O.k., it was inevitable that I was going to do this one; the philosophy of language rankings (instructions on how to read these are here). In the last edition of the Philosophical Gourmet Report, there was no general category of Philosophy of Language. Instead, there were two categories, Philosophy of Language and Linguistics, and Philosophy of Language and Mind. We agreed this year to combine these into one big ranking. Anyway, without further ado (though some ado will follow):
PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE
Group 1 (1-5) (mean of 4.5)
Massachussetts Institute of Technology (4.5)
New York University (4.5)
Rutgers University, New Brunswick (5.0)
University of California, Los Angeles (4.5)
University of Southern California (5.0)
Group 2 (6-12) (mean of 4.0)
Cornell University (4.0)
City University of New York Graduate Center (4.0)
Oxford University (4.25)
Stanford University (4.0)
University of Pittsburgh (4.0)
University of St. Andrews/University of Stirling Joint Program (4.0)
University of Texas, Austin (4.0)
Group 3 (13-25) (mean of 3.5)
Australian National University (3.5)
Columbia University (3.0)
Harvard University (3.5)
King’s College, London (3.5)
University of Arizona (3.5)
University of California, Irvine (3.5)
University of California, Santa Barbara (3.5)
University of Maryland, College Park (3.5)
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (4.0)
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (3.5)
University of Sheffield (3.5)
University of St. Andrews (3.5)
Group 4 (26-40) (mean of 3.0)
Birkbeck College, University of London (3.0)
Cambridge University (3.0)
Ohio State University (3.0)
Princeton University (3.5)
Simon Fraser University (3.0)
Tulane University (3.0)
University College London (3.0)
University of California, Berkeley (3.0)
University of California, Davis (3.0)
University of California, Riverside (3.0)
University of Florida, Gainesville (3.0)
University of Melbourne (3.0)
University of Rochester (3.0)
University of Nottingham (3.0)
University of Western Ontario (3.0)
Also Notable (median of 3.0): Monash University; University of Connecticut, Storrs; University of Glasgow; University of Minnesota, Twin Cities; University of Notre Dame; University of Sydney.
In addition, the aggregated faculties of the colleges making up the University of London received a rounded mean score of 4.0 and a median score of 4.0.
In the judgment of the Advisory Board, the following programs that were not part of the survey ought to be considered by students interested in this area:
Evaluators: Kent Bach, David Bell, David Braun, Peter Carruthers, Jonathan Cohen, Joshua Dever, Michael Devitt, Michael Fara, Graeme Forbes, Bryan Frances, Manuel Garcia-Carpintero, Christopher Gauker, Anthony Gillies, Michael Glanzberg, Delia Graff, A.C. Grayling, Mark Greenberg, Patrick Greenough, Anil Gupta, Samuel Guttenplan, Bob Hale, John Hawthorne, Jane Heal, James Higginbotham, Richard Holton, Christopher Hookway, Frank Jackson, Robin Jeshion, Jeffrey King, Frederick Kroon, Ernest LePore, Bernard Linsky, Barry Loewer, E.J. Lowe, Peter Ludlow, Robert May, Brian McLaughlin, Alex Oliver, Jeff Pelletier, Teresa Robertson, Ian Rumfitt, Mark Sainsbury, Nathan Salmon, Jennifer Saul, Ted Sider, Susanna Siegel, David Sosa, Robert Stainton, Jason Stanley, Zoltan Szabo, Brian Weatherson, Timothy Williamson, George Wilson, Crispin Wright, Jose Zalabardo.
O.k., here is my commentary. As should be obvious, this commentary in no way officially reflects the views of the Leiter board or anyone else besides a 3 a.m. temporal slice of Jason Stanley. Probably, a later temporal slice of me will regret them.
These rankings seem generally remarkably accurate to me. That is, they accurately reflect both my sense of the area, and my sense of the views of the people in this area. But I will still add my two cents. There are five departments that are in group 1, with a mean of 4.5 (though only two departments among them have achieved a median of 5.0). That really stands out about the philosophy of language rankings, as opposed to other areas. It's hard to say what accounts for the plethora of group 1 departments, but ranking is a somewhat inexact science.
Also, unlike e.g. normative ethics, metaethics, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, epistemology, and a host of other areas, no departments received a mean of 5.0. Leaving Rutgers aside, I can't really imagine how it would be possible for anyone with any knowledge of this area to give USC less than a 5.0. I mean really folks, that's absurd. USC has Jim Higginbotham, Jeff King, and Scott Soames on their faculty (not to mention a great linguistics department). Even if one of these folks stole your lunch money in grad school, at least you've got to like two of the others. For those of you who inexplicably gave USC less than a 5, I repeat for you the wise words of my colleague Ted Sider: Don't be a hater, be a participator!
MIT has excellent people in philosophy of language (most prominently of course Stalnaker, who has trained almost an entire era of philosophers of language). But I suspect the ranking of MIT in this area was also partly due to the fact that (as I've heard) they listed some of their superstar semanticists as affiliate members of the philosophy department. It's hard for people like me not to rank a department very highly in philosophy of language that lists Irene Heim, Kai von Fintel, and Danny Fox as affiliate faculty. But other departments didn't exploit their linguists as cleverly. If people ranking a department continue to take into account affiliated faculty in linguistics, then this a strategy to consider for other departments seeking to move up in this area that are in universities with excellent linguistics departments.
-Jason Stanley
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