Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

How to Count Affiliated/Cognate Faculty for Purposes of the PGR Surveys?

Because of my move this summer, there may be some delay in producing the 2008-10 PGR (it is unlikely to be available until late fall or early in the New Year), but we are beginning the planning process now, and there are several matters on which I would welcome feedback from members of the profession.

One issue that has arisen repeatedly over the last several years is the status of faculty cognate to philosophy, or philosophers in other units at a university, who are not necessarily tenured members of the philosophy faculty.  The number who fall into this category is now quite large and includes, among many others, Charles Beitz and Philip Pettit at Princeton; Ronald Dworkin, Liam Murphy, and Jeremy Waldron at NYU; Jules Coleman at Yale; Jon Elster and Joseph Raz at Columbia; Matthew Kramer at Cambridge; Jim Nickel at Arizona State; Stephen Perry at Penn; A.A. Long at Berkeley; Kai von Fintel at MIT; and Harvey Friedman at Ohio State, among many others.

Many departments have followed the lead of the PGR, and created a category of "affiliated" faculty to capture those faculty who have cognate interests and/or philosophers in other units.  Unfortunately, departments vary quite a bit in how diligent they are about updating their websites, with some getting around to it rarely, while others reputedly padding the faculty lists with loads of faculty from other departments deemed to be "cognate."  The more serious problems, however, involve universities which do not have the status of "secondary" or "zero-time" or "affiliated" appointment, and so can not properly list faculty in those categories.  Harvard is the paradigm case for this worry, as I have heard from affected faculty at Harvard and many prospective students over the years.  Although there are a large number of philosophers or scholars doing cognate work in other units--Dan Brock in the Medical School; Norman Daniels and Daniel Wikler in Public Health; Arthur Applbaum and Mathias Risse in the Kennedy School of Government; Michael Rosen, Michael Sandel, Dennis Thompson, and Richard Tuck in Government--some of whom occasionally teach philosophy courses, and others of whom also do work with PhD students, none of them were reflected in the 2006 (or earlier) PGR surveys.  Other schools (Texas is an example) have a quite relaxed view about these listings, with the result that there are many faculty from other units listed as members of the philosophy faculty, even without tenure or even voting rights, and yet who play a major role in the PhD program (Stephen White, a key figure in the classical philosophy program at Texas, is an example).

It is obviously not feasible to ascertain on a case-by-case basis which faculty in other units work with philosophy students and which do not.  On the existing approach, schools with "easy" cross-listing policies and/or those who are aggressive about updating their websites and/or those who "pad" the lists get a possible advantage.  (The evidence is equivocal on whether padding faculty lists with names of scholars who are largely unknown to philosophers is an advantage--though that is certainly not the worry about the names I've singled out, above.) 

The alternate approach we have been considering for the 2008-10 surveys is to create a category of "Cognate Faculty and Philosophers in Other Units" (or something like that) under which other tenure-stream faculty at a university (who are not appointed primarily or jointly in the philosophy department) who do philosophical work or work that is cognate to philosophy are listed.  The separate listing of such faculty would signal to evaluators that they should not be weighed quite as heavily for evaluation purposes, yet at the same indicate that they are intellectual resources for students at the school.  Presumptively all of the current "affiliated faculty" lists would be incorporated into these lists.  As in prior years, we would also publish draft lists of regular and cognate faculty, so the listings would be subject to correction and/or veto by departments (e.g., a department could report that philosopher/cognate faculty member X has nothing to do with PhD students etc.).

I would be interested to hear how grad students and faculty think this issue should be handled.  As long as you submit a legitimate e-mail address (one consistent with your ISP identifying information), you need not post your full name.  Thanks.

 

Job Placement Information on Departmental Websites

Colleagues in other fields are often impressed by how much information about job placement philosophy departments now make available on their web sites.  It was not always that way, alas.  About six years ago, I used the Update Service to the PGR--which reached several thousand philosophers--to suggest that departments be more forthcoming about this information, citing some models and indicating that in future editions of the PGR I would call attention to departments that were not providing such information, since that should surely be a warning to prospective students.  Departments, for the most part, reacted constructively and did the right thing, posting information about recent job placement on the web.  (One philosopher--a Kantian moral philosopher no less--objected to my "bullying" departments that perhaps preferred to keep the information secret.   There are, I suspect, many lessons to be learned about Kantian ethics from this example, but I'll save that for another day.)

Of course, the quality of information departments provide varies quite a bit in quality, reliability and informativeness.  I have mentioned, in the past, that the Michigan site is a real model of disclosure and detail, while the Texas site, among many others, is at the opposite end of the spectrum (even though, I should add, Texas job placement has improved markedly in recent years, but the site is both relatively uninformative and not entirely accurate).  It is in this context that I wanted to share an e-mail from philosopher Miriam Solomon at Temple University:

Recently, I compiled my department's placement statistics.

In doing so, I consulted the placement statistics that other departments have posted, and found considerable variability in reporting, which may lead to misleading comparisons.

For example, some departments just list those PhD graduates who have gone on to academic jobs and leave off the ones who dropped out; some departments omit those PhD graduates who "did not seek a job" or "went on the job market with geographic restrictions"; some departments list only the first placement, which may be temporary; some departments list job offers received and others job offers accepted; one department actually counts MD/PhDs as having "tenure-track"

jobs if they have a medical residency. In my opinion, the best information comes from those departments that list all their PhDs (by dissertation title) with full employment records.

May I propose that we have some standardization in compiling statistics here? If, as we recommend, students should take placement record into account in selecting graduate programs, we should provide them with the most usable, impartial, data as we can.

So what do readers think are model placement sites?  What information should be standard?  What presentation is most conducive to informing students while respecting the legitimate privacy interests of, for example, unsuccessful job seekers?  No anonymous postings; post only once.

Any Pattern to This Year's Graduate Admissions in Terms of Yield?

A senior philosopher writes:

We are a mid-ranking graduate program. In previous years we have normally finished up making about 15 offers to get an intake of half a dozen students, going two or three deep into our wait list following an initial set of dozen offers. This year, however, our experience has been quite different. We had to go much deeper into our wait list, and finished up making nearly 30 offers overall. An informal inquiry to one other program suggests that they had a similar experience. I wonder if there is some general trend here. Are students becoming much more cautions, making more applications overall, and making more "back up" applications than they previously would have done?

Usual commenting rules apply, though as long as I can verify your identity from your e-mail address (which will not appear), you don't need to post under your full name.

Should a Philosophy Grad Student at a Non-Anglophone University Write His/Her Dissertation in English?

A graduate student at a German university writes:

I am a philosophy student at [a university in Germany] and will start with my PhD thesis soon. Because I am contemplating heavily whether I should write it in English or not, I have the following question for the philosophical community - and I guess/hope that it will be of great interest for many of the Leiter Reports' readers outside the English-speaking world:

"Imagine your philosophy department - in the English-speaking world - has a free postdoctoral position and it is up to you to decide who will get the job. Do you take into account a candidate who has published in, say, German, French or Spanish? Do you hold in esteem a paper in the, e.g., "Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung" at all? Has a candidate who has written (and published) his PhD thesis  in a foreign language any real chance to get the job? Thanks a lot for your comments!"

My guess is that a lot depends on the area of philosophy in which the student is writing.  While historians of philosophy are often actively engaged with scholarship in languages other than English, this seems to me, at least anecdotally, to be much more rare among those working in various contemporary fields, from philosophy of language to ethics to epistemology.  In consequence, a German student working in, say, philosophy of mind would probably encounter a very basic obstacle to being taken seriously in Anglophone departments, namely, the inability of most philosophers to read the work.  What do others think?  Usual rules on comments apply. 

