Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

Smith from Washington/Seattle to Washington & Lee

Angela Smith (ethics, moral psychology, ancient philosophy), Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Washington at Seattle, has accepted a senior offer from the Department of Philosophy at Washington & Lee University.

Research Funding in Canada

Mohan Matthen (Toronto) has details on recent developments.

Philosophy Radio Comes to North Dakota (and anywhere with Internet access)...

...courtesy of the Institute for Philosophy in Public Life at the University of North Dakota.

Why is American conservatism in shambles?

The answer.

Financial Armageddon for Universities in Arizona?

Several folks have flagged the scary proposals floating around the legislature.  Nothing is official yet, and the pushback--which includes large student rallies--may mean that more reasonable budget cuts are proposed.  Arizona readers:  insights or links to stories about these developments?  Other U.S.  readers:  are other state legislatures contemplating similarly draconian measures?  Readers outside the U.S.:  how is higher education faring in the current economic climate?

UPDATE:  Thanks to a commenter, below, I see that Arizona State University is implementing mandatory unpaid furloughs of two to three weeks for all employees between now and the end of the fiscal year, which is this summer.  More details here.  Faculty must take furlough days on days when they do not have teaching duties. 

This is pretty dramatic, but I fear it's not atypical of what we will see elsewhere as the economic crisis unfolds.

ANOTHER:  The Texas Governor Rick Perry (who is unusually inept even by the standards of Texas politics) has proposed freezing tuition, which could create serious problems given the reliance of UT Austin in recent years on increased tuition to make up for declining state support.  (Tuition was 'deregulated' several years ago, meaning it was no longer micro-managed by the legislature; Perry's proposal, and its bipartisan appeal, signals a possible return to the old days.)  On the other hand, the financial situation in Texas, and the universities, is significantly stronger than elsewhere in the country by all reports I've had from my former colleagues.

What This Course is *Not*: The Case of Metaphysics

I suspect many teachers of metaphysics will enjoy this amusing disclaimer crafted by philosopher Ron Amundson (Hawaii). 

(Thanks to Jason Brennan for the pointer.)

Crane from UCL to Cambridge

Tim Crane (philosophy of mind, metaphysics), who has taught at University College London since 1990 and where he is currently Head of Department, has accepted the Knightbridge Professorship at Cambridge University, effective this fall. 

The "Analysis" Model of Handling Article Submissions

Philosopher Gualtiero Piccinini (Missouri/St. Louis) raises the question whether more journals are adopting the Analysis model in which the editor rejects many submissions, quickly, without sending them out for review.  Professor Piccinini is seeking feedback from other philosophers on the subject.

God, Teapots, and Ross Douthat

Here.  Amusing.

Great New On-Line Resource for Philosophers: PhilPapers

The site is here and David Chalmers (ANU) explains it here.

My legal philosophy blog is slowly coming back to life...

...for those who might be interested.

PGR Update

Most of the 2009 PGR has been delivered to Blackwell.  I may continue to post a few excerpts of the results over the next few weeks, until it all appears on-line at the current URL.  My sincere thanks to the 300+ philosophers who participated in the surveys and provided their expert input.

I am thinking that, with the financial crisis, it may may make sense to delay the next PGR till 2012 or 2013, since the pace of faculty movement is likely to slow considerably.  Thoughts from readers and those who use the Report?  Signed comments only.  Thanks.

Two Signs of the Perilous Financial Times

Brandeis University is selling its entire art collection to raise money.

And university endowments continue in free fall.

Philosopher Cheryl Misak Appointed Provost of the University of Toronto

The Toronto press release is here.  Professor Misak has also been a longtime member of the Advisory Board of the PGR, and provided invaluable input on many occasions.  I'm sure she will be an outstanding Provost.

Biggest Drops in "Overall" Ranking in the New PGR

Those faculties that saw the most dramatic drops in overall rank in the 2009 surveys compared to the fall 2006 surveys were Stanford University, which fell from 6th to 9th; Columbia University from 9th to 13th;  University of Texas at Austin, from 13th to 20th; Johns Hopkins University from 35th to 43rd; University of Washington at Seattle from 35th to 43rd; and Arizona State University from 44th to outside the "top 53."  Outside the U.S., the most dramatic downward movement was probably by the University of Melbourne, which fell well outside the Australasian top four after being squarely in the top five in all prior surveys.   (The financial difficulties facing Melbourne, and the loss of academic staff, are noted here.)

Stanford had three significant changes that surely caused the drop in overall rank:  John Perry (philosophy of language and mind) entered a retirement arrangement which has him teaching part-time at Stanford for a few more years and half-time at UC Riverside.  In addition, Allen Wood (Kant, 19th-century Continental philosophy) and Rega Wood (medieval philosophy) accepted senior offers from Indiana University, Bloomington.  Stanford may still lure them back, but without "all" of Perry and the losses of the Woods, Stanford took a clear hit.

