JiscMail Logo
Email discussion lists for the UK Education and Research communities

Help for PHD-DESIGN Archives


PHD-DESIGN Archives

PHD-DESIGN Archives


PHD-DESIGN@JISCMAIL.AC.UK


View:

Message:

[

First

|

Previous

|

Next

|

Last

]

By Topic:

[

First

|

Previous

|

Next

|

Last

]

By Author:

[

First

|

Previous

|

Next

|

Last

]

Font:

Monospaced Font

LISTSERV Archives

LISTSERV Archives

PHD-DESIGN Home

PHD-DESIGN Home

PHD-DESIGN  August 2009

PHD-DESIGN August 2009

Options

Subscribe or Unsubscribe

Subscribe or Unsubscribe

Log In

Log In

Get Password

Get Password

Subject:

What's in a title?

From:

Ranulph Glanville <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Ranulph Glanville <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Fri, 7 Aug 2009 09:02:33 +0100

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

text/plain (184 lines)

Doctor, in the sense you covet it, Ken (Doctor Angelicus), is not the
doctor in PhD (philo + sophy: love + wisdom, I think), but the doctor
of ducare: to lead out. Hence, teacher.

We are in a total mess with these titles. Many medical "doctors" have
no doctorate at all, and those that do, when they talk about their
research, talk about nothing more that schoolchild practical science.
Doctor as teacher and doctor as knower/contributor are different. And,
if doctor is teacher, what is professor? In some English universities,
it seems to me professor is the title given to a middle manager. I
think I'm right that any teacher is called professor in France, and
that many teachers are called doctor in Italy.

I can't see the advantage in trying to sort this out. We should just
accept the multiplicity. I think Bologna is quite the worst thing
imaginable, trying to make uniformity out of perfectly acceptable
diversity and chaos. The Bologna results don't seem to help anything
much, certainly not education, research or standards!

I have a medical doctor friend in Australia who has a car number plate
commemorating Supa-doc the magnificent, a perhaps a sort of super
Anselm? Well, he did convert to Catholicism. And the social
affectation I hate most of all is people who confuse their name and
their title, introducing themselves thus: my name is Dr XXXX YYYY.
Specially the medical ones. Grrrrrrrrrrr!

Retreating rapidly into the wings,

Ranulph




On 7 Aug 2009, at 08:43, 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--

Top of Message | Previous Page | Permalink

JiscMail Tools


RSS Feeds and Sharing


Advanced Options


Archives

April 2024
March 2024
February 2024
January 2024
December 2023
November 2023
October 2023
September 2023
August 2023
July 2023
June 2023
May 2023
April 2023
March 2023
February 2023
January 2023
December 2022
November 2022
October 2022
September 2022
August 2022
July 2022
June 2022
May 2022
April 2022
March 2022
February 2022
January 2022
December 2021
November 2021
October 2021
September 2021
August 2021
July 2021
June 2021
May 2021
April 2021
March 2021
February 2021
January 2021
December 2020
November 2020
October 2020
September 2020
August 2020
July 2020
June 2020
May 2020
April 2020
March 2020
February 2020
January 2020
December 2019
November 2019
October 2019
September 2019
August 2019
July 2019
June 2019
May 2019
April 2019
March 2019
February 2019
January 2019
December 2018
November 2018
October 2018
September 2018
August 2018
July 2018
June 2018
May 2018
April 2018
March 2018
February 2018
January 2018
December 2017
November 2017
October 2017
September 2017
August 2017
July 2017
June 2017
May 2017
April 2017
March 2017
February 2017
January 2017
December 2016
November 2016
October 2016
September 2016
August 2016
July 2016
June 2016
May 2016
April 2016
March 2016
February 2016
January 2016
December 2015
November 2015
October 2015
September 2015
August 2015
July 2015
June 2015
May 2015
April 2015
March 2015
February 2015
January 2015
December 2014
November 2014
October 2014
September 2014
August 2014
July 2014
June 2014
May 2014
April 2014
March 2014
February 2014
January 2014
December 2013
November 2013
October 2013
September 2013
August 2013
July 2013
June 2013
May 2013
April 2013
March 2013
February 2013
January 2013
December 2012
November 2012
October 2012
September 2012
August 2012
July 2012
June 2012
May 2012
April 2012
March 2012
February 2012
January 2012
December 2011
November 2011
October 2011
September 2011
August 2011
July 2011
June 2011
May 2011
April 2011
March 2011
February 2011
January 2011
December 2010
November 2010
October 2010
September 2010
August 2010
July 2010
June 2010
May 2010
April 2010
March 2010
February 2010
January 2010
December 2009
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
July 2009
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998


JiscMail is a Jisc service.

View our service policies at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/policyandsecurity/ and Jisc's privacy policy at https://www.jisc.ac.uk/website/privacy-notice

For help and support help@jisc.ac.uk

Secured by F-Secure Anti-Virus CataList Email List Search Powered by the LISTSERV Email List Manager