Deciding Between Admissions Offers: The Importance of Visiting/Talking With Current Students

Applicants to PhD and MA programs have now mostly received offers of admission and, if they are lucky, are making choices between different departments.  I want to reiterate a point made in the PGR, namely, that students are well-advised to talk to current students at the programs they are considering.   There are often things you will want to know that you won't glean from familiarity with the excellence of the faculty's work, even if that remains the most important, if defeasible, reason for choosing a particular department.  Here are some examples of information that no ranking, no departmental brochure, and no "official" departmental representive will tell you about; all of these are drawn from stories I've heard from students over the last few years about ranked departments (the departments will remain unnamed, obviously).  You can think of them as representing "types" of problems you should be aware of before enrolling.  I've tweaked some of the details to protect identities.

The Absent Faculty:  Are the faculty who look so good on paper actually around and interested in working with students?  I heard a story about a key senior person in one department who is an alcoholic, and who simply ignores his students.  In another department, almost all the graduate students had to sign an open letter to the faculty a few years ago protesting the failure of faculty to return graded papers and their general lack of interest in mentoring the students.   In yet another department, a well-known senior member of the faculty spent so much time travelling and lecturing around the world, that he rarely had time to review or discuss work carefully with students. 

The Sexual Predator Faculty:  Are women treated as young philosophers and aspiring professionals, or do faculty regularly view them as a potential source for dates and sexual liasons?  It's a bit shocking to realize that this is still a live issue in some departments, but, sadly, it is.  Are faculty-student sexual relations common in the department?  What happens when the relations end?  Are there repeated cases of sexual harassment complaints against faculty in the department?  Do they ever result in discipline?  I suppose it is possible this could be an issue for male students, but all the reports I've gotten over the years have been from women victimized by male faculty. 

The Nasty Faculty:  Talented philosophers and scholars often differ, dramatically, in how pleasant they are personally and professionally.  I recall the story of one department where a member of the faculty was known to reduce students to tears in seminar.  In another department, a faculty member regularly refuses to work with students, even those interested in his areas; he works only with those he deems "worthy," and there are not many of them!  In another department, faculty openly express doubts about the competence of the graduate students and their ability.  Make sure the philosophers who seem most interesting to you don't fall into these categories!

The Factionalized Faculty:  Many faculties are "factionalized," in the sense that there are sub-groups that rarely see "eye to eye" about departmental issues, from appointments to admissions.  Where this becomes worrisome, though, for a prospective student is when certain members of the faculty who share interests and approaches control all the key resources--fellowships, resources for speakers etc.--and use that control to define "in" and "out" groups of faculty and students:  students with the "wrong" philosophical interests or who express an interest in the "wrong" faculty members are denied access to important perks and support.  This kind of ugly factionalization is less common, but it exists. 

I wish it were possible to meaningfuly measure and evaluate faculties along these important dimensions, but, alas, it is not.  I can report, based on accumulated anecdotes over many years, that some departments are really exceptional for how pleasant they are as places to do graduate study:  faculty are engaged, kind, supportive, committed, and professional in their interactions with students.  Arizona, North Carolina, MIT, UC Riverside, and U Mass/Amherst are among those about which one regularly hears these kinds of glowing reports.  I have no doubt there are many others, and the way for a prospective student to discover them is to talk to lots of current students.

Good luck with your decisions!

 

Faculty Changes in the Last Year and the Overall Rankings

MOVING TO FRONT FROM NOVEMBER 12, 2007:  Since decision time is coming for those prospective grad students fortunate to have multiple offers, I thought I'd move this to the front.  (Students ought to scroll through the "Philosophy Updates" index as well to see what moves that might be relevant have transpired in the interim.)  I would urge students *not* to obsess about small differences in the overall ranking of a department; that one department came out at 6 and another at 10 (or one at 20 and another at 26) is far less important than how well the program meets your needs, as well as all the 'intangible' but important factors, like faculty-student relations, quality of life given the financial aid available, the atmosphere for women in the department, and so on.  I'll post more about those issues in the next day or two.

========================================

The summary of faculty changes since the fall 2006 survey has led various students to inquire about how these changes would affect the overall rankings.  I'll just comment on the US, since I think I have a better sense of that scene.  The first thing to say is that, in almost all cases, far more important than any change in "overall rank" is the way in which senior moves will affect the attractiveness of programs in various specialty areas--so with the senior moves and the tenurings, especially, take note of the areas those faculty work in.   (Attend to the junior hirings, too, but as a PhD student, you will want to have a tenured faculty member as a supervisor of your thesis.)

Turning to the overall results, I would expect a new survey, reflecting last year's changes, to have NYU still on top (perhaps by a wider margin), then Rutgers, and then a gap before the Princeton/Pittsburgh/Michigan grouping (with Michigan probably now at the lower end of that cluster).  That would be followed by a cluster of Stanford, Harvard, MIT, UCLA, North Carolina, and Columbia.  The next cluster (programs ranked 12-15) would be Arizona, Berkeley, Notre Dame, and (a new arrival) Yale--and Yale could well be on the cusp of the next group.  The "top 20" would be rounded out (in some order) by Brown, Texas, UC Irvine, UC San Diego, Cornell, Chicago, Southern California, and, maybe, CUNY.  Outside the top 20, the biggest upward movement has surely been by Colorado (which ought to be solidly back in the top 30, I should think) and Northwestern (which ought to be solidly back in the top 50, perhaps higher), while UC Davis is at risk of dropping out of the top 40.

Advice for Undergraduates about Strengthening Their Applications to Grad Programs

An undergraduate philosophy student in Canada writes:

I am wondering, if you have some time to answer, whether you can suggest ways undergraduate students can get involved in philosophy outside of their classroom. Since graduate programs have become so competitive, there is a lot of fear among my peers that we will not be admitted into our schools of choice, particularly since the school we are doing our BAs in is not very well regarded, and is by no means at the top.

I have approached professors, inquiring whether I may help them out, but if they do offer such an opportunity it never involves doing actual philosophy. How can students co-author papers in top journals; that is, how should we approach our professors so that they will give
us such a chance? What should philosophy students do during the summers, when we are not taking classes? Aside from ensuring that we achieve top grades, what should we be doing to make ourselves attractive to prospective graduate schools? Also, how much do publications in undergraduate philosophy journals count?

Two quick thoughts:  first, it is extraordinarily rare for faculty to co-author with undergraduates, so undergraduates should not waste time pursuing that possibility; second, publications in undergraduate philosophy journals are worthless as a credential.  If it's a good piece of philosphical writing, great!  That it appeared in an undergraduate philosophy journal counts for nought it seems to me, all that matters is the quality of the writing.

Comments are open; post only once (comments may take awhile to appear); signed comments strongly preferred, as usual.

How Do UK PhDs Outside Oxbridge Fare on the US Market?

A prospective PhD student writes:

I was wondering if you would mind posting on your blog the question of how a UK phd (not from Oxford or Cambridge) can expect to compete on the US job market compared to how they would compete with a phd from a US department?

In my particular case I have an offer from [a top 20 US department] and one from [a top fivish UK department]. Though [the US department] looks like a great program, I was inclined towards [the UK department]  given its somewhat better ranking and better faculty for what I do. However, I'm looking to move back to the US to work after the Phd and so am asking people whether they think I would do better (ceteris paribus)on the US jbo market with a Phd from [the UK department or the US department]. One professor I asked said that he thought I would do better with [the US department] simply because many people on US hiring committees are unfamiliar (compared to their familiarity with US programs) with the strengths /weaknesses of Phd programs outside of Oxbridge in the UK and so would prefer the US Phd. Is this really the widely held view?