Columbia lost the political philosopher Thomas Pogge to Yale, and also saw a number of regular and cognate faculty enter the "over 70" category as of 2009 (including Haim Gaifman and Joseph Raz).  Still, I'm inclined to think Columbia's slip is a bit of a statistical blip, rather than a fundamental change in the department. 

Texas had more losses since the fall 2006 surveys.  Robert Kane, a leading writer on free will and ethics, retires at the end of this academic year, and so was no longer listed on the faculty since he will not be teaching as of 09-10.  Robert C. Solomon, well-known for work in philosophy of the emotions, ethics, and Continental philosophy, passed away unexpectedly.  Kane and Solomon, together, had long been mainstays of the faculty.  In addition, the legal and political philosopher Leslie Green (who had been part-time) and me (working partly in legal and moral philosophy, partly in Continental philosophy) both left.   I thought the department made some strong senior and junior appointments in the interim (including Ian Proops [history of analytic philosophy, Kant] from Michigan, and, on a half-time basis, Hans Kamp [philosophy of language, formal semantics]  who is emeritus at Stuttgart), and while these appointments deepened the faculty's strength in particular areas, it obviously did not offset the narrowing effects of the losses.  This appears to be the flip-side of the Yale story:  breadth yields favorable result in the PGR surveys, lack of breadth not as much.

Johns Hopkins, a small department with (in my opinion) unusually high per capita faculty quality, lost a mainstay of the department for decades, the philosopher of science Peter Achinstein, who moved to Yeshiva University, as well as some junior faculty (though they made an outstanding junior appointment in early modern philosophy).

Washington may also be a statistical blip, though they did suffer some losses, including the ancient philosophy scholar Marc Cohen, who is phasing into retirement, and the environmental philosopher Andrew Light, who moved to George Mason.

Finally, Arizona State's drop is easy to explain: Stewart Cohen (epistemology), the preeminent senior member of the faculty (apart from the legal philosopher Jeffrie Murphy, who is now mainly in the law school), accepted an offer from the University of Arizona.  ASU continued to enjoy a good showing in several areas in the specialty rankings, however, including feminist philosophy, ethics and applied ethics, decision, rational choice & game theory, and philosophy of biology, among other areas.

An Important New Ranking...

...of every song by the Beatles.  Somebody had time to burn it appears.

Top Four Faculties "Overall" in Canada

The numbers in parentheses are the mean score, followed by the median.

1.  University of Toronto (3.6, 3.5)

2.  University of Western Ontario (2.7, 3.0)

3.  McGill University (2.5, 2.5)

4.  University of British Columbia (2.4, 2.5)

No other Canadian faculty scored above 2.1.

Should Journals Publish the Name(s) of the Referee(s) of Accepted Articles?

Jamie Dreier (Brown) raises the issue here, and philosophers weigh in.

Choosing Between Graduate Study in a Philosophy Department vs. a History and Philosophy of Science Program?

Christopher Hitchcock, a distinguished philosopher of science at the California Institute of Technology and member of the PGR Advisory Board, has drafted, with input from some other philosophers of science on the Advisory Board (Craig Callender, Peter Godfrey-Smith, Alexander Rosenberg, and William Wimsatt), a very useful statement for students interested in philosophy of science and cognate fields and trying to decide about whether to pursue PhD studies in a philosophy program or a specialized program, such as "History and Philosophy of Science."  This advice will appear in the new PGR, but I thought it might be useful to flag it here for the benefit of interested students and their advisors:

Students interested in the philosophy of science, the history of science, and/or logic may face the choice of whether to pursue a graduate degree in a traditional philosophy department, or in a separate department of history and philosophy of science (HPS), or logic and philosophy of science (LPS). In the English-speaking world, the following schools have separate HPS or LPS departments:

USA:

University of Pittsburgh (HPS)

University of California, Irvine (LPS)

Indiana University (HPS)

UK

Cambridge University (HPS)

London School of Economics (LPS)

(Note: LSE has a department of philosophy, logic, and methodology of science, but no separate philosophy department.)

University of Leeds (HPS)

Canada

University of Toronto (Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology)

Australasia

University of Sydney (HPS)

University of Melbourne (HPS)

University of New South Wales (HPS)

 

Members of HPS and LPS departments were included together with philosophy faculty in the faculty lists used both for overall rankings, and for rankings in specialty areas.  (There are, of course, philosophy departments that are strong in philosophy of science that do not appear on this list because they do not have independent HPS or LPS programs. Prospective students should consult the relevant specialty rankings elsewhere in this report,)

 

In addition, a number of schools have interdisciplinary graduate programs in HPS or LPS that can be pursued from within the philosophy department (or other relevant department). These include Stanford University (HPS), University of California, Berkeley (LPS), University of Notre Dame (HPS), University of Chicago (HPS), University of California, San Diego (Science Studies Program, including HPS and also Sociology of Science), Duke University (History and Philosophy of Science, Medicine, and Technology), University of Washington, Seattle (HPS), Carnegie Mellon University (Program in Logic, Computation, and Methodology), Arizona State University (HPS; some of ASU’s philosophers are actually housed in the School of Life Sciences, rather than in the philosophy department) and Florida State University (HPS).  

