Doctor of Philosophy

==History==
<!--linked from 'Academic genealogy of theoretical physicists' and 'Erhard Weigel'-->
=== Medieval and early modern Europe ===
In the [[Medieval university|universities of Medieval Europe]], study was organized in four faculties: the basic faculty of arts, and the three higher faculties of theology, medicine, and law ([[canon law]] and [[civil law (legal system)|civil law]]). All of these faculties awarded intermediate degrees (bachelor of arts, of theology, of laws, of medicine) and final degrees. Initially, the titles of master and doctor were used interchangeably for the final degrees—the title ''Doctor'' was merely a formality bestowed on a Teacher/Master of the art—but by the late [[Middle Ages]] the terms Master of Arts and Doctor of Theology/Divinity, Doctor of Law, and Doctor of Medicine had become standard in most places (though in the German and Italian universities the term ''Doctor'' was used for all faculties).<ref>Ruano-Borbalan, Jean-Claude. (23 July 2022). [https://doi.org/10.1111/ejed.12522 ''Doctoral education from its medieval foundations to today's globalisation and standardisation'']. [[Wiley (publisher)]] online library.</ref>

The doctorates in the higher faculties were quite different from the current PhD degree in that they were awarded for advanced scholarship, not original [[research]]. No [[thesis|dissertation]] or original work was required, only lengthy residency requirements and examinations. Besides these degrees, there was the [[Licentiate (degree)|licentiate]]. Originally this was a license to teach, awarded shortly before the award of the [[Master degree|master's]] or doctoral degree by the diocese in which the university was located, but later it evolved into an [[academic degree]] in its own right, in particular in the continental universities.

According to Keith Allan Noble (1994), the first doctoral degree<!--Keith 1994 does not specify the exact type of the first doctorates--> was awarded in medieval Paris around 1150<!--"at the University of Paris circa 1150"-->.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Allan Noble |first=Keith |title=''Changing doctoral degrees: an international perspective'', Society for Research into Higher Education, 1994, p. 8; Bourner, T., Bowden, R., & Laing, S. (2001). "Professional doctorates in England |year=2001 |volume=26 |pages=65–88 |doi=10.1080/03075070020030724 |issue=1 |work=Studies in Higher Education}}</ref> The doctorate of philosophy developed in Germany as the terminal [[teacher's credential]] in the 17th century (circa 1652).<ref>{{cite web |url=http://erhard-weigel-gesellschaft.de.dedi2970.your-server.de/biographie-weigels/ |title=Erhard-Weigel-Gesellschaft: Biographie Weigels |website=Erhard-weigel-gesellschaft.de |access-date=2016-10-29 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161114124147/http://erhard-weigel-gesellschaft.de.dedi2970.your-server.de/biographie-weigels/ |archive-date=2016-11-14 }}</ref> There were no PhDs in Germany before the 1650s (when they gradually started replacing the MA as the highest academic degree; arguably, one of the earliest German PhD holders is [[Erhard Weigel]] (Dr. phil. hab., Leipzig, 1652).{{citation needed|date=February 2017}}

The full course of studies might, for example, lead in succession to the degrees of [[Bachelor of Arts]], [[Licentiate of Arts]], [[Master of Arts]], or [[Bachelor of Medicine]], Licentiate of Medicine, or [[Doctor of Medicine]], but before the early modern era, many exceptions to this existed. Most students left the university without becoming masters of arts, whereas regulars (members of monastic orders) could skip the arts faculty entirely.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Pedersen |first=Olaf |title=The first universities: Studium generale and the origins of university education in Europe |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1997 |isbn=978-0-521-59431-8}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=de Ridder-Symoens |first=Hilde |title=A history of the university in Europe: Universities in the Middle Ages |title-link=A History of the University in Europe |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-521-36105-7}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Rashdall |first=Hastings |title=The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1964}}</ref>