Post only once; signed comments strongly preferred, as usual.

 

JD/PhD Programs in the U.S.: A Comment

I've had some inquiries lately about the section on the study of philosophy in law schools in the PGR like this one:

I am considering enrolling in a joint JD/PhD in philosophy next year, and I was reading through your rankings in philosophy, law, and joint JD/PhD programs. First, let me say thank you so much for the time and energy you've put in to make this information and these rankings available; it has been very helpful for me. My question, however, is if there is any reason why Harvard and Stanford are virtually not mentioned on the "The Study of Philosophy in Law Schools" page on philosophicalgourmet.com. Do their programs for law and philosophy not match up with the other schools mentioned? I ask because they both have very strong respective law and philosophy programs. I know you're extremely busy, so if you don't have time to respond about this, I completely understand. However, if you do get a chance, any comments would be greatly appreciated. Again, thanks so much for the rankings and information you've compiled about law schools and philosophy programs.

Legal academia is more pedigree-sensitive than academic philosophy (and I'm sure many of you think academic philosophy is way too pedigree-sensitive!), so this student's question is quite understandable.  Four law schools dominate the market for new law teachers:  Yale, Harvard, Chicago, and Stanford.  On a per capita basis, Yale is way ahead of the other three, and these four are way ahead of everyone else.  Yet two of these three "feeder" schools for legal academia go unmentioned in the current PGR section.

Other Resources for Applying to Graduate School

A student writes:

I  am starting the process of applying to Philosophy PhD programs for Fall of '09.  I have been reading your blog & the PGR for a while now.  I was hoping you could put something on your blog about where prospective applicants can go to find resources.  Maybe there is a good blog or 2 out there about this topic, or a moderated forum?  I have tons of questions for people in the know and having trouble accessing those people.  I'm not looking for a personal reply, but if you could post some links on your blog, that would be helpful.

Post suggestions in the comments, and post only once; they may take awhile to appear.

Why Sometimes It's Nice to be Editor of the PGR

There are some downsides to being, as PGR Advisory Board member Alex Byrne (MIT) put it some years ago, "the most powerful person in philosophy"--including the fact that I'm not, yet bear the costs (as Byrne's joke brings out) of sometimes being perceived as such.  Anyone who peruses Cyberspace knows some of the costs:  personal attacks, resentment, becoming the object of people's desire to kill the messenger, and so on.  When I first produced a simple version of the PGR for the benefit of Michigan undergrads in 1989, I did not anticipate that it would become an institution unto itself a decade later.  I have never had any doubt about the value of the PGR to students, which is why I carry on, notwithstanding periodic unpleasantness.  A kind undergraduate philosophy major (at a school with a top 50 PhD program) sent me this nice note the other day; since the PGR is very much a collective effort, I wanted to share these sentiments, which are representative of what I hear with frequency from students:

I want to say thanks for all you do to improve the community of currently active academic philosophers. I am in the midst of a final paper and, in citing Nicholas Jolley's introduction to Leibniz, discovered you are the series editor. As a senior currently applying to philosophy graduate schools, I have spent countless hours on the Gourmet report and on the Leiter Reports blog, searching for those perfect-fit institutions to which to send my applications. In both these projects, I really don't know where I would be without access to the fruits of your labor.

My budding life as a philosopher has already been greatly impacted by your efforts in the philosophical community, and I just wanted you to know I appreciate it.

Thanks to everyone who contributes to the PGR and makes it a now far more useful tool than it was in the beginning.

Where Tenure-Track Faculty at the Top 20 U.S. Departments, 2007-08, Earned Their PhDs

REVISED once more (evening 12/13)

Here is where the current tenure-track faculty (pre-tenure decision) at the PGR top 20 departments (based on the fall 2006 surveys) earned their PhD (or DPhil) (this list includes only those who earned the degree from a philosophy or HPS faculty and whose tenure home is in the top 20 department).  Remember that these are tenure-track philosophers who were choosing graduate schools anywhere from five to seventeen years ago.  The differences in the list from just a few years ago are interesting:

1.  Princeton University (10 graduates at Princeton [2], Pittsburgh, MIT, Michigan, Stanford, North Carolina, Notre Dame [2], USC)

2.  Massachussetts Institute of Technology (8 graduates at Princeton [2], Michigan [2], MIT, and Harvard [3])

2.  Rutgers University, New Brunswick (8 graduates at UCLA, UC Irvine, Yale [3], Brown, USC [2])

4.  University of Pittsburgh (7 graduates at Harvard [2], North Carolina, Chicago [2], UC San Diego, UC Irvine) (both Philosophy and HPS)

5.  New York University (5 graduates at MIT, Brown, Texas [2], North Carolina)

6.  Oxford University (4 graduates at Pittsburgh, UCLA, Notre Dame, Cornell)

6.  Yale University (4 graduates at Princeton, Notre Dame, Chicago, Cornell)

8.  Harvard University (3 graduates at NYU, Stanford, UC Irvine)

8.  University of California, Los Angeles (3 graduates at Cornell, Brown, UC Irvine)

10. University of California, Berkeley (2 graduates at Berkeley, Chicago)

10. University of Chicago (2 graduates at Arizona, UC San Diego)

10. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (2 graduates at Columbia, Yale)

All of the following programs had one graduate in a top 20 tenure-track position in 07-08:   Arizona, Brown, Carnegie-Mellon, Columbia, Duke, Free University (Berlin), Illinois (Urbana-Champaign), Michigan, Ohio State, Paris, Texas, Toronto, and UC Irvine.

Advice about Submitting Manuscripts to Publishers

A philosopher writes:

I noticed that an old thread about editorial practices of philosophy journals (delay, etc.) is generating new interests. I was wondering if you would consider creating a similar thread on editorial practices of philosophy book publishers. I am a young philosopher who recently sent a manuscript to an important press and who is curious about how things normally proceed. Are missed deadlines, emails that are not answered, etc. the norm in this domain? What is the usual amount of time it takes for a manuscript to be reviewed? Is sending the same manuscript to many publishers a big no-no?

Another philosopher writes:

A friend phoned me a bit earlier today to ask advice about correct practice in submitting book manuscripts/proposals to publishers.  I don't know if you think it appropriate to open this question on your blog or if you have time to give a personal reply, but if you can do either it would be greatly appreciated.  I'm not really sure what the expected behaviour is here for dealing with book publishers.

My friend works in cognitive science/philosophy of mind/philosophy of language/ linguistics.  He recently submitted a manuscript to a publisher, a publisher where he would like to be considered in good standing whether or not they publish his book.  He wanted to know if he could reasonably send the manuscript to other publishers while the first publisher goes through its review process.

I had two thoughts in response to this.

1.  As far as I know although it is clear that refereed journals have a strict expectation that an article will not be submitted to more than one journal at the same time, I am not aware of any similar expectation with regard to book manuscripts or proposals.

2.  It seems to me to be a bad idea to annoy a good publisher by telling them that one has agreed to publish a book with another publisher while the book was still under review at the original publisher.

I'm not sure which consideration should have more weight, or if there are other considerations I am overlooking.

Comments are open; I will try to weigh in myself when I have a chance.  My experience here is somewhat limited, because I have never had occasion to do "cold" submissions to presses, as opposed to solicited ones.  But I've heard various anecdotes, but it would probably be more useful for those with first-hand experience to offer their perspective.  Since I know a number of philosophy editors at major presses read this blog, I encourage them to comment as well about their expectations and procedures!