 

Graduates of HPS and LPS programs who focus on philosophy of science will often be competing with graduates of philosophy departments for jobs in philosophy. Of course, students who are interested in pursuing graduate work in an HPS or LPS department should seek detailed information about the placement record of that department, just as they would for a philosophy department. Note also that departments may differ in where they place their students. Pittsburgh’s HPS department places most of its graduates in philosophy departments. Indiana’s HPS department frequently places graduates in the history of science in history departments. Carnegie Mellon places a number of its graduates from its program in Logic, Computation, and Methodology in departments of mathematics, computer science, and statistics.

 

Typically, students in an HPS or LPS graduate program will be able to take courses offered by the school’s philosophy department, and will have opportunities to interact with faculty in the philosophy department. (And likewise, philosophy students will have an opportunity to take HPS or LPS courses and interact with HPS or LPS faculty.) Prospective students would do well to inquire of current students to determine to what extent this actually occurs. Those who plan to make extensive use of a school’s philosophy department would do well to consider the overall quality of that department, as well as of the HPS or LPS department. Moreover, students in HPS or LPS programs who plan to do extensive study in another department, such as history, or some branch of science, should consider the quality of the relevant department.

 

One important difference between and HPS or LPS department and a philosophy department will be the curriculum and academic requirements. Students in an HPS program can be expected to take a number of courses in the history of science, and may also have to take qualifying exams in the history of science. (This may be less of an issue at British and Australian schools, that put less emphasis on graduate coursework.) Moreover, students in HPS and LPS programs are often encouraged to take courses in the sciences. Most philosophers who pursue research in the philosophy of science find that a solid education in science and its history provides them with a deeper appreciation of their field, as well as a wealth of case studies. Moreover, students in HPS programs will typically receive a good education in the history of philosophy, as this field overlaps importantly with the history of science. On the other hand, it may be harder for students in an HPS program to obtain a background in other central areas of philosophy, such as metaphysics and epistemology, philosophy of mind and language, or ethics and political philosophy. Students in HPS programs are usually well advised to try to learn about some of these areas from the school’s philosophy department, to help them compete effectively for jobs in philosophy. Students in an LPS program will obtain a strong background in formal logic, which can be helpful in the philosophy of science and mathematics, as well as in areas like philosophy of language. These students may find that it is harder to obtain a background in other areas of philosophy, such as the history of philosophy.

 

Another difference is that HPS and LPS departments are sometimes willing to admit students whose background in philosophy is less extensive than that which is required for most philosophy programs. This is not to say that students can be expected to be admitted to HPS or LPS departments if they have done poorly in philosophy courses. But if a student has a strong background in a relevant area, say history or some branch of science for an HPS program, or mathematics or computer science for an LPS program, this may partially compensate for a shortage of philosophy courses on one’s transcript. This can be a mixed blessing, however, as all graduates of HPS or LPS programs will eventually need acquire a solid grounding in philosophy to compete effectively in the philosophy job market. Obviously, this is less of a concern for those who plan to seek employment outside of philosophy.                        

Fun with an Anonymous Fool

Spiros knows how to have it.  (And the title of this post is obviously not redundant.)  Apologies to Billy Joel fans.

Anyone who blogs should save a copy in order to paste into messages as needed.

More on Gaza, and an Open Letter

This orthodox Jewish philosophy professor has a blog that is very much worth reading; he and a colleague have also drafted a fine open letter in protest of the Israeli barbarism in Gaza.

UPDATE:  Noam Chomsky has weighed in with suitably scathing commentary.

"Advice to a Young Mathematician"

Varol Akman (Bilkent) calls my attention to this piece by an eminent British mathematician, Sir Michael Atiyah, which will, as Professor Akman notes, likely have resonance for philosophers as well.

Top Ten Faculties in "History of Analytic Philosophy (including Wittgenstein)" in the English-Speaking World

In the specialty rankings, faculties are grouped according to their mean score, rounded to the nearest .5.  In parentheses after the school's name, the median and mode scores are listed.  Within the grouping, faculties are listed alphabetically.

Group 1 (1-2) (rounded mean of 4.5) (median, mode)

University of St. Andrews/University of Stirling Joint Program (4.5, 5)

University of Texas, Austin (4.25, 4.5)

 

Group 2 (3-10)  (rounded mean of 4.0) (median, mode)

Birkbeck College, University of London (4, 3.75)

Brown University (3.75, 5)

Harvard University (4, 4.5)

New York University (4, 4.25)

University of Chicago (4, 5)

University of Illinois, Chicago (4, 4)

University of Pittsburgh (4.25, 4.5)

University of York (4, 4)

 

Evaluators:   Warren Goldfarb, Jane Heal, Robin Jeshion, Bernard Linsky, Robert May, Stephen Mulhall, Peter Pagin, Ian Proops, Thomas Ricketts, Ian Rumfitt, Mark Sainsbury, Scott Soames, Jason Stanley.

