Having gone into my phd excited and happy, and come out exhausted and depressed, i am now reflecting on the whole experience.

The journey has traversed excited--industrious--enthusiastic--lonely--stuck--bored--miserable--depressed--insane!!

Since the phd is a tried and tested psychological contract, how does it work, and what sort of people are they trying to create?

Am i a better person now... i dont think so :(

Im not the right person to answer this, but it is the right question to reflect on.
Lets think back about the great minds of all times. Did Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Seneca, Ptagoras, and later Da Vinci, Galileo, Newton, Leibnitz, Shakespeare, Spinoza, Pascal, Cervantes, Goethe, got a PhD and became insane? (sorry missing many, many, many more men/women, but Im not that cultured and space is limited)
How did the "modern PhD institution" come into power to create people who are not necessarily essentially different/better from the man/woman-on-the-street??

Continued
Is the "modern PhD institution" working as a cult where you sweat blood to get one just to become so proud about that, that you end up thinking you are so special because few (very few) people go for it and finish? But not for the knowledge or self-building and growing as a better person (inside)? Remember Tycho Brae, Galois, Gauss, were much more than plain technicians/scientists/researchers. Most of them were interesting people with interesting lifes and, by the way, they really were multidisciplinary people who got engaged in genuine love for knowledge and humanity and not for the few letters before their name nor the challenge it represents such a piece of paper??

Continued

As far as I know, modern PhD institution, the way we know it, comes from Germany, from a German long-rooted tradition, but Im not sure and I might be getting a PhD in ignorance.....Does anybody has heard about Dr Goethe? He is Goethe, period! (and he is forever....)

From my (limited) information, I think that the modern scientist is different in that he/she is not an aristocrat. Many of the names you mention were from highly moneyed families, and they had a) the time to become well-rounded Renaissance-type individuals, given that they did not have to earn their living through science but could treat it as a hobby and investigate whatever took their fancy; and b) again, being wealthy, they did not have to compete for funding, with all the endless politics that that involves.

Research is open to the common man/woman today, and that's whats so good about the Ph.D. - anyone can have a go. I sometimes idly think about how good the life of a researcher was back then, until I remember that if I'd been around then, I'd have been sweeping horseshit for those greats that you mention.

BTW asking if we've heard of Goethe is also a bit condescending...he is rather well known, you know

Im absolutely sure you all know him but tried to make a point that nobody cares whether he has or not few letters before his name.

Actually, not so many of them were rich and wealthy (old greeks owned slaves), many were not and suffered greatly.

Most of them were interested in so diverse branches of knowledge instead of getting stuck in a single narrow topic as many modern PhD'ers.

I wanted to emphasize their genuine interest in knowledge more than any other second (or third) interest in pursuing their findings.

Continued..

Ancient times were not necessarily better.

Making it available for any man/woman is more a myth than a reality. It is like "everybody can have a chance of amassing the fortune of Bill Gates"

This is specially true:

"Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it." -- Albert Einstein

In a capitalist economy you are a producer of knowledge, that is one weird definition for scientists/researchers/phd'ers, and as a producer of something you are, economicaly speaking, a worker, belong to the working class.

I guess that is the kind of people phd produces.

That's a very good point. Plus, you get paid like a worker, and most of the time you feel like a workhorse or like a teaching/administratin donkey.

Otto - for us self-funded lot we don't even get paid (we pay to be worked to death!)

Personally speaking, I don't care whether or not I have letters after my name - I'm doing this because I love research and couldn't envisage doing anything else with my life. But I have to do it the Ph. D. route because I am not rich, and therefore could not afford to build my own laboratory.

Also, I don't see what's wrong with being a working class producer of knowledge. That seems like something to be proud of to me.

I see nothing wrong with being a working class producer of knowledge itself.
Most of people are, whether working in industry, government (whatever) people are mostly working class.
difference is how much you love what you do and how much money you make.
there might be problems when, given your status, you are forced to research what you do not want to or to accept decisions well outside your power that seriously affect/impair your research career, or see some others getting more funding because of politics and not earning what you deserve. but it happens to everyone, be it researchers, factory workers, peasants, industry executives and so on....