Philosophical currents and decision-making in intelligent industrial automation systems: a capability framework for Industry 4.0
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.64439/cisai.v2i2.44Keywords:
Industrial automation, intelligent systems, decision-making, positivism, critical realism, hermeneuticsAbstract
The incorporation of intelligent systems into industrial automation is transforming supervision and decision-making,
requiring professionals capable of combining technical expertise, causal understanding, contextual interpretation, and responsibility for the consequences of their decisions. In this context, the objective was to analyze the contribution of positivism, critical realism, and hermeneutics to capability development and decision-making in order to propose an integrated framework for Industry 4.0. A transdisciplinary approach and a documentary philosophical-analytical methodology were adopted, supported by a scoping review conducted in Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar covering the period 2020–2026. After applying the selection criteria, a corpus of 22 sources was established and analyzed through thematic coding. The results show that positivism supports measurement and control, critical realism extends diagnosis through the identification of causal mechanisms, and hermeneutics incorporates the interpretation of the human–technology context. This articulation enabled the development of a capability framework organized into operational, tactical, and strategic levels, with environmental philosophy as a cross-cutting dimension and human oversight of decisions mediated by artificial intelligence. It is concluded that this integration could strengthen professional judgment in increasingly automated industrial systems, although further validation is required.
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