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Put the “Ph” Back in PhD
- thaumasiotes 11y agoSure, let's "put back" something that was never there in the first place. Philosophiae Doctor is just the name of the degree. Where did it come from? Let's ask wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_of_Philosophy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_of_Philosophy ): > In most of Europe, all fields other than theology, law, and medicine were traditionally known as philosophy, and in Germany and elsewhere in Europe the basic faculty of (liberal) arts was known as the faculty of philosophy.
- dagw 11y agoIt's also interesting to note that Germany (and elsewhere in Europe) also have the degrees of Doctor of Engineering or Doctor of Technology. If one believes that PhD's should be more philosophical/theoretical (and I'm certainly cool with that), you should also add a new, comparable, degree for people who really want to spend few years digging into the hardcore technical side of their chosen field.
- vacri 11y agoPhilosophy is also responsible for the scientific method and things like the null hypothesis. There's a strong tendency for 'hard science' folks to look down their noses at philosophy, but the truth is that the fundamentals of their research is squarely due to the philosophy. Philosophy is responsible for scientists developing the methods of rigorous observation. Source: I once looked down my nose at philosophy, then I started doing first-priciples on the methodology I was taught. Turns out that 'philosophy of science' is a field unto itself.
- mattmanser 11y agoYou've got it backwards. It's not like a bunch of philosophers sat round and came up with the scientific method and until they did that there was no science. Scientists experimented and tried to justify their conclusions (sometimes badly or incorrectly), which lead to the philosophy of science. Karl Popper was a recent philosopher, not a forming giant of science, he rationalized the scientific method with falsifiability after the fact, after Einstein's Theory of Relativity, for example. It's also easy to get the two mixed up as Philosophy basically used to be the nascent 'science'. It's also worth reading this before you get too attached to philosophy: http://www.paulgraham.com/philosophy.html http://www.paulgraham.com/philosophy.html Ultimately present day philosophy, last I looked and certainly since Wittgenstein, is all about playing with word meaning and almost upfront about it, but pg argues in reality it always was like that.
- ThomPete 11y agoYou are both right and wrong. Philosophy (asking questions) and science (testing questions) are depending on each other.
- mattmanser 11y agoin the traditional natural sciences that's not been true for a few centuries now. Theoretical physicists aren't classified as philosophers for example, which fits your 'asking' criteria. Theoretical scientists ask, experimental test. It was still kind of true in the social sciences like psychology and sociology in the last century, but they've become more 'real', more rigorous and less influenced by philosophers, the questions in those fields today are now asked by people who wouldn't identify themselves as philosophers but as scientists. I would say that change has really crystallized in the last 20 years, when I was in uni psychology and sociology were still considered a bit of a joke, kind of not real science and the philosophy courses I did about them still tried to pretend to be relevant in the discussion. Now I think we're starting to see the rigor really kick in, which is demonstrated in the recent reproducibility saga.
- ThomPete 11y agoIt doesn't matter what they are classified as what matters is what they do. It's the difference between the disciplin of philosophy and the act of philosophizing. Without philosophizing there wouldn't be any big bang theory, or string theory etc. Philosophy is a slippery slope the same way that improvising in music is. It's value is not in the results but in the process.
- Fylwind 11y agoIdeas and breakthroughs in physics don't usually just appear out of vacuum. More often, they occur through a series of mathematical analogies, heuristics, and trial and error. String theory, for example, was motivated by the fact that the equations that govern gluons resemble equations of a vibrating string. There are a few folks who do care about things like multiverses and quantum foundations, which certainly overlap with philosophy a lot more, but it's not really something most physicists do.
- maus42 11y agoAnd 'science' as we know it today used to be called 'natural philosophy'.
- Keyframe 11y agoOP asked wikipedia in the wrong place. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_science#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_science#History As one can remember from high school, natural science fields spawned from natural philosophy from 17th through 19th century. Culminating maybe with psychology in the early 20th century (end of 19th). No mystery there.
- thaumasiotes 11y agoI was perfectly aware of this, and checked https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_philosophy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_philosophy . The link and quote I provided are much more directly relevant. Ph.D.s aren't just for natural science; they're for everything that isn't covered by a J.D. or an M.D. Funny coincidence, that, given the historical factoid "All fields other than theology, law, and medicine were traditionally known as philosophy". Ph.D.s in literature, history, or classics have nothing to do with natural philosophy, and never did.
- Keyframe 11y agoProblem, probably, arises in dual definition of philosophy. Google says (define: philosophy): (this is the classic meaning) 1. the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially when considered as an academic discipline. 2. a theory or attitude that acts as a guiding principle for behaviour.
- teekert 11y agoI had a friend/college from Russia, he told this is the case there. During the thesis defense there is a section reserved for Philosophy (of life, meaning etc). Any Russians care to elaborate?
- nobodyshere 11y agoCan't elaborate on the thesis, but prior to enrolling for a PhD program you indeed have to pass a philosophy exam. This is usually considered the most difficult. Passed it in summer.