How are Budget Problems Affecting Philosophy Departments?

David Reidy (Tennessee/Knoxville) writes:

I wonder whether you might invite readers to share significant threats to philosophy departments -- beyond the ordinary hiring freezes, etc. -- arising out of administrative attempts to meet looming budget cuts.  I can report that here at the University of Tennessee the Dean of Arts and Sciences has announced his intention to merge the departments of philosophy and religious studies.  It is not yet clear what this means for the graduate program  in philosophy at Tennessee.  Are other departments or programs facing similarly serious threats?

Comments are open; signed comments only on this thread.

Some Appointments to the Obama Administration You Might Have Missed...

but since they involve colleagues of mine in the legal academy,I've been noticing them, and they are important.  Marty Lederman and Neal Katyal, both on the Georgetown faculty, are not (alas) radicals or revolutionaries, but on some of the key issues of the last eight years--unchecked executive power, unreviewable detention of American citizens, the use of torture--Professors Lederman and Katyal have been on the right side of the issues, and their appointments to important legal positions in the Obama Administration (in the Office of Legal Counsel and the Solicitor General's office) are the most concrete sign yet that the drift towards authoritarianism during the Bush/Cheney Administration is about to be decisively reversed.  While I'm pleasantly amused, to be sure, that Obama mentioned "nonbelievers" in his inaugural address--I know that, deep down, Obama, as an old Nietzsche man, can't believe any of that religious nonsense--it's far more important (especially given some of his disgraceful Cabinet appointments) that Obama has now chosen top legal officials who actually believe in the rule of law, human dignity, and individual rights.  No wonder the reactionary Chief Justice Roberts choked when delivering the oath of office!

Obama Actually Mentions "Nonbelievers" in His Inaugural Addres...

...and not to denounce them either.  Is this another first in American history?  Does anyone know?

New Philosophers' Carnival is...

...here.

Graduate School and Family: When?

A philosophy graduate student writes:

I am a female graduate student entering into the dissertation phase of my schooling.  I am in a top-25 philosophy dept at a large research university, and I hope to get a job at a university like the one I am attending.  My question is when is the best time for someone in my position to start a family.  During the dissertation phase?  While on the job market?  While trying to get tenure?  After getting tenure?  None of these times seem good, but clearly some women in our profession have families and successful careers.  I am I am curious to hear what you and your readers have to say about this topic.

A propos this question, this article from CHE is relevant (subscription access only unfortunately), which reports that a "large study of the University of California's graduate students revealed that less than half — 29 percent of women and 46 percent of men — perceived major research institutions to be family-friendly workplaces for tenure-track professors. While in graduate school, many begin to think about other careers paths.  That means the pipeline for junior professors at top research universities could become increasingly leaky."  I suspect what it also means is that these students have very little idea about the comparative family-friendliness of other professions.  (My wife is an attorney, and it is a good thing I'm not, since few professions compare to the academic one for flexibility when it comes to sick kids and the other mundane necessities of family life.)

But none of that takes away from the correspondent's question, on which I have no special insight.  My inclination is to think that starting a family after being employed is the best bet, but for reasons that are not peculiar to academia (namely, having a salary and benefits is usually better than not).  Comments are welcome; signed comments preferred, unsigned are OK only if there is a real e-mail address (which will not appear).

Top 9 Faculties in "Political Philosophy" in the English-Speaking World

In the specialty rankings, faculties are grouped according to their mean score, rounded to the nearest .5.  In parentheses after the school's name, the median and mode scores are listed.  Within the grouping, faculties are listed alphabetically.

Group 1 (1-3) (rounded mean of 4.5) (median, mode)

Harvard University (5, 5)

New York University (5, 5)

University of Arizona (4.5, 4.5)

 

Group 2 (4-9) (rounded mean of 4.0) (median, mode)

Brown University (4, 4)

Oxford University (4.25, 4.5)

Princeton University (4, 5)

Stanford University (4.5, 4.5)

University College London (3.75, 3.75)

Yale University (4, 4.25)

 

Evaluators:  Kenneth Baynes, Christopher Bertram, Cristina Bicchieri, Brian Bix, Christopher Bobonich, James Bohman, David Brink, Andrew Chitty, Roger Crisp, Stephen Davies, John Deigh, Julia Driver, Gerald Dworkin, William Edmundson, Gerald Gaus, Margaret Gilbert, Brad Hooker, Shelly Kagan, Matthew Kramer, Colin Macleod, Jeff McMahan, Christopher Morris, Alastair Norcross, Calvin Normore, Martha Nussbaum, Michael Otsuka, Thomas Pogge, Arthur Ripstein, Mathias Risse, Michael Rosen, Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, David Schmidtz, A. John Simmons, Wayne Sumner, Robert Talisse, John Tasioulas, Peter Vallentyne, W.J. Waluchow, Georgia Warnke, Andrew Williams, Jonathan Wolff.