"Impact Indices"

William Swann, a well-known social psychologist at UT Austin, has a section on his CV listing "Impact Indices."  Here it is:

Impact Indices

In a 1995 poll, 35th of the 50 most cited psychologists in the world

In a 1999 poll, ranked 22nd most cited researcher in the ">Annual Review of Psychology

In a 2002 survey, one of the most cited contributors to the major Handbooks of Social Psychology

In a 2004 survey, among the top 30 most cited authors published in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

In a 2006 survey in >Dialogue, among the top 30 of most cited authors in Social Psychology textbooks.

Citation count: 5000+

I've run into this kind of listing before, this example is just one I came across recently.  It seems to be more common in the social and natural sciences.  Has anyone ever seen anything like this on a philosopher's CV?  Please post only once, comments may take longer than usual to appear as I have a busy week.

Job Placement from One Leading Department Over a Decade

Michigan, as I've noted in the past, presents unusually detailed and informative placement data on its website, which permits one to get a detailed picture of how the job market looks coming out of a top department.  I focus on Michigan only because the data is so thorough and because I have a good handle on where the graduates listed are teaching now (though the site is fairly up-to-date).  Michigan was also clearly a "top" department during the period I'm going to examine--uncontroversially top ten, perhaps top five for much of this time.  I have made a casual, but not systematic, study of the competition, and my conclusion is that only two top departments (Princeton and MIT) have, for this period, significantly better placement records than Michigan.  NYU and Rutgers seem to be developing stronger records at present. 

There were 46 graduates who earned the PhD between 1990 and 2000 at Michigan.   Of these, 9 do not presently have academic positions, and 3 others have non tenure-stream positions.  In other words, 1 out of 5 graduates of a top PhD program are not in an academic position, and about 1 out of 4 are either out of academia or in a non tenure-stream position.  That's the sobering news.

Now the more hopeful news.  About 41% of the graduates (19 philosophers) have tenure-stream (in many cases, now tenured) positions in PhD-granting departments.  (16 philosophers, about 35%, have tenure-stream positions in PGR-ranked PhD or MA-granting departments.)  About 9% of the graduates have jobs in excellent liberal arts colleges. 13% of the graduates during this period now teach in "top 20" philosophy departments, while 3 graduates (about 7%) teach at "top ten" departments.

Depending exactly on how one assesses various jobs, it's fair to say that 60% or more of the graduates during this period have excellent academic positions--at research universities or departments with a strong research orientation, or very good colleges, places with good students and reasonable teaching loads. 

Remember that these statistics are drawn strictly from those who completed the PhD (that's part of what makes the first set of figures so sobering).  Attrition rates vary quite a bit is my impression.  I started at Michigan in the fall of 1988, and of my class of nine, two never finished the degree.  But next year's class had a much higher attrition rate, over 50%.  But I am inclined to think the more meaningful stats concern those who finished the program.  It is one thing to spend a couple of years in grad school and then move on to something else.  It's another thing to invest six or seven or eight years in earning a PhD.  Students quite reasonably want to know:  what happens to me after all that effort?

UPDATE:  A couple of folks, in correspondence, suggested that perhaps those no longer in academia left voluntarily to do something they preferred.  In most (perhaps all) of these cases, the graduates were seeking academic employment, and failed to secure it.  What I am less sure about is whether or not some of these individuals had a "floor" for the kind of academic employment they would accept, such that they would prefer careers outside the academy to certain kinds of jobs within the academy.

Summary of Major Faculty Moves and Tenure-Track Hires for 2006-2007

MOVING TO FRONT, WITH CORRECTIONS/ADDITIONS, from September 23

This is a compilation of major (tenured or equivalent) faculty moves and tenure-track hires/losses involving PhD programs since the last PGR survey (fall 2006), for the benefit of students using the PGR in choosing graduate schools this coming academic year.  It covers the top 53 US departments, the top 10 U.K. departments, the top 4 Canadian departments, and the top 4 Australasian departments.

This list includes only faculty moves that were not reflected in the faculty lists for the Fall 2006 surveys. Remember, those faculty lists were based on expected faculty profile for fall 2007, so included some announced, planned moves. 

Many or most of the tenured faculty moves recorded here are likely to affect the specialty rankings for the areas in which these faculty work. Where relevant, I comment on how the moves are likely to affect the overall reputation/ranking of a department.

Please post corrections and additions in the comments; no anonymous corrections/additions will be approved.  I list programs by their 2006 overall rank.

Departments most improved since last year are pretty clearly NYU, Yale, and Northwestern.

U.S. Departments

1.  New York University:  Added Samuel Scheffler (moral and political philosophy) from Berkeley, Ted Sider (metaphysics) from Rutgers, and Crispin Wright (philosophy of language, math, and logic; epistemology) from St. Andrews.

2.  Rutgers University, New Brunswick:  Added Jeffrey King (philosophy of language) from Southern California, Martin Lin (early modern philosophy) from Toronto, and Brian Weatherson (epistemology, decision theory, metaphysics, philosophy of language) from Cornell.  Lost Frank Arntzenius (philosophy of physics) to Oxford, Stephen Neale (philosophy of language) to the CUNY Graduate Center, and Ted Sider (metaphysics) to NYU.  Tenure-track hire:  Ishani Maitra (philosophy of language, feminist philosophy), MIT PhD, previously on tenure-track at Syracuse (joint with Rutgers-Newark). 

3.  Princeton University:  Added (part-time) Frank Jackson (philosophy of mind, metaphysics, metaethics) from the Australian National University.   Tenure-track hire:  Sarah McGrath (metaphysics, ethics), MIT PhD, previously on tenure-track at Brandeis; tenure-track loss:  Karen Bennett (philosophy of mind, metaphysics) to Cornell.  Adam Elga (philosophy of science and physics, decision theory), Thomas Kelly (epistemology, ethics) and Hendrik Lorenz (ancient philosophy) were all granted tenure.  Paul Benacerraf (philosophy of mathematics) retired.   Bas van Fraassen (philosophy of science and physics) will conclude his phased retirement at the end of 2007-08, and move to San Francisco State University.

3.  University of Michigan, Ann Arbor:  Added Sarah Buss (philosophy of action, ethics) from the University of Iowa.  Losing Stephen Darwall (ethics, history of ethics) to Yale University and Peter Ludlow (philosophy of language) to the University of Toronto. 

5.  University of Pittsburgh:  Michael Thompson (ethics) has an offer from the University of Chicago.  Cian Dorr (metaphysics) and Kieran Setiya (ethics) were granted tenure.

6.  Stanford University:  Tenure-track hire:  Alexis Burgess (metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophical logic), Princeton PhD.  Krista Lawlor (philosophy of mind) was granted tenure.  Christopher Bobonich (ancient philosophy) has an offer from Rutgers.  Allen Wood (Kant, 19th-century German philosophy) and Rega Wood (medieval philosophy) have offers from Indiana.  J.M.E. Moravcsik (ancient philosophy) has retired.

7.  Harvard University:  No changes.

7.  Massachussetts Institute of Technology:  No changes at senior ranks.  Tenure-track hire:  Brad Skow (philosophy of science, metaphysics), NYU PhD, previously on tenure-track at U Mass/Amherst.

7.  University of California, Los Angeles:  Lost Calvin Normore (medieval philosophy, political philosophy, logic) to McGill.  Tenure-track hires:  Sam Cumming (philosophy of language), Rutgers PhD.  Tenure-track loss:  Christopher Smeenk (philosophy of physics) to Western Ontario.  Pamela Hieronymi (ethics) was tenured.