- mlvljr 11y agoThere's also another one, being a part of the so called "Candidate Minimum" (normally to be taken after taking a one-year philosophy (or philosopy of science -- for engineers) course) :)
- Grue3 11y agoI remember taking this. I had to answer something about socialism or marxism or whatever (I remember having to name the prominent socialist thinkers). This was in the 2000s, by the way. I got 3 points out of 5. I passed the other exams, math and English, perfectly, and that was not enough. I only got accepted due to personal recommendation of my scientific advisor. Since then I'm of the opinion that "Ph" is complete bullshit.
- nobodyshere 11y agoI prefer to think of "Ph" as a tradition.
- OJFord 11y agoI would love a Doctorate of Tradition. Would never expect to be hired, though.
- kartikkumar 11y agoAt my university (TU Delft), we have to include a set of premises/statements that are open for questioning during the thesis defense. You're supposed to list ten statements and the usual breakdown is that a few will be on the specific topic that you're graduating on, a few will be about the field of research at a whole and the rest are "philosophical musings". I've started thinking about mine and I actually think it's a valuable exercise to have this as part of the culmination of a long and arduous journey. I think it's in our graduation process now as a matter of tradition, rather than an impetus to spawn true philosophical debate, which is a shame. Friends who have graduated have put down some pretty deep thoughts, which I think reflects upon the fact that a PhD done right provokes you to think about the nature of research and the world around you.
- jmmcd 11y ago> We need big thinkers We need some, but there aren't anywhere near enough big-thinking jobs for all these PhDs. > The success of science and technology will always lead to new ethical dilemmas. How do you spot them and try to work with society before they become problems? A better appreciation of ethics is likely to address what has become an epidemic of retractions in the scientific literature. All the recent retractions have nothing to do with scientists being unaware of ethical dilemmas raised by their work. They're to do with perverse incentives, p-hacking, and occasionally deliberate dishonesty.
- Fede_V 11y agoYeah, pretty much exactly this. In the abstract, I fully support teaching science PhDs more about Quine, Russell, Popper, Carnap - they are all great thinkers who had very intelligent ideas. In practice, PhDs at top tier institutions are far too concerned with the day to day rat race that the history of ideas is not likely to be a serious priority. As long as the competition for stable positions will remain so fierce, and the criteria for which candidates are judged will remain so narrow, the problems are likely to be far more prosaic than those raised by analytical philosophers.
- jamesrcole 11y ago> In practice, ... You're arguing that what happens to be the case now is how it should be. Do you think this is the best way for it to be, and if so, why?
- Fede_V 11y agoAbsolutely no. However, as the parent comment pointed out, the root problem is the broken incentives - the lack of philosophical sophistication of scientists is at best a 3rd order term.
- cryoshon 11y agoThe last academic shop I was at had an Eritrean biostatistician around who was the only actual philosopher of science in the entire troupe. He understood the different perspectives of epistemology as well as statistical analysis, and was a tremendous asset in planning new studies for the most high impact data... unfortunately, to many of the postdocs and PIs, he was just an annoyance, because they refused to accept that their studies were poorly constructed and their data was less than rigorous.
- thefastlane 11y agoThe Senior Executive Provost of Whatever sees your department as nothing but a cost center. Literally. I agree completely with the author, but I'll add one more thing: we need big ideas to overcome the market-fundamentalist ideology that drives university administrations today.
- tenkabuto 11y agoI find it odd that one's exposure to and encouraging of bigger-thinking is somewhat reserved until the PhD level and that, after a long while of not exposing or encouraging such, our systems had ever expected people to suddenly think big once at the PhD level. It may be more productive to have the expectation of bigger-thinking introduced earlier and let that expectation be realized more fully at the PhD level.
- rubidium 11y agoThis 100x. By the time you're getting your PhD, the college graduate should have read the classics, done at least 1st year level calculus, biology, physics, ethics, philosophy, and 2-4 years of a foreign language. High school and undergraduate is the time to be broad-minded. PhD is for very focused work (with the big picture in mind). Personally, I read the classics and learned Greek and Latin (high school), then in college took 8 courses of philosophy, 2 of Spanish, 2 in economics, 4 in business/entrepreneurship, and a smattering of other interesting things (art, music, etc...) while getting a Physics major. Then I went and spent 6 years learning more about one thing than anyone in the world.
- SmokyBorbon 11y agoThe problem is scientific reductionism and the runaway success of science over the past couple hundred years. People think they don't need the suprarational.
- d_theorist 11y agoI think this article mixes together and perhaps confuses a few different things. Stated problems: - scientists are not equipped by their training to be able to tackle "big" challenges such as meteorites and pandemics. - "hyper-competitiveness" for grants - extreme specialisation means that people can't communicate. And the solution is to learn about: 1. epistemology 2. quantitative skills 3. ethics I certainly don't disagree with the value of learning about these things. But while epistemology and quantitative skills might help make the scientific process more rigorous, I don't see that it will change competitiveness or the inability to tackle big challenges or deter specialisation. And while ethics is always a valuable thing to think about, I don't think it helps scientific rigor or any of the author's stated problems. Overall I found the piece a bit muddled.
- gkop 11y agoQuite muddled.