"The Internet's Anonymity Problem"

Saul Levmore, a leading law and economics scholar and Dean of the University of Chicago Law School, has a quite interesting and sensible piece on the abuse of anonymity on the Internet, and the inexplicable fact that, as current law stands, we treat the Internet differently than all other media of communication, including the proverbial "bathroom wall."  I am, as longtime readers know, with Schopenhauer in being a skeptic about the value of anonymous speech in most cases.  But I do frequently permit anonymous comments here, though, of course, I serve as the mediator and thus partial guarantor of their reliability and integrity.  There are other contexts, too--for example, where fear of reprisal by the state is a real concern; or when feminists post about issues that are likely to excite the vicious misogynistic side of cyberspace--in which anonymity can be quite important.  But as things stand now, anonymity is often abused on the Internet, so that individuals can behave irresponsibly with impunity, without incurring any of the social costs that would ordinarily accrue to those who behave that way.  (Obviously, anonymity isn't the only problem.  There are plenty of jackasses [examples here or here] or just random lunatics who sign their names to their foolishness and/or misconduct, but at least these folks have to bear the costs of their behavior.)   In a couple of recent cases, the identity of some obnoxious anonymous bloggers (or, in one case, a commenter) has been brought to my attention, though in the worst case (someone using his blog to attack a fellow student at his university in vicious, personal terms), the blogger deleted the comments after being outed by the victim and apologized in writing.  Those who continue to blog anonymously ought to follow the lead of this blog, which after some bad behavior exploiting anonymity by both bloggers and commenters, adopted some fair-minded policies.  That someone chooses to blog anonymously creates no moral or legal obligation for anyone else to honor that choice.  (In the United States, at least, government may sometimes have a constitutional obligation to protect the anonymity of speech, but that's a different matter.)  Anonymous and pseudonymous bloggers ought to bear that in mind.

Galeano on Gaza

Excellent writing, as always; a choice excerpt:

The so-called international community, Does it exist?

 

Is it anything more than a club of merchants, bankers and war-makers? Is it anything more than an artistic name that the United States attaches when it engages in theatre?

Pedigree and Hiring

Several readers have called my attention to this very curious proposal (well, really a thought-experiment) about blind job dossiers, so that hiring schools would not know where the candidate went to school.  This does strike me, I confess, as ideals of "equal opportunity" run amok:  of course, race, ethnicity, family pedigree, gender etc. should be irrelevant to hiring decisions, but how could where one was educated not be highly relevant?  And this goes beyond the simple logistical issue, namely, that no department has the resources to read and evaluate 200+ papers submitted by job applicants--thoughthe logistical issue is real enough.  As a number of commenters point out, pedigree is relevant to quality of training received and it is also relevant to how to interpret letters of recommendation.   It is true that pedigree would be a more objectionable consideration if the reputation of one's pedigree were unhinged from any consideration of philosophical quality; but one of the central points of the PGR is to keep them tightly linked.  Here's one example of the salutary effect this has had in the face of a mindless focus on pedigree:  I've heard several times over the years of smaller colleges where the Dean tells the department to only hire candidates with "Ivy League" PhDs (or the Ivy League plus MIT, Chicago, Berkeley, Stanford--you get the idea).  In each of these cases, departments were able to use the PGR to point out that, in academic philosophy, a Rutgers or Arizona "pedigree" is as good or better than the Dean's preferred proxy, or to make the case that a department hiring in medieval philosophy really ought to be seeking out the Notre Dame PhDs, a department hiring in philosophy of science ought to be looking carefully at the Pittsburgh and UC Irvine PhDs, and so on.  Where pedigree has substantial evidential value about the quality and character of philosophical training, and where pedigree also informs the interpretation of letters of recommendation, it would be foolish to eliminate pedigree as an important point of information in the evaluation of job candidates.

Top Five Philosophy Faculties in the U.K.

These are the results of the "overall" faculty quality survey for U.K. programs.  The top five are as follows (mean and median scores followed in parentheses):

1.  Oxford University (4.7, 5.0)

2.  University of St. Andrews/University of Stirling Joint Program (3.6, 3.5)

3.  Cambridge University (3.4, 3.5)

4.  University College London (3.2, 3.5)

5.  King's College, London (3.1, 3.0)

Developing a Career Outside the Academy After Earning a PhD

Reader Adam Gies calls my attention to this scholar's account of his experience, which is interesting light of our earlier thread and the comments especially.  One (non-fatal) obstacle, it seems to me, to sustaining the "life of the mind" outside the academy is lack of opportunity to teach, since teaching invariably deepens one's knowledge of one's subject.