10. Columbia University:  Losing Thomas Pogge (political philosophy) to Yale University.  Wolfgang Mann (ancient philosophy) has an offer from Indiana. 

10. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill:  Added (part-time) Simon Blackburn (ethics, philosophy of language and mind) from Cambridge University.  (Blackburn will teach at UNC one semester per year for the next six years, except for 2009-10; the appointment stretches beyond his retirement from Cambridge, although the first visits will run in parallel with that position, occupying terms of leave.)    Thomas Hofweber (metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophy of mathematics) was granted tenure.  Tenure-track hire:  Ryan Preston (ethics, philosophy of religion), NYU PhD.  Michael Resnik (philosophy of mathematics) retired.

12. University of California, Berkeley:  Losing Samuel Scheffler (moral and political philosophy) to NYU.  Senior offer outstanding to Tommie Shelby (African-American philosophy, social and political philosophy) at Harvard.  Branden Fitelson (philosophy of science, logic, epistemology) was tenured.

13. University of Arizona:  Michael Gill (ethics, history of ethics) and L.A. Paul (metaphysics) were both tenured.

13. University of Notre Dame:  Added Richard Cross (philosophy of religion, medieval philosophy) from Oxford University.  Lost William Ramsey (philosophy of mind and cognitive science) to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.  Tenure-track hire:  Grant Ramsey (philosophy of biology), Duke PhD.

13. University of Texas, Austin:  Lost Robert C. Solomon (Continental philosophy, philosophy of the emotions) who passed away.  Brian Leiter (philosophy of law, ethics, Continental philosophy) has an offer from the University of Chicago Law School.  Tenure-track hire:  Ray Buchanan (philosophy of language), NYU PhD.

16.  Brown University:  Added David Christensen (epistemology, philosophy of science) from the University of Vermont.  Tenure-track hire:  Katherine Dunlop (Kant), UCLA PhD.

16.  Cornell University:  Added Karen Bennett (philosophy of mind, metaphysics) from a tenure-track position at Princeton, and Tad Brennan (ancient philosophy) from Northwestern.  Lost Brian Weatherson (epistemology, decision theory, metaphysics, philosophy of language) to Rutgers.  Tenure-track hire:  Erin Taylor (ethics), UCLA PhD.

16. University of Southern California:  Lost Jeffrey King (philosophy of language) to Rutgers.

16. Yale University:  Added (or adding) Stephen Darwall (ethics, history of ethics) from Michigan, Thomas Pogge (political philosophy) from Columbia University, and Kenneth Winkler (early modern philosophy) from Wellesley.  Tenure-track hire:  Barbara Sattler (ancient philosophy), Freie Universtat (Berlin) PhD, previously on tenure-track at Illinois/Urbana.  Tenure-track losses:  James Kreines (19th-century German philosophy) to a tenure-track position at Claremont-McKenna College; Michael Weber (ethics) to a tenure-track position at Bowling Green State University.

Advice on "Personal Statements" for PhD Admissions?

A student applying to graduate school this fall writes:

I was hoping you could post something on the Leiter Reports asking the readers (particularly the philosophy professors on grad schools admissions committees) what they expect from a student's personal statement. As a prospective student, this often seems to be the most elusive part of the application, and unfortunately most programs don't provide much guidance on their websites - and if they do, it isn't extremely helpful. With the GRE's, your gpa, and your writing sample you do the best you can, and hope that it is enough, but what the content of personal statement should be is a little less self-evident.

Obviously the personal statement should say something about why the student wants to get a graduate degree in philosophy, and what areas interest him most, but how in depth should it go? Should the student just explain his broad areas of interest, or should he describe
particular problems that have intrigued him? In other words, should a student do a little philosophy in the statement?

Also, it is clear that the student shouldn't wax poetic about the wonders of the philosophical life, but should simultaneously express the fact that she can see herself doing philosophy as a career. Do your readers have any advice on striking a balance between, on the one hand,
expressing an appreciation and desire for doing philosophy, and on the other, convincing the admissions committee you are a serious candidate?

If a certain part of the student's applications is sub-par, e.g. low GRE scores or a significantly lower gpa during the first one or two years of college, should the student attempt to provide some justification? Or would such a situation be better taken care of in a letter of recommendation? Should students mention particular faculty members they would enjoy (or even be honored) to work with? If so, how can they do this without groveling?

My own views (having done PhD admissions four or five times in the last decade) are as follows:  (1)  the personal statement should make clear what the student's philosophical interests are (at present) and how those interests make the program to which the student is applying a sensible choice (in this context, mentioning particular faculty can make good sense, and show that the student has given some thought to why he or she is applying to a particular program); (2) one can't really "do philosophy" in a personal statement, but one can certainly offer examples of particular philosophical problems (e.g., mental causation) or topics (e.g., Stoic ethics) that convey both the depth of undergraduate preparation and complement the explanation of why the candidate is applying to a particular program; (3) deficiencies in GRE scores or GPA are most persuasively addressed by your faculty recommenders (students ought to discuss the issues candidly with their advisors), but it is certainly not inapprpriate for the personal statement to address these kinds of issues--but statements of the form, "I am a much better student than my undergraduate GPA would suggest" are useless; more pertinent is factual information--e.g., "my overall GPA was dragged down because I was an engineering major my freshman and sophomore years; but when I switched to philosophy, my GPA rose to a 3.8" or "my junior year grades fell significantly when my mother died unexpectedly; I believe my sophomore and senior year grades are more indicative of my philosophical ability." 

The personal statement may certainly say something brief about the student's professional and personal goals:  most commonly, a career as a college teacher of philosophy, or sometimes personal edification and enrichment.  I would not spend much time on this:  presumptively, those who apply for PhDs in philosophy want to teach the subject.  The items noted above (1-3) are generally more important for an admissions committee:  i.e., what is the student interested in, and does his or her interests fit with what our program has to offer.

Comments are open.  No anonymous comments; students need to hear from philosophers with experience on admissions.  Please post only once; I will try to approve comments in a timely way.  I would, in particular, invite British, Canadian, and Australasian philosophers to remark on pertinent differences in expectations for the personal statements for their programs.

Protecting Philosophical Ideas with Copyright?

I have opened a discussion on this subject at my law school blog in response to an inquiry from a philosophy graduate student.  One of my law colleagues, an expert on copyright, comments, and I am hoping other legal experts will weigh in.  Issues about the misappropriation of someone else's philosophical work or ideas often come up in informal conversation; faculty and students may find the discussion of the legal protections available of some value.

Where to go for PhD Work in Continental Philosophy?

MOVING TO THE FRONT with an update.

The transformation of the Northwestern Department has led a few different correspondents in recent months to inquire about where students with a philosophical interest in post-Kantian Continental philosophy of the 19th- and 20th-centuries should go to study for a PhD these days.  The specialty rankings from the most recent PGR give a reasonable picture of the choices.  In my own judgment, the top choice is pretty plainly the University of Chicago (Brudney, Davidson, Forster, Haugeland, and Pippin, plus a number of other faculty [e.g., Lear and Nussbaum] with sympathetic interests in particular figures or movements), but any serious student should also be looking at Columbia University (Carman and Neuhouser), Stanford University (Anderson, Follesdal [part-time], Friedman, Hills, Hussain, and Wood are all working primarily or partially on figures or movements in post-Kantian German philosophy), Syracuse University (Baynes and Beiser, among others), the University of California at Riverside (Keller, Warnke, and Wrathall, among others), and the University of Notre Dame (Ameriks, Gutting, and Rush, among others).  Northwestern (Habermas [part-time], LaFont, Taylor [part-time], and Zuckert, among others) is also still worth considering, as are Brown University (Larmore and Reginster) and Georgetown University (Blattner and Pinkard, among others). 

