Two sets of concerns have motivated and sustained the research in my dissertation. First, modern ideas of technology and engineering have been over-represented by their dominant forms: that technology is all about progress and the more advanced "high" technology and that engineering chiefly concerns quantity, efficiency, problem-solving, and "better" machines. Second, these potent values in technology and engineering, as a conceptual whole, tend to reinforce each other and create conditions conducive to its sociocultural reproduction that discounts and subjugates viable alternative practices. My dissertation draws on both historical and philosophical approaches to the question of technology and engineering. My historical-linguistic study looks for the historical meanings of the two words—technology and engineering–in connection with their modern counterparts and discusses the social values and conditions that shaped the dynamics of their early development to understand and deconstruct their modern dominant representation. The analysis of ancient writings locates precedent for dominant engineering practice in ancient siege engines and military engineering, where qualities such as quantity, power, superiority, and ingenuity reinforced each other at the critical times of high-stakes siege warfare. I demonstrate how these interlocking qualities became the ideological basis for an enduring historical-conceptual structure of the dominant ideas of engineering that, despite strikingly different social contexts, continues to the present and limits the diversity of knowledge and participants. Returning back to the present, I develop a philosophical critique of contemporary engineering as "technology of technology," in that modern dominant engineering practice becomes technically provincial yet socially ambitious for our personal and institutional technical practice. In this process, certain practices in engineering, including communication, ethical reasoning, empathy, etc., have been marginalized and become what I call the "subjugated technical practice." By identifying the specific criteria and values that systematically discount and exclude the subjugated technical practice in different aspects, my analysis highlights and validates the latter's extraordinary qualities that contribute no less significantly to the success of engineering practice. Finally, to explore the possibilities of substantive policy changes, I propose theory and practice under the heading of "critical reflexive technology" and call for radical changes and critical participation from within and beyond engineering. / Doctor of Philosophy / The dissertation is an interdisciplinary project seeking to critique and engage with contemporary engineering practice that predominantly emphasizes certain values—such as quantity, efficiency, problem-solving, and "better" machines—and narrows the diversity of knowledge and participants. Toward this end, my research has two parts: one that concerns the genesis and perpetuation of the dominant ideas of engineering in history and the other that is grounded in the philosophical critique of contemporary engineering practice. My historical analysis carries out etymological studies of words and uncovers the social context that has shaped their meanings since antiquity. Whereas technology, in the sense of Ancient Greek techne, denotes effective means toward an end that is diverse in scope with many possibilities, the idea of engineering has drawn from the concepts of engines and machines and connoted a tendency for means and goals that can be evaluated more or less quantitatively. Emphasis on quantity varied in degree and was not universal. Still, it was most conspicuous in the ancient writing of military engineering on siege engines, when numbers were correlated with the ideas of power, superiority, and ingenuity at the critical times of high-stakes siege warfare. I argue that while these ideas of engineering initially claimed precedence in the context of military conflicts and war engines, they coalesced into an integrated value system and became the ideological basis for the narrowed concepts of modern engineering. My philosophical critique of modern engineering characterizes it as a negative instance of "technology of technology," in that widespread practice in engineering becomes technically provincial yet socially ambitious for our personal and institutional technical practice. In this process, certain practices in engineering, including communication, ethical reasoning, empathy, etc., have been marginalized and become what I call the "subjugated technical practice." By identifying the criteria and values that render the subjugated technical practice irrelevant and undesirable in engineering, my analysis calls attention to the latter's extraordinary qualities that contribute no less significantly to the success of engineering practice. Finally, to explore the possibilities of substantive policy changes, I propose theory and practice under the heading of "critical reflexive technology" and call for radical changes and critical participation from within and beyond engineering.