Some Realism About Gaza

Here.

Top 11 Faculties in "General Philosophy of Science (excluding philosophy of the specific sciences)" in the English-Speaking World

In the specialty rankings, faculties are grouped according to their mean score rounded to the nearest .5.  The median and mode scores are listed in parentheses after the school name; within a group, the faculties are listed alphabetically.

Group 1 (1) (mean of 4.5)(median, mode)

University of Pittsburgh (4.5, 5)

 

Group 2 (2-11) (mean of 4.0)(median, mode)

Carnegie-Mellon University (4, 4)

Columbia University (4, 4.25)

London School of Economics (4, 4)

Oxford University (4, 4.5)

Rutgers University, New Brunswick (4, 3.5)

University of California, Irvine (4.5, 4)

University of California, San Diego (4, 4)

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (4.25, 4.25)

University of Western Ontario (4, 4)

University of Wisconsin, Madison (4, 4)

 

Evaluators:  Roger Ariew, Jeffrey Barrett, William Bechtel, Alexander Bird, Craig Callender, David Christensen, Mark Colyvan, John Dupre, Marc Ereshefsky, Ken Gemes, Peter Godfrey-Smith, Paul Griffiths, Alan Hajek, William Harper, Christopher Hitchcock, Jim Joyce, James Ladyman, Barry Loewer, John Norton, David Papineau, Huw Price, Alexander Rosenberg, Paul Roth, Laura Ruetsche, Howard Sankey, Simon Saunders, Jonathan Schaffer, Lawrence Sklar, Brian Skyrms, Elliott Sober, Kyle Stanford, Michael Strevens, J.D. Trout, Eric Watkins, William Wimsatt, Alison Wylie.

In Memoriam: Arne Naess (1912-2009)

An obituary is here.  As the obituary makes clear, Professor Naess may well have been the first experimental philosopher!  He was, of course, well-known among philosophers as founder of the journal Inquiry, but better-known to the general public for his articulation of the view known as "deep ecology."

(Thanks to Bill Edmundson for the pointer.)

Top Nine Faculties in "Philosophy of Language" in the English-Speaking World

In the specialty rankings, faculties are grouped according to their mean score rounded to the nearest .5.  The median and mode scores are listed in parentheses after the school name; within a group, the faculties are listed alphabetically.

Group 1 (1) (rounded mean of 5.0) (median, mode)

Rutgers University, New Brunswick (5, 5)

 

Group 2 (2-4)  (rounded mean of 4.5) (median, mode)

 

Massachussetts Institute of Technology (4.5, 5)

New York University (4.5, 5)

University of Southern California (4.5, 4)

 

Group 3 (5-9)  (rounded mean of 4.0) (median, mode)

 

City University of New York Graduate Center (4, 4)

Oxford University (4.25, 4.5)

Princeton University (4, 4)

University of California, Los Angeles (4, 4)

University of Texas, Austin (4, 4)

 

Evaluators:  David Braun, Berit Brogaard, David Chalmers, Jonathan Cohen, Joshua Dever, Michael Devitt, Andy Egan, Graeme Forbes, Manuel Garcia-Carpintero, Christopher  Gauker, Anthony Gillies, Michael Glanzberg, Patrick Greenough, Anil Gupta, Jane Heal, James Higginbotham, Christopher Hookway, Henry Jackman, Robin Jeshion, Jeffrey King, Kathrin Koslicki, Frederick Kroon, Ernest LePore, Bernard Linsky, Barry Loewer, Peter Ludlow, Robert May, Brian McLaughlin, Alex Miller, Alex Oliver, Peter Pagin, Ian Proops, Denis Robinson, Daniel Rothschild, Ian Rumfitt, Mark Sainsbury, Nathan Salmon, Jennifer Saul, Mark Schroeder, Laura Schroeter, Ted Sider, Susanna Siegel, Scott Soames, David Sosa, Robert Stainton, Jason Stanley, Eric Swanson, Zoltan Szabo, Brian Weatherson, Timothy Williamson, Crispin Wright, Stephen Yablo.

What Can Non-Elite PhD Programs Do to Help Their Students?

There is a discussion of the topic here, including interesting comments about the importance of publications for graduate students.

PGR Publication Schedule

By tomorrow, I hope to send to the Advisory Board the full specialty ranking results, for review and discussion about faculties not included in the evaluation exercise which ought to be added to the specialties.  I am hoping a week after that to have finalized those rankings, as well as updated the other sections of the PGR, and to send the whole thing to Blackwell.  (Because I have a contract with Blackwell, I can't simply post all the results on the blog, which is why I can only release some previews.)  Blackwell usually takes between 2-3 weeks to get the whole thing formatted for release on the Internet.  I am hopeful that by mid-February the entire Report will be available at the usual site.

