Origins of the descriptors "Doctor," "Philosopher," and "PhD."?

Question

Back in the Renaissance, people whose studies had taken them to the highest level (PhD level now) were called "Doctors," whether it be a doctor of medicine, doctor of law, doctor of philosophy, etc. During the Victorian era, people with the same level of education were called "Philosophers," ie, philosopher of chemistry, philosopher of biology, philosopher of classics. How did it work out that now when someone says doctor, they immediately think "doctor of medicine," and when someone hears "philosopher," they immediately think just that- a philosopher such as Socrates? Is it just the normal evolution of language? Did most people just tend to have more contacts with doctors of medicine than any others, and just automatically associated "doctor" with someone who treats illnesses and wounds? How did anyone who went the whole nine yards become known as PhDs (doctorate of philosophy), regardless of their area of expertise?

Answer 1

In the beginning, it was all sophism. 'Soph-' is just Greek for wisdom or knowledge. So calling someone a sophist was pretty much identical to saying that they're wise or knowledgeable.

philosophy. Philosophy has some rather obvious roots, if you think about it: philo- means 'to love', and '-sophy' is wisdom or knowledge. A philosopher originally was little more than someone who loved learning things.

It's said that the first person to call himself a 'philosopher' was Pythagoras. He added 'philo-' to the front, meaning 'lover of' because he didn't want to be immodest - he was a searcher for the truth, instead of necessarily a knower of all of it. And for a while there, that became the vogue: people who called themselves sophists were teachers who claimed to know everything whether they did or not (thus it now has a connotation of arrogance), while those who we would now call scientists all called themselves philosophers.

Eventually, of course, specialties became huge fields of their own, and the term 'philosopher' or 'sophist' didn't seem to apply to someone who knew a lot about one thing but little about other things. So new terms needed to be coined. One was 'doctor', which is just Latin for 'teacher'. It was considered synonymous with 'master' as in the master of a trade. This use arises in the late 1300's. So if you wanted to know about physics, it would be quite natural to find a doctor of physics to learn from him, just like you'd go to a master smith to learn blacksmithing.

At the same time, philosopher came to be narrowed in its scope. Scholars all tended to know the origins of their studies, so they acknowledged (and still do) that most of their fields are subsets of the general body of all knowledge, which used to be called philosophy. But since all the subfields were too large to know all at once, a philosopher was no longer someone who knew lots of stuff, but instead became someone who pursued knowledge in a systematic manner that wasn't part of those other fields... a sort of connotation it still retains (though later scientists grew to mock the field as imprecise and meaningless, which is a connotation it now has).

Demand for teachers quickly outstripped supply. Universities began employing many people who didn't have the traditional seven years of training in a field that tradition required to truly become a master. So several gradations sprang up. A doctorate remained equivalent with 'master', requiring long training. Others became 'teachers', and senior doctors were 'professors' (those who led lectures, or 'professed' their knowledge). These valuations still remain - all professors are generally doctors, and few teachers generally are (generally).

Medicine is a special kind of field. Nobody wants to go to an inexpert practitioner when your life is on the line. So it seems natural that a well-trained physician would wear his training on his sleeve, or even add it to his name whenever it was printed. Thus you end up with a lot of Dr Whoever, M.D.'s. Though it was always associated with competence (well... as long as doctor was used much at all), it didn't really become common in medicine until the 1600's.

Of course, nowadays the one kind of doctor most people come in contact with regularly is just a doctor of medicine. So most people tend to think of a doctor as solely that, and now it's the doctors of other fields who have to distinguish themselves rather than vice versa. The medical doctors have essentially taken over the label from all the other doctors. So it goes.

It also bears mention that some of these gradations don't exist in other languages and cultures. In Japan, for example, the same word is used for teacher and medical doctor. And in America, pretty much everyone who teaches at a university is called a 'professor', whether they are particularly accomplished doctors or not.

Hope that helps!

Answer 2

About the only thing I can contribute is that the word philosopher means lover of knowledge. The discipline of Philosophy is rapidly becoming extinct because history has clearly shown that Science is a far better way to discover the Actual Truth, rather than the meaningless metaphysical speculations which arise from pure scholastic thought.

Also a lame old joke:
BS implies ********.
MS implies More Sh-t.
PhD implies Piled Higher and Deeper.

Don't laugh, that joke's so old my great grandfather used to tell it.