ABSTRACT
The fine art PhD encourages the doctoral candidate to search for a question within an art historical context. The process of reinterpretation, re-visitation, and cycles of knowing is at the heart of research regardless of whether the PhD in fine art is concerned with experiment or hermeneutics. Most of the aspects of hermeneutic philosophy occur within constructivist philosophy and are descriptive of the process of the PhD in fine art. Regrettably, hermeneutics is little understood and is most often considered a social science methodology or an arcane philosophical perspective that does not apply to the fine arts. Although the significant number of United Kingdom PhD programs in fine art seem to attest to the acceptance of the PhD in art, artists and academics from the United Kingdom as well as from the wider global art community still indicate discomfort as to the appropriateness of awarding the highest-level academic research degree to an artist.