The "Top Ten" Faculties in Ethics in the English-Speaking World

"Ethics" here includes normative ethics, practical reasoning, and moral psychology, but excludes applied ethics and metaethics, which were ranked separately.   In the specialty rankings, faculties are grouped according to their mean score rounded to the nearest .5.  The median and mode scores are listed in parentheses after the school name; within a group, the faculties are listed alphabetically.

Group 1 (1) (rounded mean of 5.0)

Harvard University (5, 5)

Group 2 (2-5) (rounded mean of 4.5)

New York University (5, 5)

Oxford University (4.5, 5)

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (4.5, 4.5)

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (4.5, 4.5)

Group 3 (6-11) (rounded mean of 4.0)

Princeton University (4, 4)

Rutgers University, New Brunswick (4, 4.5)

University of Arizona (4, 4)

University of California, Los Angeles (4, 4)

University of Toronto (4, 4)

Yale University (4.25, 4)

Evaluators:  Julia Annas, Christopher Bobonich, Michael Bratman, David Brink, Thomas Carson, Ruth Chang, Roger Crisp, Garrett Cullity, Jonathan Dancy, Justin D’Arms, John Deigh, John Doris, James Dreier, Julia Driver, Gerald Dworkin, John Martin Fischer, Owen Flanagan, Richard Fumerton, Gerald Gaus, Berys Gaut, Brad Hooker, Terence Irwin, P.J. Ivanhoe, Shelly Kagan, Paul Katsafanas, Nico Kolodny, Colin Macleod, Ron Mallon, Jeff McMahan, David McNaughton, Christopher Morris, Shaun Nichols, Alastair Norcross, Martha Nussbaum, Michael Otsuka, Thomas Pogge, C.D.C. Reeve, Bernard Reginster, Arthur Ripstein, Carolina Sartorio, Geoffrey  Sayre-McCord, David Schmidtz, Mark Schroeder, Stephen Stich, Wayne Sumner, John Tasioulas, Valerie Tiberius, Peter Vallentyne, Bryan van Norden, Ralph Wedgwood, Catherine Wilson, Jonathan Wolff, David Wong.

Top 20 Faculties in the English-Speaking World Based on New PGR Surveys

The mean score is listed in parentheses; the PGR will also report the median score.

1.    New York University (4.9)

2.    Oxford University (4.7)

3.    Rutgers University, New Brunswick (4.6)

4.    Princeton University (4.3)

5.    University of Pittsburgh (4.2)

6.    University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (4.1)

7.    Harvard University (4.0)

7.    Massachussetts Institute of Technology (4.0)

9.    Yale University (3.9)

10.    Stanford University (3.8)

10.    University of California, Berkeley (3.8)

10.    University of California, Los Angeles (3.8)

10.    University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (3.8)

14.    Australian National University (3.7)

14.    Columbia University (3.7)

14.    University of Arizona (3.7)

17.    City University of New York Graduate Center (3.6)

17.    University of Notre Dame (3.6)

17.    University of St. Andrews/University of Stirling Joint Program (3.6)

17.    University of Toronto (3.6)

Top Faculties in (most of the) History of Philosophy Specialty Areas

These were the faculties that had the highest rounded mean score in some of the major history of philosophy specialties; I have omitted the median and mode score here, but they will appear in the PGR.  Faculties are listed alphabetically where there is more than one with the same rounded mean score in the top group.

Ancient Philosophy:  Oxford University

Medieval Philosophy:  Oxford University, St. Louis University, University of Notre Dame, and University of Toronto.

Early Modern Philosophy-17th Century:  Yale University.

Early Modern Philosophy-18th Century:  Yale University.

Kant:  Indiana University at Bloomington, University of Notre Dame, and University of Pennsylvania.

19th-Century Continental Philosophy:  New York University and University of Chicago.

20th-Century Continental Philosophy:  Georgetown University, University of California at Riverside, and University of Chicago.

History of Analytic Philosophy:  University of St. Andrews/University of Stirling Joint Program and University of Texas at Austin.

Yet More on the Israeli Attack on Gaza

Yitzhak Melamed (Johns Hopkins) writes:

While the scope of the IDF's atrocities in Gaza in unraveling--including an explicit admission by a top Israeli army officer, Gadi Eisenkott, that "We will wield disproportionate power against every village from which shots are fired on Israel, and cause immense damage and destruction. From our perspective these [the villages] are military bases....This isn't a suggestion. This is a plan that has already been authorized"-- there is a new development that might be  a major step in turning Israel into a full-fledged apartheid state.