New York University has two very good senior scholars (Longuenesse and Richardson), but students will want to consider whether the overall philosophical environment is hospitable for their interests in Continental philosophy.  Prospective students should talk to current students to find out.  The situation at Texas is, I'm afraid, a bit up in the air; certainly Kathleen Higgins and I would continue to welcome students interested in 19th-century German philosophy.  The tragic death of Bob Solomon makes Texas quite a bit less viable for those with 20th-century Continental interests.  Whether we replace Solomon this year and whether I remain will obviously affect the viability of UT Austin for students interested in post-Kantian Continental traditions.

In Britain, the best bets are probably the Universities of Essex, Southampton (at least for Schopenhauer and Nietzsche), and Warwick--perhaps also Sussex.  Unfortunately, with the exception of Warwick, these tend not to be very strong philosophy departments overall, though they have cultivated niches of excellence in the Continental traditions.  Among the very top U.K. departments, one would be well-advised to look at Cambridge University (though Raymond Geuss will be running up against the mandatory U.K. retirement age in a few years), University College London (Sebastian Gardner and Sarah Richmond--plus Jonathan Wolff works on Marx), and perhaps still Oxford University (Michael Inwood and Stephen Mulhall are still active, though G.A. Cohen is about to hit mandatory retirement [and Inwood is only a few years away], and Michael Rosen has left).

In Canada, University of Toronto is the best choice (Paul Franks being the primary attraction), and in Australasia, the University of Auckland (Wicks and Young, among others) clearly dominates. 

I should reiterate that students ought to consult the specialty rankings, especially if they have well-focused interests already.  And all these recommendations are for philosophically-minded students.  There are obviously many other kinds of students interested in post-Kantian figures who may be less likely to find these departments congenial.

UPDATE:  A couple of readers pointed out, correctly, that the University of Sheffield should really be on the list of strong UK departments that might be viable for students interested in Continental philosophy.  Robert Stern has done very good work on Kant and Hegel, and Robert Hopkins, best-known for important work in aesthetics, also has interests in Nietzsche.  One reader familiar with the British philosophical scene also offered the following pertinent observation about Cambridge:

Raymond Geuss is certainly a wonderful supervisor with an excellent record of developing Ph.D. students but, now that Edward Craig has retired, he appears to be the only person in the Cambridge Department with interests in Continental Philosophy and any student would be well advised to enquire how sympathetic the atmosphere there would be for someone working in that area.

European Science Foundation's Ranking of Philosophy Journals

Philosopher Gualtiero Piccinini (Missouri/St. Louis) has the details, links and a short explanation of the rating scale, as well as some comments on the significance of this list for European philosophers.  The philosophy list is here.  And a longer explanation of the rating scale is here. 

The rankings consist of three gradations:  A being the highest, C the lowest.  The ratings strike me as fairly plausible, though there are some odd results.  (Thom Brooks (Newcastle) also comments on some oddities in the ranking.)  European Journal of Philosophy, for example, should clearly be an A, now that it is the most important forum for historical work on post-Kantian Continental philosophy, as well as publishing important articles in many contemporary areas.  And why is British Journal for the History of Philosophy an A, while History of Philosophy Quarterly gets a B?  All the Kluwer X and Philosophy journals (where X is Biology, Economics etc.) got an A, which may explain how Law and Philosophy got an A, while the journal I co-edit, Legal Theory, got a B, even though we reject many papers that end up being accepted at Law and Philosophy. 

One explanation for the handful of peculiarities may have to do with the committee that oversaw the philosophy journal rankings, which consisted of Francois Recanati, Manuel Garcia-Carpintero, Diego Marconi, Kevin Mulligan, and Barry Smith--a strong group of philosophers, but none of whom work mainly in moral, political, or legal philosophy, or in the history of philososphy.  (Marconi and Mulligan do some work in these areas.)  Overall, though, they deserve credit for coming up with a fairly reasonable listing, which, as Professor Piccinini suggests, may exert a positive influence on professional standards and practices in philosophy in Europe.

What do readers think?  Post only once (comments may take awhile to appear), and non-anonymous comments will, as usual, be strongly preferred.  Since this appears to be an "initial" list, it may be that feedback from philosophers will influence the final listing.

"Departmental Visits" for Prospective PhD Students

A student recently accepted to graduate programs in philosophy wrote to me inquiring about the "role of post-offer 'departmental visits' in the decision making process."  S/he continues:

I, for one, was totally unaware that these visits had become a central part of the procedure; I had no idea that departments were spending money flying prospective students all over America!  My experiences were very mixed, and I personally witnessed a number of other prospectives having similarly weird experiences.  I'm still not confident that I have a handle on how to best 'use' these visits when making a decision, and I'm similarly unsure about whether I think they're altogether a good idea.  (I think that there is a good chance that some departments are just much "better" at staging these visits than are other departments, and I doubt that an ability to stage a nice visit has much to do with the quality of the education a prospective is likely to receive!)  Anyway, I wonder whether you might at some point include some commentary on these visits in the Report, or at least make mention of how central a part of the process they've become.  It also might make for a good blog discussion at some point.

Comments are open; please avoid discussion of particular departments, and non-anonymous postings will be very strongly preferred.  Post only once; comments may take several hours, sometimes a whole day, to appear.

Some Questions about Philosophy Department Hiring Practices and the Role of Race and Gender (Leiter)

A new assistant professor writes:

PGR has now guided me through grad school and two market cycles. Thanks for the all the hard work.

I wanted to mention that I’d witnessed/heard of a lot of discussion-worthy practices related to demographic attributes of candidates, especially gender and race.  (Demoralizing example: office assistants in the cubicle next to mine trying to guess the ethnicity of candidates from their surnames, which they appeared to be recording in the candidates’ dossiers.)

I’d love to know both people’s considered views and actual practices, particularly concerning whether departments should/do (a) ignore non-academic demographic attributes, (b) consider them in order to pursue/encourage applications from certain demographics, (c) weight demographic attributes but only as a tie-breaker, (d) weight demographic attributes so that an academically superior candidate might be turned down in favor of one with certain demographic attributes, or (e) weight demographic attributes so that a candidate who would normally not be viewed as sufficiently qualified is hired anyway because of demographic attributes.

I will, as usual, give strong preference to non-anonymous comments, though given the sensitivity of these topics may permit some anonymous postings.  Post only once; comments may take awhile to appear, even if approved.

Which Journals Publish "Discussion Notes"?

David Velleman (NYU) forwards to me a query he received from an author who had submitted a "discussion"-style piece to Philosophers' Imprint, which (alas) does not publish discussion pieces.  The author wrote to Professor Velleman:

[I]t is actually quite difficult to find an appropriate place to send it to, as most journals these days are quite reluctant to publish discussion notes. Even Analysis, where the target article originally appeared, was not interested. The author of the target article, to whom I sent my paper for comment, seemed to agree with me that there were potentially issues with his arguments, which would need to be addressed. But how to make this public? Given the general inflation in publications in philosophy, it seems that space for "mere" discussion is disappearing. Can you recommend a journal to a junior philosopher looking for a publishing venue?

I'm sure others have the same question.  Answers, anyone?  As usual, non-anonymous posts strongly preferred.  Post only once; comments may take awhile to appear.

