Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

New books in November

Authors and/or publishers kindly sent me these new books this month:

Duns Scotus on Time & Experience:  The Questions on Aristotle's "De interpretatione" trans. with introduction & commentary by Edward Buckner and Jack Zupko (Catholic University of America Press, 2014).

Reading Nietzsche Through the Ancients by Matthew Meyer (De Gruyter, 2014).

 

More PGR specialty rankings: "top ten" in Political Philosophy

They are:

POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

Group 1 (1-1) (rounded mean of 4.5)

University of Arizona (4.5, 5)

Group 2 (2-10) (rounded mean of 4.0)

Brown University (4.5, 4.5)

Harvard University (4, 4)

London School of Economics (4, 4.5)

New York University (4, 4.5)

Oxford University (4, 4.0 & 3.0)

Princeton University (4, 4.5 & 4.0)

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (4, 4)

University of Toronto (4, 4)

University of Virginia (4, 4)

 

Evaluators: Christopher Bertram, Cristina Bicchieri, Brian Bix, Chris Bobonich, Roger Crisp, John Deigh, Julia Driver, William Edmundson, Johann Frick, John Gardner, Gerald Gaus, Leslie J. Green, Brad Hooker, Shelly Kagan, Matthew Kramer, Ben Laurence, Jeff McMahan, Christopher Morris, Colleen Murphy, Alastair Norcross, Calvin Normore, Michael Otsuka, Stefan Sciaraffa, Mathias Risse, Michael Rosen, David Schmidtz, Hanoch Sheinman, Wayne Sumner, Robert Talisse, John Tasioulas, Larry Temkin, Peter Vallentyne, Helga Varden, Wil Waluchow

LIU's Margaret Cuonzo interviewed...

...at 3AM.

Whiting from Toronto to Pitt

Jennifer Whiting, a leading scholar of ancient philosophy at the University of Toronto, has accepted the senior offer from the Department of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh, where she will start effective January 1, 2015.  Toronto will continue to be a strong choice in ancient philosophy, but this hire, had it taken place prior to the surveys, would have pushed Pittsburgh at least into the 'top ten' for ancient (Pitt was just outside the top ten without Whiting).

(Thanks to Anil Gupta for the information.)

Attrition rates in philosophy PhD programs in the U.S.

The median is around 60%!  It's fairly high across other fields too.

(Thanks to Brad Wray for the pointer.)

Excellent and moderately priced Japanese restaurant in Chicago

This place was great, for both hot dishes and sushi; it's in the West Loop.  BYOB.

More PGR results: the "top 9" in Philosophy of Action

They are:

Group 1 (1-2) (rounded mean of 4.5)

Florida State University (4.5, 5)

University of California, Riverside (4.5, 4.5)

Group 2 (3-7) (rounded mean of 4.0)

Cornell University (4, 3.5)

Ohio State University (4, 3.5)

University of Arizona (4, 4)

University of Southern California (4, 4)

University of Notre Dame (4, 4)

Group 3 (8-9) (rounded mean of 3.5)

Indiana University, Bloomington (3.5, 4)

Stanford University (3.25, 4)

Evaluators:  John Martin Fischer, Paul Katsafanas, Michael McKenna, Brian McLaughlin, Dana Nelkin, Timothy O'Connor, Derk Pereboom, Ted Warfield.

Punitiveness, justice and proportionality

I was astonished to learn that some people thought it was inappropriate for Peter Ludlow to be an evaluator in the current PGR.  Ludlow has been a regular respondent to the surveys for many years; we have always invited past participants (except when they ask to be removed), and we did so this year as well (including, for example, those who signed the boycott statement--many of them did, in the end, participate happily).  On what basis could Brit and I take the punitive measure of excluding him as an evaluator because of misconduct and allegations of misconduct unrelated to his philosophical competence?

In an earlier thread on the controversy about an administrative decision to deny Colin McGinn a visiting position at East Carolina University, a young philosopher wrote, in response to the question I posed:

"Should loss of a job for sexual misconduct bar someone from any future academic appointment?"