The Israeli Central Election Board decided yesterday to disqualify the two major Arab parties due to their rejection of Zionism and the status of Israel as a primarily Jewish state.  The only non-Zionist/Arab party left - the Communist Party (Hadash) - was left intact by virtue of a 60 year status-quo that allowed this party to run. However, if the Israeli High Court approves the disqualification of the other Arab parties it is likely that the Communist Part/Hadash will boycott the elections, and Israel will become legally Arab-rein, with it's close to 20% Arab citizens excluded from the political process. It is likely that the Israeli high court will turn down this decision (criticizing the Arab parties, but preaching that even non-Zionism should be tolerated). Still the very fact that the decision was supported by the representatives of the Israeli's Labor party (the so called  Israeli "left") in the Israeli Central Election Board should be noted. Next time you hear Israeli advocates of National Liberalism, ask them what should be done with those who refuse to go along the nationalist agenda.

Some truths about lying...

...from Jerry Dworkin (UC Davis)--and even if they aren't true, I'm sure he's not lying.

Preview of the Overall Survey Results for the New PGR: Breadth Has Rewards!

260 philosophers participated in the "overall" survey of faculty quality just completed.  A number of faculties had noticeable improvements in their overall rank, in each case connected to tangible changes in faculty membership.  (You can get a reasonably good snapshot of changes in faculty composition since the 2006 surveys here, though there are some important developments that post-date that summary.) 

One of the most dramatic improvements was for the Department of Philosophy at Yale University, which went from 16th in 2006 to 8th in the 2009 surveys.  Given the apparently widespread mistaken impression that to improve in the rankings, a department must hire in the M&E areas, it is surely worth noting that this dramatic leap forward resulted from three senior appointments (one in ethics, one in political philosophy, and one in the history of early modern philosophy), one junior appointment (in ancient philosophy), and a cognate appointment in the Law School (in legal philosophy).  To be sure, Yale has a strong cluster of mid-career philosophers in areas like epistemology and philosophy of language (as well as ancient and early modern) whose rising profiles no doubt also helped.  (And this move into the 'top ten' did not reflect the recent appointment of Joshua Knobe from North Carolina.)

The mistaken impression mentioned above arose, I think, from a misreading of the study of PGR results conducted by the sociologist Kieran Healy a couple of years ago.  Healy did find that, all else being equal, one got more mileage, generally, from appointing in, e.g., philosophy of mind than history of philosophy, but he clearly did not find that appointing in other areas does not affect a department's overall ranking.  And when, of course, the historian or ethicist is far more distinguished than an available philosopher of mind, it is unsurprising that hiring the former has more of an effect on the outcome than hiring the latter.

Part of what I believe is also going on in the case of Yale is that, like NYU, it has pursued a strategy of breadth--developing strength in the M&E areas broadly construed, but also in the history of philosophy (especially ancient and early modern) and in value theory--which results in strong scores from a wide range of philosophers with diverse areas of specialization. 

Yale is, in any case, now in its strongest position in about fifty years!

Here are some of the other big upward movements since 2006 in the overall results:

University of California, Berkeley:  from 12th to 9th

City University of New York Graduate Center:  from 23rd to 15th

Indiana University, Bloomington:  from 27th to 23rd

University of Colorado, Boulder:  from 32nd to 26th

Washington University, St. Louis:  from 39th to 30th

Northwestern University:  from 53rd to 41st

University of Connecticut, Storrs:  from 48th to 43rd

University of Utah:  the last time ranked, several years ago, Utah was not in the top 50; this year it came in at 48th.

Among the senior hires that moved these faculties forward were philosophers working in moral and political philosophy (several), Kant, 19th-Century German philosophy, aesthetics, and medieval philosophy.  Indiana (which added Allen Wood [Kant, 19th-century German philosophy] and Rega Wood [medieval philosophy] may be particularly notable, since they also lost to retirement the distinguished logician J. Michael Dunn during this same time interval.

Other faculties saw an improved rank, though less dramatically than those noted, above.

Outside the U.S., the biggest upward movement was in the U.K., where the University of Warwick, ranked 14th in 2006, placed 9th this year.

Previews of PGR Survey Results Coming...

...this week, starting tomorrow or Tuesday at the latest.  We're still transcribing specialty area results, but the overall survey results are in.

The Case for a Boycott and Divestment Campaign Against Israel

Well-stated here.

The "real life" of academic philosophers

Many of the comments on this thread are fascinating and sobering, and certainly make me regret my too casual endorsement of Professor Pence's article (which is worth reading, to be sure, but ought to be read in conjunction with many of the comments, above).

Yale Makes Bid for Knobe at North Carolina (UPDATED)

MOVING TO FRON FROM DECEMBER 24:  KNOBE HAS ACCEPTED THE OFFER

The Department of Philosophy and Cognitive Science Program at Yale University have made a tenure-track offer to Joshua Knobe, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who has already established himself as a leading figure in 'experimental philosophy.'  I don't ordinarily report lateral tenure-track offers, but Knobe is a special case, and seems certain to be tenured before long wherever he is.  Students interested in experimental philosophy, as well as cognitive science more generally, will want to keep an eye on this.