Philosophy of Social Science in the PGR (Leiter)

James Bohman (Saint Louis University), Paul Roth (UC Santa Cruz), Stephen Turner (South Florida) and Alison Wylie (Washington/Seattle) sent me the following thoughtful letter regarding the current specialty ratings for Philosophy of Social Science.  I am posting it here with their permission and hope to solicit other opinions from experts.  Here is their letter:

We write with some suggestions for reframing the specialty area, Philosophy of the Social Sciences. In particular, we urge that it be construed more broadly; the slate of the raters and the results reported in the most recent Philosophical Gourmet Report suggest an emphasis on philosophy of economics and rational choice/decision theoretic approaches. These are certainly important components of this subfield but, in the course of organizing the 1998 NEH Summer Institute on Philosophy of Social science and, subsequently, running  the Philosophy of Social Science Roundtable we’ve been impressed by the breadth and dynamism of philosophical work on the social sciences that lies outside these areas of interest and that comprises the core of what is now a fairly well defined and stable field of research and teaching interest in English-language philosophy. Here’s our thinking about the nature of this field; some recommendations follow.

As represented at the Roundtable, in the journal, Philosophy of the Social Sciences, and in several recent anthologies, this subfield integrates philosophical analysis of fields in the social sciences that range from qualitative (ethnographic) research programs in anthropology and historical inquiry, through the experimental research traditions now flourishing in social psychology, economics, and physical anthropology, to various forms of quantitative survey-based and demographic research, and the formal modeling typical of some areas of political science, sociology, and economics. The traditions on which philosophers draw when they engage the social sciences are equally diverse: centrally, analytic philosophy of science, philosophy of language and action theory, social ontology and political philosophy, as well as continental traditions of critical theory, hermeneutics and phenomenology.

The intellectual core of the field, as it has taken shape in English-language philosophy, is defined by a set of questions about the relationship between the social and the natural sciences, and by the "logic and methodology" orientation that structures its relationship to the multiple disciplines it studies. The stability of this core is evident in the interests of key figures—from Mill to Popper and Habermas—whose work has defined the field, and in a standard set of topics articulated in pivotal debates between, for example, Winch and MacIntyre, Hollis and Lukes, Hempel and Dray. The Blackwell Guide to Philosophy of the Social Sciences (2003), featured at the top of the PGR specialty rankings page for Philosophy of Social Science, includes, for example, essays on theory formation and scientific methodology in the social sciences, on competing models of explanation and of interpretative inquiry, on questions about agency and rationality, the status of claims about social institutions and of appeals to norms and practices, the viability of ideals of objectivity, value neutrality, and critical engagement in the social sciences. In this it builds on themes evident in the canonical Brodbeck anthology of 1968: theory construction, the role of laws in explanation, holism vs individualism, teleological and functional analysis, the role of values and of a “positive” research methodology in social inquiry. This slate of topics constitutes a stable and well-defined research field; a search for "philosophy of social science" on the Cambridge University Press website, and the contents of this subject area on the Routledge or Blackwell sites, yields results that illustrate these core topics. A search for on-line examples of syllabi for Philosophy of Social Science courses at the undergraduate and graduate level generates similar results.

We are concerned that the Philosophical Gourmet Report does not take the whole of this field into account but rather, as indicated at the outset, tends to equate philosophy of the social sciences with philosophy of economics and with applications of rational choice and decision theory in the social sciences. Of the six experts assembled to rate the field, only two list philosophy of the social sciences as an AOS. One of them identifies this as “philosophy of the social sciences and economics,” and the other specifies economics as his primary interest in the field; both are centrally involved in philosophy of biology and indicate a particular interest in evolutionary theory. A third is an eminent philosopher of economics who also teaches broadly in philosophy of the social sciences. A fourth has published on economics but lists his AOS as philosophy of science and history of philosophy. And the final two are chiefly known for their work in decision theory, game theory, and theories of rational deliberation. Although these latter specializations bear on issues central to philosophy of the social sciences, we note that “Decision, Rational Choice and Game Theory” is a separately ranked specialty in the PGR. We are concerned that the distinction between this specialty and “Philosophy of Social Science” has been elided, and that the broad range of philosophical work that focuses on social sciences other than economics is not well represented.

Judging by the response to the Philosophy of Social Science Roundtable in the eight years it has been running, these are significant gaps. We routinely review 40 to 50 abstracts submitted by self-identified philosophers of social science for each annual Rountable; we select 10 to 12 of these for the program and publish 4 to 6 of these as an annual special issue of the journal, Philosophy of the Social Sciences. Of the 37 papers we will have published from the Roundtable programs when the 8^th special issue appears (March 2007), there is roughly an even balance between analyses that focus on anthropology, sociology, social and developmental psychology, political science, history, and economics (there are 4 to 5 papers in each area, excluding several papers that are not discipline-specific). By topic, these papers concentrate in several broad areas: social ontology (including holism vs individualism), models of explanation, rationality and normativity, and meta-methodological topics (including ideals of objectivity, theory evaluation, and the role of values). Papers on topics in philosophy of economics, rational choice and decision theory are certainly in the mix, but they are a distinct minority given the range of other topics and social scientific fields represented. Our selections at each stage are governed by considerations of quality, not topic, so we expect that the sample of published papers is broadly representative, by area and topic, of the pool of submissions attracted by our annual call for papers.

It should be noted that the Roundtable call for papers draws submissions from philosophers of social science based in universities across North America, the U.K., Scandinavia, eastern and western Europe and, in a few instances, from Australia and New Zealand, so the resulting programs and publications represent a broad cross-section of English-language philosophy of social science. Most important, from the point of view of Philosophical Gourmet Report (as a guide for students selecting graduate programs), roughly a third of those who contribute to the Roundtable and the special issues of PoSS are young scholars; new PhD’s or advanced graduate students seek out the Roundtable because it is one of very few meetings (and the only one run on an annual basis) that provides them access to a broad spectrum of current work in philosophy of the social sciences. Their interests represent the growing edge of the field, and these track the distribution of topics we have described as the stable core of field.

The guiding principle at work in the ranking of programs by specialties, as described in the Philosophical Gourmet Report, is that each specialized field should be evaluated by experts in that field. If Philosophy of Social Science is not to be an exception to this principle it will be important to broaden the range of expertise included in the panel of raters so that it better reflects the balance of interests and core problems that animate the field. To do this effectively we recommend that a clearer distinction be drawn between philosophy of social science and decision theory and its applications, and that there be a stronger representation of philosophical interests in social sciences other than economics. Those members of the rating panel who identify philosophy of social science as an area of specialization would no doubt be able to make more specific suggestions along these lines, and the anthologies, journals, and conference programs we’ve mentioned all offer extensive lists of faculty teaching in these areas in graduate programs.

Professors Bohman, Roth, Turner, and Wylie articulate some concerns I had had about this specialty area, which is why I asked their permission to make their informative letter public.  I would welcome comments from other philosophers working in and around philosophy of the social sciences.  Non-anonymous comments will be very strongly preferred, and comments may take awhile to appear, so please post only once.

The Situation for Chinese Philosophy in the U.S. (Leiter)

MOVING TO FRONT from Dec. 5 in light of the continued interesting discussion in the comments section.
=========================

Manyul Im, a specialist in Chinese philosophy at California State University at Los Angeles, writes:

The following events have contributed to a very serious situation--I sometimes think, a crisis--for Ph.D. study of Chinese Philosophy in the U.S. or Canada and I hope you will share this with your blog readers:

*David Nivison retires at Stanford; PJ Ivanhoe leaves Stanford for Michigan; Ivanhoe leaves Michigan and briefly visits at Boston; and now Ivanhoe is at City University of Hong Kong. There is no indication that Stanford will fill the position again, which was long held by Nivison.