=== Educational reforms in Germany ===
This situation changed in the early 19th century through the educational reforms in [[Germany]], most strongly embodied in the model of the [[Humboldt University of Berlin|University of Berlin]], founded and controlled by the [[Prussian government]] in 1810. The arts faculty, which in Germany was labelled the faculty of philosophy, started demanding contributions to research,<ref name="Redefining the Doctorate">{{Cite book |last=Park |first=C. |url=https://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/gradschool/about/external/publications/redefining-the-doctorate.pdf |title=Redefining the Doctorate |publisher=The Higher Education Academy |year=2007 |location=York, UK |page=4 |access-date=2 October 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161006014331/https://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/gradschool/about/external/publications/redefining-the-doctorate.pdf |archive-date=6 October 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref> attested by a dissertation, for the award of their final degree, which was labelled Doctor of Philosophy (abbreviated as Ph.D.)—originally this was just the German equivalent of the Master of Arts degree. Whereas in the Middle Ages the arts faculty had a set curriculum, based upon the [[trivium (education)|trivium]] and the [[quadrivium]], by the 19th century it had come to house all the courses of study in subjects now commonly referred to as sciences and humanities.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rüegg |first=Walter |title=A History of the University in Europe: Volume 3, Universities in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries (1800–1945) |publisher=Cambridge University Press}}</ref> Professors across the humanities and sciences focused on their advanced research.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Turner |first=R. Steven |title=The Growth of Professorial Research in Prussia, 1818 to 1848-Causes and Context |year=1971 |volume=3 |pages=137–182 |doi=10.2307/27757317 |jstor=27757317 |journal=Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences}}</ref> Practically all the funding came from the central government, and it could be cut off if the professor was politically unacceptable.{{Relevance inline|date=May 2015}}<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Lenoir |first=Timothy |title=Revolution from above: The Role of the State in Creating the German Research System, 1810–1910 |year=1998 |volume=88 |pages=22–27 |jstor=116886 |issue=2 |journal=The American Economic Review}}</ref>

These reforms proved extremely successful, and fairly quickly the German universities started attracting foreign students, notably from the United States. The American students would go to Germany to obtain a PhD after having studied for a bachelor's degree at an American college. So influential was this practice that it was imported to the United States, where in 1861 [[Yale University]] started granting the PhD degree to younger students who, after having obtained the bachelor's degree, had completed a prescribed course of graduate study and successfully defended a [[thesis]] or dissertation containing original research in science or in the humanities.<ref>See, for instance, {{Cite journal |last=Rosenberg |first=R. P. |title=Eugene Schuyler's Doctor of Philosophy Degree: A Theory Concerning the Dissertation |year=1962 |volume=33 |pages=381–386 |doi=10.2307/1979947 |jstor=1979947 |issue=7 |journal=The Journal of Higher Education}}</ref> In Germany, the name of the doctorate was adapted after the philosophy faculty started being split up − e.g. Dr. rer. nat. for doctorates in the faculty of natural sciences − but in most of the English-speaking world the name "Doctor of Philosophy" was retained for research doctorates in all disciplines.

The PhD degree and similar awards spread across Europe in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The degree was introduced in France in 1808, replacing [[diploma]]s as the highest academic degree; into Russia in 1819, when the ''[[Doktor Nauk]]'' degree, roughly equivalent to a PhD, gradually started replacing the [[specialist diploma]], roughly equivalent to the MA, as the highest academic degree; and in Italy in 1927, when PhDs gradually started replacing the [[Laurea]] as the highest academic degree.{{citation needed|date=February 2017}}

===History in the United Kingdom ===
[[File:PhD graduand shaking hands with Sir Dominic Cadbury, the Chancellor of the University of Birmingham - 20120705.jpg|thumb|A new PhD graduate from the [[University of Birmingham]], wearing a [[Tudor bonnet|doctor's bonnet]], shakes hands with the Chancellor.]]
Research degrees first appeared in the UK in the late 19th century in the shape of the [[Doctor of Science]] (DSc or ScD) and other such "higher doctorates". The [[University of London]] introduced the DSc in 1860, but as an advanced study course, following on directly from the BSc, rather than a research degree. The first higher doctorate in the modern sense was [[Durham University]]'s DSc, introduced in 1882.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Tina Barnes |url=http://www.ukcge.ac.uk/media/Download.aspx?MediaId=1328 |title=Higher Doctorates in the UK 2013 |date=2013 |publisher=UK Council for Graduate Education |isbn=978-0-9563812-7-9 |page=6 |format=PDF |quote=The UK higher doctorate has a long history with the first (a DSc) being offered by Durham University in 1882 |access-date=19 October 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211020142801/http://www.ukcge.ac.uk/Media/Download.aspx?MediaId=1328 |archive-date=20 October 2021 |url-status=live}}</ref> 