Uh - YES. Is this a serious question?

John Gardner, the Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford, then weighed in with the following comment that deserves some serious consideration from those with unchecked punitive impulses:

Of course it's a serious question. We need to begin by asking whether the refusal to hire is punitive, and if so whether the punishment is porportionate to the offence. Or whether the refusal to hire is preventative, in which case whether there are ways to prevent that do not destroy someone's life so completely. If the answer is 'both', we need to know in what proportions, so that we can work out whether the constraints on each goal are being sensibly applied. If the answer is 'neither - we're just trying to send out a signal' (see David Sobel below), then I invite you to consider whether it's morally acceptable to use a person, any person, to do that. Unpleasant narcissists are people too and it's not open season when one of them gets exposed for what he is. It still matters how we treat him. It shocks me that anyone would doubt whether 'How should we treat a wrongdoer in such a situation?' is a serious question.

It is shocking.

UPDATE:  A philosopher elsewhere writes:

I wonder if people think being disciplined for sexual misconduct should bar someone from employment of ANY kind?

Or is it any employment with supervisory responsibilities?  Or any employment that involves interactions with other people?

And while we are at, what about other offenses?  Other crimes against persons?  Property crimes?

Should people with a criminal record be allowed to hold jobs?

If not, should they be eligible for public assistance?

Calgary's Kenneth Waters elected to Amer. Assoc. for Advancement of Science

The Calgary news release is here.

(Thanks to several readers for sending this.)

UPDATE:  Thanks to philosopher Brad Wray for pointing out that philosopher of science Joseph Pitt (Virginiia Tech) was also elected.

More PGR results: "top 11" in Ethics (including normative ethics, moral psychology, and practical reasoning, but not applied or meta-ethics)

Group 1 (1-4) (rounded mean of 4.5)

Harvard University (4.5, 5)

New York University (4.5, 4.5)

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (4.5, 4.5)

Yale University (4.5, 5)

Group 2 (5-11) (rounded mean of 4.0)

Oxford University (4.5, 4.5)

Princeton University (4, 4)

Rutgers University, New Brunswick (3.5, 3.5)

University of Arizona (4, 4)

University of California, Los Angeles (4, 4)

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (4, 4)

University of Toronto (4, 4)

Evaluators: Anne Margaret Baxley, Chris Bobonich, Thomas Carson, Roger Crisp, Justin D'Arms, Stephen Darwall, John Doris, James Dreier, Julia Driver, John Martin Fischer, Johann Frick, John Gardner, Gerald Gaus, Brad Hooker, John Horty, Michael Huemer, Terence Irwin, Shelly Kagan, Paul Katsafanas, Michelle Kosch, Ben Laurence, Julia Markovits, Jeff McMahan, Christopher Morris, Colleen Murphy, Dana Nelkin, Alastair Norcross, Michael Otsuka, Carolina Sartorio, David Schmidtz, Mark Schroeder, Russ Shafer-Landau , Hanoch Sheinman, Wayne Sumner, Larry Temkin, John Tasioulas, Peter Vallentyne, Katja Vogt, Allen Wood.

More PGR results: top 5 in Philosophy of Mind

They are (see earlier posts for an explanation of the ranking):

Group 1 (1) (rounded mean of 5.0)

New York University (5, 5)

Group 2 (2) (rounded mean of 4.5)

Rutgers University, New Brunswick (4.5, 5)

Group 3 (3-5) (rounded mean of 4.0)

City University of New York Graduate Center (4, 4.5)

University of California, Los Angeles (4, 4)

University of Texas, Austin (4, 4)

