Hi all
I've been away a while doing some research but it's good to see the
list coming back to these basics, it does seem like every time the
ground is covered there is a new flavour to the discussion.
Of course, Ken's periodisation of the PhD is detailed and accurate as
usual. However, I did want to throw in an excellent book that may be
useful for people with an interest in this history:
Clark, William. (2006). Academic charisma and the origins of the
research university. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
One of the key issues Clark's administrative history clarifies is how
the origin of the research university in the Germanies is brought
about not simply through academic desire, but through the dynamics of
Protestant state formation. Far from academic freedom being opposed to
state oversight, Humboldt actively sought the state to guarantee
certain kinds of protection from the less meritocratic interests of a
civil society (i.e. the opposite to how we understand the dynamic in
the complaints on research assessment today). The bargain involves the
acceptance of bureaucratic state oversight (advancing from the
traditional "visitations" of the clergy) in return for specialisation
(vs. serial chair acquisition based on seniority) and the new academic
freedoms to teach and learn.
This is quite important for our discussion as it allows us to avoid
the trap of assuming a timeless meaning for the term research, or even
to believe that the discussion on what constitutes academic knowledge
has been primarily intellectual in nature. [I know Ken as a good
institutionalist would not mistake theory for organisational
development, so I am just supplementing his brief account to suggest
that Kant could be seen as much a product of this institutional
environment as its progenitor].
One of my favourite stories (p191) involves Clark's account of a
certain Amerbach, an eloquent early advocate for a doctorate in the
arts [encompassing philosophy and sciences] to join those in law,
medicine and theology. He noted that the sciences were becoming
increasingly important, there was obviously strong scholarship in
these domains, etc. This was in 1571. Such claims would be resisted -
in language reminiscent of much of the language on this list about
research through practice - for the next quarter of a millenium until
the invention of the PhD Ken notes below.
In response to much impersonation of doctors among philosophers and
poets through that time, in 1641 jurist Georg Walther formulated a
syllogism [much in the language of the College Art Association today
perhaps]:
The master's is the highest degree in philosophy.
The doctor's degree is superior to the master's.
Ergo, the doctor of philosophy does not exist. (193)
That settled it, especially when impersonating a doctor could get you
legally tortured or killed.
Universities are fundamentally conservative institutions - we might
say they are better defenders of knowledge than creators of it - and
for very good reasons. Still, the doctorate does always evolve -
unevenly, for reasons largely outside the control of academics who
know the most about such things - and a historical perspective can
give us some amusement when we look back at Hugh McDonald's 1943
review of the Doctorate in America claiming that "the bars have been
lowered so that theses which set forth only new standards of
mediocrity have been accepted for the Ph.D". He laments the wane of
the requirement for reading knowledge in two foreign languages, a
requirement that would quickly disqualify many recent Anglophone
graduates in the former Empire.
My thoughts on practice another time, but I would say that the
assertion is often made that writing is the only mechanism for
guaranteeing reflexivity, transferability and criticality in
"knowledge" production. While it is the customary form in academia, we
should also note Derrida's thorough expansion of the concept of
writing to the structure of sign systems in general (arche-writing).
And in a world where a globalised audio-visual archive is available in
a way which only previously existed for text, we should also note the
critical, reflexive transfer of something ("knowledge"?) among
practitioners who rarely write in the sense of using the system of
graphic marks standing in for speech.
Where I would agree with most is that our shared understanding of
ideal structures for the practice-based PhD is far from mature, and
the goal and potential should be to find means to ensure that the
future of these programs adds to and does not significantly detract
from the value accorded to students and teachers, their practices, our
fields, the qualification, and the University as a whole. The best way
to do this - from my point of view - will be through a combination of
the rapid prototyping methods we know from design ("build on the best
available and see whether it works rather than design in theory") and
the space for critical evaluation that is the legacy of the modern
University.
All the best
Danny
--
http://www.dannybutt.net
On 7/08/2009, at 7:43 PM, Ken Friedman wrote:
> Hi, Lubomir,
>
> While I agree with many of the issues you raise, I want to offer one
> correction and a few differences.
>
> The PhD is not an Anglophone invention, but a creation of the German
> Humboldt university reforms of 1805. While Anglophone universities
> adopted
> the PhD for many purposes and many fields, the Anglophone
> universities also
> have a rich history of professional degrees -- MD, JD, ThD, PsyD,
> and so on.