This was soon followed by other universities, including the [[University of Cambridge]] establishing its ScD in the same year and the [[University of London]] transforming its DSc into a research degree in 1885. These were, however, very advanced degrees, rather than research-training degrees at the PhD level. [[Harold Jeffreys]] said that getting a Cambridge ScD was "more or less equivalent to being proposed for the Royal Society."<ref name="maths PhD history">{{Cite web |last=John Aldrich |title=The Mathematics PhD in the United Kingdom: Historical Notes for the Mathematics Genealogy Project |url=http://www.economics.soton.ac.uk/staff/aldrich/Doc1.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304103452/http://www.economics.soton.ac.uk/staff/aldrich/Doc1.htm |archive-date=4 March 2016 |access-date=27 September 2016}}</ref>

In 1917, the current PhD degree was introduced, along the lines of the American and German model, and quickly became popular with both British and foreign students.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Simpson, Renate |title=How the PhD came to Britain: A Century of Struggle for Postgraduate Education |date=June 1983 |publisher=Open University Press |isbn=978-0-900868-95-5}}</ref> The slightly older degrees of Doctor of Science and Doctor of Literature/Letters still exist at British universities; together with the much older degrees of [[Doctor of Divinity]] (DD), [[Doctor of Music]] (DMus), [[Doctor of Civil Law]] (DCL), and [[Doctor of Medicine]] (MD), they form the higher doctorates, but apart from honorary degrees, they are only infrequently awarded.

In English (but not Scottish) universities, the Faculty of Arts had become dominant by the early 19th century. Indeed, the higher faculties had largely atrophied, since medical training had shifted to teaching hospitals,<ref>C. Singer and S.W.F. Holloway, Early Medical Education in England in Relation to the Pre-History of the University of London, Med Hist. 1960 January; 4(1): 1–17.</ref> the legal training for the common law system was provided by the [[Inns of Court]] (with some minor exceptions, see [[Doctors' Commons]]), and few students undertook formal study in theology. This contrasted with the situation in the continental European universities at the time, where the preparatory role of the Faculty of Philosophy or Arts was to a great extent taken over by secondary education: in modern France, the [[Baccalauréat]] is the examination taken at the end of secondary studies. The reforms at the [[Humboldt University]] transformed the Faculty of Philosophy or Arts (and its more recent successors such as the Faculty of Sciences) from a lower faculty into one on a par with the Faculties of Law and Medicine.

Similar developments occurred in many other continental European universities, and at least until reforms in the early 21st century, many European countries (e.g., Belgium, Spain, and the Scandinavian countries) had in all faculties triple degree structures of bachelor (or candidate) − licentiate − doctor as opposed to bachelor − master − doctor; the meaning of the different degrees varied from country to country, however. To this day, this is also still the case for the pontifical degrees in theology and canon law; for instance, in [[sacred theology]], the degrees are [[Bachelor of Sacred Theology]] (STB), [[Licentiate of Sacred Theology]] (STL), and [[Doctor of Sacred Theology]] (STD), and in [[canon law]]: [[Bachelor of Canon Law]] (JCB), [[Licentiate of Canon Law]] (JCL), and [[Doctor of Canon Law]] (JCD).

