Outsiders to the engineering community are unaware of the debate within engineering as to the definition of an engineer. More specifically, the challenge of outlining what an engineer is or of what an engineer consists, may seem like long settled business. Those of us within engineering can rest assured that the debate is alive and well, with the beginning throes of a true, unique engineering philosophy only recently being pondered in the Western world. This work seeks not to elaborate upon the current or historic papers within engineering philosophy, but aims to outline core developments in the world of phenomenology and existentialism primarily inspired by Dall'Alba's recent invocations of Heidegger's works. Surely, others in the field have used philosophical terms relating to existentialism, phenomenology, and ontology, some with commercial success; however, core concepts from the philosophers that some within engineering education quote with liberty are missing from critical discourse. Furthermore, while various individuals have laid out concepts in philosophy as they apply to engineers or called for a philosophy of engineering, the question of how we prepare engineers to think philosophically is an open subject. The more important question of how we prepare engineers to change the field of professional engineering using philosophical constructs is even more daunting. In order to better prepare the engineering education community to address those questions, an ongoing dialogue on different philosophical constructs is needed.
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