*Kwong-loi Shun leaves Berkeley for Toronto; Shun leaves Toronto for Chinese University of Hong Kong. There is no indication that Berkeley is interested in filling that position again, which was long held by Shun.

*Donald Munro retires at Michigan; Ivanhoe replaces him; then ... see above. There is no indication that Michigan is interested in filling that position again, which was long held by Munro.

My pessimism about whether Stanford, Berkeley or Michigan plan to revive their Chinese Philosophy programs is based only on what I've heard through the grape-vine, so if anyone has more reliable but positive information, I would certainly be glad to hear of it.

Meanwhile here is the advice I've been giving my students for the past couple of years:

In my opinion, right now the only readily viable option for students seeking a Ph.D. that focuses on Chinese Philosophy and, when completed, have good Philosophy job prospects is the program at Univ. of Hawaii. However, students should be aware that at Hawaii, there are strong incentives and pressures to work with Roger Ames and to adopt his approach to Chinese philosophy--namely, a Whiteheadian process-philosophy reading of the major texts. That, by itself isn't a crisis; it's the current lack of scholars-in-training who have other approaches that is the cause for my concern. Of course followers of Ames might not think this is so bad but they should, since any philosophical analysis should be subject to serious criticisms in order to be tested well.

Utah and Oregon, which are listed in the Gourmet Report's Programs Rated by Advisory Board, have excellent young faculty but until they have established their reputations more widely, students who go there for Ph.D. study will need to cultivate serious external working relationships with bigger names in the field to ensure good job prospects. I would also add Oklahoma to this category.

The current situation is that students who don't want to study at Hawaii, Utah, or Oregon--or aren't admitted to those programs--have three good and genuine alternatives, keeping in mind the desideratum of having good job prospects (based on quality and name-recognition of advisors):

1. Study something other than Chinese Philosophy
2. Study Chinese Philosophy at a department where the primary advisor, though working at least partly on Chinese Philosophy, would not be someone who has had serious Sinological training,   traditionally construed
3. Study in Hong Kong (at the University of Hong Kong) or Singapore (at the National University of Singapore)

I don't offer my students suggestion 1 completely tongue-in-cheek. Most often I have students who are interested in Chinese Philosophy because they already have serious philosophical interests in more traditional Western topics like Ethics, Metaphysics, or the Philosophy of Religion. Option 2 is possible at programs like Connecticut (with Joel Kupperman) and Duke (with David Wong).

Option 3 is getting more and more attractive as Hong Kong, which is not far from Singapore, is suddenly the hotbed of Chinese Philosophy. Three of the most recognized, active scholars are now there: Chad Hansen (Univ. of Hong Kong), Kwong-loi Shun (Chinese Univ. of Hong Kong), and now Philip Ivanhoe (City University of Hong Kong). There is also a less recognized but excellent senior scholar, Kim-Chong Chong at the Science and Technology University of Hong Kong. Chinese Univ. of Hong Kong also has one of the best young scholars, Chris Fraser.

The caveat here is that, as far as I know, only the University of Hong Kong has a Ph.D. program among the Hong Kong universities mentioned. Chad Hansen, who is at the Univ. of Hong Kong, will be retiring next year. I am told that they DO plan on replacing him. The National University of Singapore has a Ph.D. program and some excellent scholars of Chinese Philosophy, among them: Sor Hoon Tan and Alan Chan. I should note that both the University of Hong Kong and Singapore conduct their programs in English and should really be considered programs of Philosophy "in the English-speaking world."

I hope this will be useful information for you, Brian, and students who are thinking about Ph.D. programs in Chinese Philosophy. Some of this is strictly my considered opinion, but I stand by it and it is part of the advice I would give to my own students.

Comments are open for additional perspectives from scholars and students; non-anonymous comments are very strongly preferred.  Please post only once; comments may take awhile to appear.

How to Choose a Graduate Program in Philosophy (Leiter)

Here is a quite sensible set of remarks by Keith DeRose (Yale).

PGR Makes the News in Australia

Here.  (Thanks to Matthew Mullins for the pointer.)

How *Not* to Critique the PGR

Usually critics of the Philosophical Gourmet Report are content just to insult me, but Keith DeRose (Yale) looks at a case of someone who felt the need to question the philosophical competence and/or aptitude of all students who might use the PGR and all faculty who participate in producing it.  Wow!

UPDATE:  This comment is particularly apt.

Canadian Programs in the New PGR

Richard Zach (Calgary) provides a helpful summary of the results.

Regarding the New PGR

So, as most readers no doubt have discovered, the new Philosophical Gourmet Report has been on-line since this morning.  Already a few folks have e-mailed me with corrections; the corrections will be on-line by Monday.  Two are worth mentioning, as illustrative of the kind of things readers ought to look out for and feel free to contact me about.

Folks at the University of Leeds, which had ranked quite well in Philosophy of Art in 2004, noticed that Leeds had disappeared from the 2006 listing, even though they'd actually strengthened their staff in that area.  In fact, this turned out to be a pure transcription error:  Leeds had a rounded mean score of 4.0 in Philosophy of Art for 2006, making it one of the stronger faculties in this field in the world.  Although scores are automatically recorded, they do have to be manually transcribed into the rankings, and while these have been proofed many times, there may still be errors.  Of course, there is some sometimes random fluctuation in scores given shifts in the pool of evaluators, so it shouldn't be surprising if some faculties with a rounded mean of 3.0 in 2004 dropped off the list in 2006, or if a school with a rounded mean of 4.5 in 2004 has a rounded mean of 4.0 in 2006.  But if a faculty which had a strong score in 2004, and which hasn't had losses in the interim, has disappeared, please let me know, and we can double-check.

The other kind of error I especially want to hear about are errors of omission from the listing of faculty moves since 2004.  For example, I discovered today that the move of Paul Franks (Kant, German Idealism) from Notre Dame to Toronto--while reflected in the faculty lists for the surveys--was left off the listing of moves in the new PGR by accident, even though that move without a doubt played a significnat role in Toronto's score in those specialty areas.

Thanks again to the members of the Advisory Board for their input and advice, and to the several hundred philosophers who completed the surveys.  Thanks also to readers who have already or who may yet catch errors, substantive or typographical.  And, of course, best of luck to the students who will be using the new PGR in the current round of applications to grad schools.

Another PGR Update

Bad news this time--Blackwell says it may not go live on-line until Friday morning in the UK.  Sorry about this, but at this stage I have no control over the process. 

The New PGR Should Be Out...

...tomorrow (Thursday, November 9) at  www.philosophicalgourmet.com.  In any case, I have signed off on it, and so some time during the day tomorrow it should go live (since it is hosted by Blackwell in Oxford, if they get it up in the morning in the UK, it should be available in the early morning hours in the US).  Please e-mail me if you spot any errors.  (I may be hard to reach by e-mail tomorrow, however, so don't be surprised if I don't reply right away.)

I do apologize for the fact that the U.S. elections have interfered with PGR coverage; I am hopeful that the new Democratic Congress will take appropriate steps to make sure that the timetable of the 2008 elections is adjusted so as not to distract attention from the release of the 2008 PGR.

UPDATE, 7:30 am in Chicago on Thursday, November 9:  Blackwell is in process of making it live now, so it should be on-line in a few hours.