ABSTRACT
Wellington believes that 'doctorateness' is an 'essentially contested concept' and that it suffers from the same kind of indeterminacy as Wittgenstein's concept of a game. His main positive conclusion is that being 'publishable' is 'the single most necessary quality that makes up a doctorate'. Poole, on the other hand, rejects this response to the polysemous nature of many of the terms used in the debate about doctorateness. He argues that by unpacking some of the plurality or ambiguity they may yet refine the concepts and reveal the causal variants between the disputants. Depending on the country in which the doctoral examination takes place, the evidence for awarding a doctorate may be intrinsic or extrinsic. In Australia this is normally all that the examiner has as evidence, whereas in Europe the examiner is also presented with the candidate at a viva voce examination.
