Quote:
Originally Posted by California98Civic
It is just an oddity of a long tradition in the academy. It does not mean she studied Kant and Hegel. It means she completed an advanced degree in research. Once upon a long time ago, it was almost all "philosophy" ... think Aristotle and Plato... all the modern fields of inquiry evolved from that tradition, splintering off. Many still have the Ph.D. ... Physics ...
Here is a sjmilar degree from UKansas: Doctor of Philosophy in Aerospace Engineering: Degree Requirements - KU Catalog
James |
Thank the Germans; they were the first to apply "Doctor of Philosophy" as a catch-all term for any post-graduate research degree in the arts and sciences outside of theology, medicine, and law. This quickly spread to the US, where it persists. The term doesn't actually have anything to do with classical philosophy; in the medieval university system, philosophy was not a part of any course of study, or of the quadrivium and trivium that were prerequisite, and the Germans used "philosophy" (more-generically meaning "knowledge") to replace the previously-common catch-all "arts."