Specifically, I want to grasp the true concepts behind energy, entropy (and the related exergy).

When thermodynamics came about (Carnot, Clausius etc.) there was way more attention (and appreciation in my mind) for the philosophical concepts of energy/entropy etc. Nowadays, the focus lies on the mathematical side of things, forgetting what it all effectively means.

 I would love to read all the classic authors myself, but, because the PhD is not in philosophy but engineering, I do not have the time. Do any of you have good references on the (philosophical) meaning of energy, entropy etc or some historical evolution of these concepts?
gpt
A readable but solid high-level introduction to these topics is Eric D. Schneider and Dorion Sagan's *Into The Cool: Energy Flow, Thermodynamics, and Life.* It's more science than philosophy, but it deals with the concepts well, and has a very, very broad scope.

I also really liked Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers' *Order out of Chaos* (written by a chemist and a philosopher respectively), but it's perhaps a tad dated now.