Hello Chris,
Edouardo, Ken and everyone,

Edouardo said:
Since we don’t suffer from the anachronism of calling Philosophy Doctors
to anyone that conducts research sufficiently according to peers in any
area (we only call Philosophy Doctor to the ones that achieved it in
Philosophy Departments or Philosophy programs) we don’t have the anguish
that devours Ken’s intellectual guts.

We simply call Doctors to people. For instance, I’m a doctor in Visual
Communication in Architecture, my wife is a doctor in Communication and
Language specialized in Theory of Culture, my colleague next door Carlos
is doctor in Production Engineering. (of course that we had to do
research and a dissertation very similar but nicer to a Anglo-Saxon PhD)

---

Ken asked Chris:

For a PhD -- practice-based or classical -- one expects to answer a
question, interpret or challenge prior knowledge, or in some way make an
original contribution to the knowledge of the field. How else might we do
this than through some form of organized inquiry, and how might we present
what we develop, discover, or learn other than through some kind of logical
structure?
------

I would like to add another perspective to this part of the debate:
Here at our faculty we have a Ph.D. for our discipline, in the sense of
Edouardo' post, but as a Ph.D. the subject is as Ken suggests. At our
faculty, we say Ph.D.(Aménagement) which literally translated from French is
a Doctor of Philosophy in Planning (environmental design in the broad
sense). However, we have Ph.D. candidates from five disciplines sectors :
Architecture, industrial design, interior design, landscape architecture and
urban planning. This name stems from the historic link of this Ph.D. to
urban planning, when it was created in 1969. Each candidate has a subject
with different questions, scale and subject issues, contexts and knowledge
interests, making our common seminars very interesting but complex for the
professor to facilitate.

However, this Ph.D.(Aménagement) draws a line on offering 'any subject' as a
valid 'Doctor of Philosophy', including 'research creation', which is what
we call creative research when this is solely and purely an act of creative
activity, such as visual dance, for example. That is not to say we should
not have doctorates in this field, and we will offer an ad-hoc doctorate
option where this subject might be studied. In the Ph.D.
(Aménagement-Environmental design), however, there has to be a well written,
thorough and logical theoretical foundation with a philosophical
underpinning to support new or innovative knowledge production that offers
changes or a new direction to move the field of study forward, to offer
something back into academia or practice, depending on the nature of the
research subject. As Ken suggests, this is then supported by the 'object of
research' which is a logical form of organized inquiry, that may be quite
action-oriented or project-based in its nature. This inquiry has to be
supported by an 'object of study' that produces something that is either
trustworthy or verifiable. The projects are wide and varied in everything
from interaction design to third world micro-financing of urban housing to
more traditional theoretical studies about problems within the built
environment. All our students write comprehensive exams and then go out into
the field to conduct the research that they have set out to do. Creative
artistic work might be involved but it is not the sole object of study nor
is it considered to be in the nature of building the Ph.D. At the end of the
day the philosophy or theory being developed is for a particular aspect of
environmental design in 5 disciplines that develops new knowledge in the
field, and this can be quite 'practical' in its nature.

We are in the middle of debate here as well, with the faculty evaluating a
need to expand and develop discipline-specific doctorates for specific
disciplines and needs of researchers
(Doctor of design, Ph.D. architecture, etc.) and find ways to support the
exciting and burgeoning research-creation projects beginning to emerge at
the doctoral level.
 
However, for now there are clear delineations of a Doctor of Philosophy
developing new knowledge while a Doctor of Architecture, for example, would
develop expertise specific to the field of architecture. Only the Ph.D., no
designation, is one conferred by the Philosophy department at the university
for the same purposes Edouardo stated.

Regards to you all,

Tiiu


Tiiu Poldma, Ph.D.
Faculté de l'aménagement
Faculty of Environmental Design
University of Montreal