> The Germans and other Europeans also have other professional
> degrees, DIng,
> DTech, and the like.
>
> But "philosophy" in the sense of the award does not refer to
> philosophy as a
> discipline or field. It uses the term philosophy as an organized
> body of
> knowledge -- natural philosophy, for example, being the old term for
> natural
> science. Prior to the PhD, many university systems awarded a degree
> DrPhilos
> much closer to the higher doctorates, using such degrees as
> licensiate or
> magister for the level above MA. The 3-year PhD is roughly
> equivalent to the
> old Norwegian magister or the old Swedish licensiate, and the Germans
> therefore required the habilitation as the higher stage above a PhD
> for
> anyone qualifying for senior academic appointment. This, too, is
> slightly
> different in different nations, as the licensiate qualified one to
> teach at
> university before completing the doctorate.
>
> So please don't blame this entirely on the Anglophones. The ancient
> British
> universities refused to award the PhD until just about the 20th
> century,
> believing that the MA was more than good enough.
>
> For that matter, Kant's Conflict of the Faculties -- the book that
> led to
> the Humboldt reforms -- argued that the lower and fundamental
> faculty of the
> sciences and philosophy was the core faculty of the university,
> while the
> higher faculties of law, medicine, and theology were the specialized
> faculties representing the professions rather than representing
> knowledge.
> It is the lower faculty that awarded the philosophical degrees,
> where the
> higher awarded the doctorates of law, medicine, and theology.
>
> All this being even more confusing the farther back we go, when the
> terms
> "master," "professor," and "doctor," we often somewhat
> interchangeable --
> and at the least, they differed depending on where you studied.
>
> On the key points, of course, I appreciate your note and thank you
> for a
> valued clarification. I hope for the day when I will get my
> honorific title.
> Thomas Aquinas was known as Doctor Angelicus (the Angelic Doctor),
> Duns
> Scotus as Doctor Subtilis (the Subtle Doctor), and Roger Bacon was
> known as
> Doctor Mirabilis (the Wonderful Doctor). Sort of like professional
> wrestlers. My favorite was Anselm of Canterbury -- Doctor Magnificus
> (the
> Magnificent Doctor). I'm quite sad that the title is taken.
>
> Yours,
>
> Ken
>
> Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS
> Professor
> Dean
>
> Swinburne Design
> Swinburne University of Technology
> Melbourne, Australia
>
> Telephone +61 3 9214 6755
> www.swinburne.edu.au/design
>
>
> On Thu, 6 Aug 2009 22:28:56 -0400, Lubomir Savov Popov <[log in to unmask]
> > wrote:
>
> --snip--
>
> The whole confusion stems from an Anglophone practice to use the
> term Ph.D.
> (Philosophy Doctor) for everything. It is an anachronism. It has
> made sense
> when it has been used initially. After that, it has been used in so
> many
> areas, that in some areas it sounds strange and in others it is a
> misnomer.
> Another issue is that the Anglophone economies and educations
> systems are so
> strong that they practically wiped out any other competitors,
> different
> conceptualizations, and practices. In such moments, I realize that a
> little
> bit of diversity might be of great help to Anglophone culture, to
> realize
> where it is, where it is going, and why it is going there. All that
> said, I
> want to express my admiration for the achievements of that culture.
> It is so
> powerful that even I oscillate terminologically between several
> conceptual
> systems, as you will notice in this post.
>
> --snip--
>
> Of course, both in engineering and in architecture there is place and
> actually there are a lot of "pure" Ph.D. dissertation situations. For
> example, when studying basic science problems, theoretical problems,
> social
> factors problems, and so forth. The professions have so many aspects
> and
> levels that even in a single profession we can see a multitude of
> dissertation types of different nature and tradition.
>
> Another problem is the insistence of some faculty to accept an
> artifact as a
> research product. The artifact or oeuvre by itself is not research.
> It is
> not even practice-based research. And the artifact by itself doesn't
> produce
> new knowledge. That is one of the logical fallacies that many people
> follow.
> Or, maybe it is not a fallacy, but a deliberate promotion of personal
> interests. The scholarly act is the act of knowledge production. In
> order to
> have a scholarly act, we need to analyze, explicate, and present the
> artifact and the process of making in accordance to particular
> methodological standards and criteria that are developed in the
> discipline/profession.
>
> --snip--
--
http://www.dannybutt.net
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