Philosophy matters in engineering studies

This article explores the rationale for including in an integrated five-years Masters Engineering programme liberal arts subjects, in particular Philosophy and the History of Science and Technology. We argue that the tools of philosophy should be used to provide additional insight into how engineering was and is ‘performed’. We first review the challenge, next we present some results of an empirical case study carried out at AU-IBT in Denmark. The purpose of the case study was to examine a sample of engineering teachers’ attitudes towards the relevance and scope of liberal arts subjects for engineering students. Finally we conclude with a proposal for the inclusion of Philosophy and History of Engineering, Science and Technology in an engineering programme and how this might be done.