PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies

To beg the question does not mean "to raise the question." (e.g. "It begs the question, why is he so dumb?") This is a common error of usage made by those who mistake the word "question" in the phrase to refer to a literal question. Sadly, the error has grown more and more common with time, such that even journalists, advertisers, and major mass media entities have fallen prey to "BTQ Abuse."

While descriptivists and other such laissez-faire linguists are content to allow the misconception to fall into the vernacular, it cannot be denied that logic and philosophy stand to lose an important conceptual label should the meaning of BTQ become diluted to the point that we must constantly distinguish between the traditional usage and the erroneous "modern" usage.

 

Not true, primarily for the reasons stated above. The approach is interdisciplinary, but the result is no less utile. In fact, one could argue (I do) that interdisciplinarity brings strength to the study at hand.

The value of the degree will be directly related to (a) its culminating research topic, (b) its contribution to the literature and field, and (c) the issuing school. In that order, IMHO.

 

To beg the question does not mean "to raise the question." (e.g. "It begs the question, why is he so dumb?") This is a common error of usage made by those who mistake the word "question" in the phrase to refer to a literal question. Sadly, the error has grown more and more common with time, such that even journalists, advertisers, and major mass media entities have fallen prey to "BTQ Abuse."

While descriptivists and other such laissez-faire linguists are content to allow the misconception to fall into the vernacular, it cannot be denied that logic and philosophy stand to lose an important conceptual label should the meaning of BTQ become diluted to the point that we must constantly distinguish between the traditional usage and the erroneous "modern" usage.

It begs the question: Did I copy and paste this? (Plagiarism and usage error combined)

 

You will need to click on the links and make inquiries regarding the availability of DL, guided, or remote study.

Interdisciplinary PhDs

 

BTQ according to wikipedia:

Begging the question - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Now you know that I was not calling you names, right? I copied and pasted that from a website.

What was this tread about, anyway?

 

Rich, your summation is indeed correct. But until there is a oneness as what actually makes up the Humanities or Interdisciplinary studies, the "[appropriate use] of ontologies and epistemoligies from multiple academic disciplines" will still be of great debate.

 

...and I would still umbrella this as a DA rather than a PhD.

 

No. Not a DA. That's a teaching degree. Interdisciplinarity is about the research philosophy and methodology. It can certainly be undertaken as a Ph.D. I should know, autoethnographically speaking.

 

Union has been awarding interdisciplinary doctorates for almost 40 years. I think the concept has been well-established, even if it is not widely known.

 

Good point, Rich. I would say it is not widely know.

 

I thought that the DA was intended to work side by side with the PhD. The PhD was mainly of a specific intention-disipline, and the DA of a more broad based intention-Interdisciplinarity or Humanities. The DA not necessary for teaching purposes.

I guess this brings up the PhD v DA issue that is still around among educators; what is more favorable...

This debate will never end.

 

I agree with Rich. Emphasis and expertise is how I'd put it. Different subjects investigate different issues and have evolved their own techniques and vocabularies for doing it. But many research subjects will inevitably demand the resources of multiple specialties.

An example might be something like religious studies. Depending on their research topic, investigators trying to get a grasp on the phenomenon of religion might find themselves drawing upon the resources of several historical specialties, textual and linguistic studies, paleography, archaeology, psych, soc, philosophy, anthropology, art-hist and who knows what else. (It might also include personal participation and practice in some cases, though that's rather controversial in academia.)

I think that issue refers back to what the original poster was asking about. The original question was kind of vague, but it seemed to be asking for a doctoral program that covered many areas broadly, with less emphasis on boring into one narrow research subject.

I think that the DA might be a possibility in that regard, since at least theoretically, it is designed to provide the disciplinary breadth necessary to teach the entire undergraduate syllabus in some subject. Of course, that suggests that the DA will be focused on that academic subject's syllabus and won't be all that interdisciplinary.

H-Middleton kind of moves in both directions at once and might be a possibility. It's DETC, but that's not really an issue for me. (It might be an issue for the original poster.)

H-M seems to be interested in producing people prepared to teach the Western tradition as encapsulated in Mortimer Adler's now-60-volume 'Great Books of the Western World' series that first appeared in 1952. What worries me about H-M is that they reportedly try to restrict their students to only citing the contents of the 'great books' volumes in their papers. If that's actually true, then H-Middleton isn't for me.

I'm unmoved by the strident political complaint that the series is crammed with "dead white males". But I do worry that the translations in the GB series often aren't the best, that the texts selected reflect the tastes and judgement of the series' editors, and that a large amount of hugely important contextual material isn't included. What's more, the approach seems to ignore the vast secondary literature about all of these authors.

 

Bill I am attending HMU now. I will shoot you an PM, and post my experiences thus far with HMU. Overall I am going for internal, personal enlightenment only.

 

Ciis

The California Institute of Integral Studies has an online doctorate:

Transformative Studies Program (Online Program)

 

Tony-

That Transformative Studies Program (PhD) is strange. I think another poster, in another thread was trying to explain it to me.