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From: efrethei@afit-ab.arpa (Erik J. Fretheim)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Difference in Degrees (or Why "Ph" in PhD?)
Message-ID: <912@afit-ab.arpa>
Date: 11 Feb 89 02:19:11 GMT
References: <50184@yale-celray.yale.UUCP>
Reply-To: efrethei@blackbird.afit.af.mil (Erik J. Fretheim)
Distribution: na
Organization: Air Force Institute of Technology; WPAFB, OH
Lines: 36

In article <50184@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> choo@aqua.cs.yale.edu (young-il choo) writes:
>
>On the origin of PhD:
>
>It may help to know that these titles originated in the medieval university
>(ca. 13th century) when the course of studies were divided basically into
>(give or take one or two, like music):
>
>ThD    Theology 
>?      Classics (Greek and Latin)
>MD     Medicine (latin: Medicinae Doctor)
>LL D   Law (latin: legum doctor)
>PhD    Philosophy (everything we today call "science", including math.)
>
>So, according to their classification, everything we call science does fall
>under philosophy, the more Greek tradition.
>
>--  Young-il Choo  [Yale Computer Science choo-young-il@cs.yale.edu]



Yes, and I believe if you check, your department can probably trace its
origins back to a Department of Philosophy.  Most of our older universities
can.  Usually these later split into physics and Mathematics departments,
which went on to sprout chemistry and computer science amoung other things.
Engineering on the other hand comes more often from Drawing and such 
departments.  Our modern philosophy departments are usually outgrowths of
English departments which were only needed when people stopped taking as
many Latin and Greek courses and important books (engineering, science, etc)
were written in English instead of French, etc. 





ejf