What follows are some personal observations on the significance and import of the faculty moves that have transpired in the last year. These reflect neither a survey nor vetting by the PGR Advisory Board. Rather, this is the kind of advice and analysis I would give to a student I was advising (and which I’ve already given, in some cases, to students who have e-mailed me). Please take it in that spirit, and seek out other advice as well.
CHANGES TO THE OVERALL RANKINGS
Most of the hirings and losses this past year will, in my judgment, produce only modest (if any) changes in the overall standing of departments and the quality of philosophical education they can offer—certainly not changes that prospective students ought to be worrying about. Here are the differences that students might notice:
NYU’s wise decision to strengthen its coverage of history of philosophy (by adding Garrett and Longuenesse)—to match its exceptional strength in various contemporary areas—pushes it ahead of Rutgers in my view, maybe even Princeton (but Princeton’s hiring of Michael Smith was a major coup). We’ll see what Princeton and Rutgers do this year.
It’s hard (indeed, probably impossible) to replace philosophers of the accomplishment of Donald Davidson, Bernard Williams and Richard Wollheim. (Note that evaluators in prior years may have already discounted for these faculty in some measure, given their age.) University of California at Berkeley seems likely to slip out of the top 15, though recent additions of good younger philosophers, plus other continuing strengths (history of philosophy, value theory, etc.), will surely keep it squarely in the top 20.
Yale University will drop out of the top 20, though it still has a remarkably strong group of younger, tenured faculty, like Della Rocca and DeRose (both of whom turned down offers from Rutgers), as well as Bobzien (recruited from Oxford) and Kagan (a major figure in ethics), etc. However—and this is important—Yale is likely to make new senior offers this year, that might offset the losses. In my view, prospective students interested in ethics, ancient, early modern, epistemology, and philosophy of language should certainly keep Yale on their list, and keep an eye on developments this year.
Assuming Elliott Sober stays at Stanford (which seems likely), I think Wisconsin is almost certain to slip out of the top 25 (and notwithstanding some extremely promising junior hiring). Although Sober may have been the most distinguished philosopher at Wisconsin, the depth and breadth of strength at Wisconsin remains quite impressive. (The addition of Sober at Stanford should, in my personal view, also push Stanford at least in to competition with Michigan and Pittsburgh (perhaps higher?)—Stanford would, for example, have greater breadth and depth than either Michigan or Pittsburgh, since Stanford is very strong not only in philosophy of language, mind, and science, but also ancient philosophy, Kant, and Continental philosophy.)
It is hard for me to see how the City University of New York Graduate Center could not move solidly in to the top 20, perhaps higher, given the first-rate appointments this past year. Personally, I would rank CUNY in the top 15 (I would have ranked CUNY higher than 25th, however, last year).
University of Pennsylvania will drop out of the top 25, perhaps the top 30. If Penn is successful in recruiting Bicchieri, they ought to remain among the top 30 at least.
SPECIALTY AREAS
As noted on the Update Service, it’s a reasonable supposition that senior appointments will affect the specialty rankings. I will just comment in more detail on two areas in which I have a particular interest and some expertise.
Philosophy of Law: the main event of the year is Stephen Perry’s move from Penn to NYU. This must surely make NYU, Columbia, and Oxford the three strongest faculties in legal philosophy in the English-speaking world. Conversely, Penn without Perry drops to “Also Notable,” at best (philosophy of criminal law remains solid). I would like to say that adding the wonderful moral philosopher John Deigh (who also writes in philosophy of law) here at Texas makes us better than Columbia and NYU, but I could not say that is true based on research reputations (certainly not while Dworkin is part-time at NYU and Raz part-time at Columbia!). But, taking a page from Richard Heck, let me suggest that, at Texas, we may treat our students better than some other top JD/PhD programs! In any case, as always, talk to current students before choosing a program.
One other important move: Andrei Marmor joins the University of Southern California half-time (primary appointment in law, but also with an appointment in philosophy). With other USC faculty interested in legal philosophy (Lloyd, Vihvelin, Yaffe), the addition of Marmor makes USC an attractive choice in legal philosophy--also for a JD/PhD, given the quality of the law school.
Continental Philosophy (19th- and 20th-Century): Three significant events this past year: the hiring of Baynes by Syracuse; the hiring of Longuenesse by NYU; and the tenuring of Taylor Carman at Barnard College/Columbia University (plus, of course, Fred Neuhouser’s turning down the Harvard offer to stay at Barnard/Columbia).
My list of “top choices” for students serious about Continental philosophy would be, alphabetically, for the U.S.: Columbia University (Carman, Neuhouser), New York University (Longuenesse, Richardson), Stanford University (Friedman, Wood, Follesdal part-time, Satz [for Marx], plus two untenured faculty), Syracuse University (Alcoff, Baynes, Beiser), the University of California at Riverside (Keller, Magnus, Warnke, plus one untenured faculty member), the University of California at San Diego (Hardimon, Martin, plus faculty with Continental interests like Doppelt and Rutherford), the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Schacht, Schroeder), the University of Notre Dame (Ameriks, Franks, Gutting, Rush, and Watson), the University of Texas at Austin (Deigh [for Freud], Higgins, Leiter, Solomon, plus faculty with Continental interests like Sarkar), and, of course, the University of Chicago, with more than a half-dozen faculty with interests in Continental figures.
In terms of breadth and depth in Continental philosophy, Chicago is still in a league by itself, though some of the faculty there, I must confess, have rather idiosyncratic takes on Continental figures. An additional worry about Chicago—especially as compared to the other programs noted above—is that it’s not entirely clear, given the later Wittgensteinian mood of the Chicago department, whether one can get a well-rounded philosophical education there these days. (The later Wittgensteinians tend to suscribe to the late Burton Dreben’s view: “Philosophy is garbage. But the history of garbage is scholarship.”) But these caveats aside, any student interested in Continental philosophy simply has to apply to Chicago, since the best Continental faculty there (e.g., Forster) are first-rate.
Northwestern is a tough case, because it has lots of people working on Continental, but some of them really aren’t very good. Still, it’s worth a look—same for Boston University (though the loss of Henry Allison could cost the department its place in the top 50) and Georgetown University.
Outside the US, the following schools are, in my view, certainly comparable to the US list: Cambridge University (Geuss), Oxford University (G.A. Cohen, Inwood, Mulhall, Rosen), the University of London (Gemes and Janaway at Birkbeck, Gardner, Richmond and Wolff [for Marx] at UCL), and the University of Sheffield (Bell, Stern). University of Warwick (Houlgate, Poellner, etc.) is also worth a serious look (strong in Continental, uneven otherwise), as is University of Auckland in New Zealand (Wicks, Young [who is part-time], etc.).
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