===History in the United States ===
Until the mid-19th century, advanced degrees were not a criterion for professorships at most colleges. That began to change as the more ambitious scholars at major schools went to [[Germany]] for one to three years to obtain a PhD in the sciences or humanities.<ref>Carl Diehl, ''Americans and German scholarship, 1770–1870'' (1978).</ref><ref>Henry Geitz, Jürgen Heideking, and Jurgen Herbst, eds. ''German influences on education in the United States to 1917'' (1995).</ref> [[Graduate school]]s slowly emerged in the [[United States]]. Although honorary PhDs had been awarded in the [[United States]] beginning in the early 19th century, the first earned PhD in the nation was at [[Bucknell University]] in [[Lewisburg, Pennsylvania]], which awarded the nation's first doctorate in 1852 to Ebenezer Newton Elliott.<ref name="HonPhD">{{Cite book |last1=John Seiler Brubacher |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0O1yXnXkWIsC&pg=PA192 |title=Higher Education in Transition: A History of American Colleges and Universities |last2=Willis Rudy |date=1 January 1997 |publisher=Transaction Publishers |isbn=9781412815383 |page=192 |access-date=30 April 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190507011802/https://books.google.com/books?id=0O1yXnXkWIsC&pg=PA192 |archive-date=7 May 2019 |url-status=live}}</ref> Nine years later, in 1861, [[Yale University]] awarded three PhDs to [[Eugene Schuyler]], [[Arthur Williams Wright]], and James Morris Whiton.<ref name="Rosenberg">{{Cite journal |last=Rosenberg |first=Ralph P. |title=The First American Doctor of Philosophy Degree: A Centennial Salute to Yale, 1861–1961 |date=1961 |volume=32 |pages=387–394 |doi=10.2307/1978076 |jstor=1978076 |issue=7 |journal=Journal of Higher Education}}</ref> although honorary PhDs had been awarded in the U.S. for almost a decade. 

Over the following two decades, [[Harvard University]], [[New York University]], [[Princeton University]], and the [[University of Pennsylvania]], also began granting the degree. Major shifts toward graduate education were foretold by the opening of [[Clark University]] in 1887 which offered only graduate programs and the [[Johns Hopkins University]] which focused on its PhD program. By the 1890s, Harvard, Columbia, Michigan and Wisconsin were building major graduate programs, whose alumni were hired by new research universities. By 1900, 300 PhDs were awarded annually, most of them by six universities. It was no longer necessary to study in Germany.<ref>[[Roger L. Geiger]], "Research, graduate education, and the ecology of American universities: An interpretive history." in Lester F. Goodchild and Harold S. Weschler, eds., '' The History of Higher Education'' (2nd ed, 1997), pp 273–89</ref><ref>Laurence R. Veysey, ''The emergence of the American university'' (1970) is the standard history; see pp 121–79.</ref> However, half of the institutions awarding earned PhDs in 1899 were undergraduate institutions that granted the degree for work done away from campus.<ref name=HonPhD/> Degrees awarded by universities without legitimate PhD programs accounted for about a third of the 382 doctorates recorded by the US Department of Education in 1900, of which another 8–10% were honorary.<ref name=NSF/>

At the start of the 20th century, U.S. universities were held in low regard internationally and many American students were still traveling to Europe for PhDs. The lack of centralised authority meant anyone could start a university and award PhDs. This led to the formation of the [[Association of American Universities]] by 14 leading research universities (producing nearly 90% of the approximately 250 legitimate research doctorates awarded in 1900), with one of the main goals being to "raise the opinion entertained abroad of our own Doctor's Degree."<ref name="NSF">{{Cite web |last1=Lori Thurgood |last2=Mary J. Golladay |last3=Susan T. Hill |date=October 2006 |title=Historical Background |url=http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf06319/chap2.cfm |url-status=bot: unknown |archive-url=https://wayback.archive-it.org/5902/20160210224027/http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf06319/chap2.cfm |archive-date=10 February 2016 |website=U.S. Doctorates in the 20th Century |publisher=[[National Science Foundation]] |df=dmy-all}}</ref>

In Germany, the national government funded the universities and the research programs of the leading professors. It was impossible for professors who were not approved by Berlin to train [[graduate student]]s. In the United States, by contrast, private universities and state universities alike were independent of the federal government. Independence was high, but funding was low. The breakthrough came from private foundations, which began regularly supporting research in science and history; large corporations sometimes supported engineering programs. The postdoctoral fellowship was established by the [[Rockefeller Foundation]] in 1919. Meanwhile, the leading universities, in cooperation with the learned societies, set up a network of scholarly journals. "[[Publish or perish]]" became the formula for faculty advancement in the research universities. After World War II, state universities across the country expanded greatly in undergraduate enrollment, and eagerly added research programs leading to masters or doctorate degrees. Their graduate faculties had to have a suitable record of publication and research grants. Late in the 20th century, "publish or perish" became increasingly important in colleges and smaller universities.<ref>Christopher Jencks and David Riesman. The academic revolution (1968) ch 1.</ref>