Evaluators:  Murat Aydede, Kelly Becker, Jose Bermudez, Ned Block, David Braddon-Mitchell, Berit Brogaard, Peter Carruthers, David Chalmers, Jonathan Cohen, John Doris, Peter Godfrey-Smith, Alvin Goldman, Christopher Hill, Henry Jackman, Sean Kelly, Ernest LePore, Barry Loewer, Peter Ludlow, Edouard Machery, Ronald Mallon, Mohan Matthen, Brian McLaughlin, Friederike Moltmann, John Morrison, Bence Nanay, L.A. Paul, Derk Pereboom, Gualtiero Piccinini, Robert Rupert, Susanna Schellenberg, Eric Schwitzgebel, Susanna Siegel, David Sosa, Ernest Sosa, Robert Stainton, Stephen Stich, Daniel Stoljar, Scott Sturgeon, Michael Tye, Ted Warfield, Robert Wilson, Aaron Zimmerman.

David Malament retirement blues

Here.

A different perspective on September's smear campaign

My former colleague, the moral philosopher and former editor of Ethics, John Deigh (Texas) wrote:

I regret that so many...are unable to separate your private email correspondence from your editing the PGR and to see that what's deplorable in all this is the behavior of the two individuals who made public, without your consent and with the intention of harming you, private correspondence you sent them.  That this behavior was called by one of your detractors courageous is mind-boggling.  Both individuals are full professors with tenure at well-respected research universities.  What possible danger to their professional standing could they be in from having earned your scorn?  Academic highmindedness at its worst.  

I've heard from a lot of philosophers who have the same view, and I'm grateful to John for permission to quote him.

More PGR results: "top 10" in ancient philosophy

The schools are ranked in peer groups by their rounded mean score to .5 intervals; after a school's name appears the median and mode scores.  Where the median and mode scores are higher than the rounded mean that usually indicates that a minority of evaluators scored the program a bit more lowly than others. 

Group 1 (1-2) (rounded mean of 4.5)

Oxford University (5, 5)

Princeton University (4.5, 4.5)

Group 2 (3-6) (rounded mean of 4.0)

Cambridge University (4, 3)

Stanford University (4, 4 & 4.5)

University of Toronto (4, 4)

Yale University (4, 4)

Group 3 (7-10) (rounded mean of 3.5)

Cornell University (4, 4)

University of Arizona (3.5, 4)

University of Chicago (3.5, 2.5)

University of Texas, Austin (3.5, 2.5 & 4)  

Evaluators:  Rachel Barney, Jessica Berry, Tad Brennan, Christopher Bobonich, Victor Caston, Dan Devereux, David Ebrey, Gail Fine, Brad Inwood, Terence Irwin, Thomas Johansen, Mohan Matthen, David Sedley, Christopher Shields, Allan Silverman, Nicholas Smith, Katja Vogt, Jiyuan Yu.

Years to attainment of a humanities PhD

Robert Townsend, Director of the Washington Office of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, kindly sent along this new data.  He writes:

Instead of the usual calculations, I purchased numbers for the time students spend in the program that confers their degree, which more accurately reflects the focus of many recent reform efforts. The key findings are 1) that even by this more precise measure, the median time humanities PhDs spend in their programs is a year longer than any other field (6.9 years in 2012, as compared to 5.9 among all new PhDs), and 2) the difference between the fields seems to occur at the coursework/exam stage—not the dissertation stage, as many reformers have assumed. Sadly, we could not purchase numbers specifically for philosophy, but I hope you will find the broad trend for the humanities of interest.

Grand juries rarely indict police officers involved in shootings

This is a solid explanation of the legal standards, which make these outcomes predictable.  Remember, also, that a grand jury proceeding is not adversarial:  it is only the prosecutor presenting evidence, and if the prosectuor is skeptical that an indictment is appropriate, there's no one arguing the other side.

More PGR results: "top 5" in 19th-century Continental Philosophy

The schools are ranked in peer groups by their rounded mean score to .5 intervals; after a school's name appears the median and mode scores.  Where the median and mode scores are higher than the rounded mean that usually indicates that a minority of evaluators scored the program a bit more lowly than others.

 

Group 1 (1) (rounded mean of 4.5)

University of Chicago (4.5, 5)

Group 2 (2-5) (rounded mean of 4.0)

Brown University (4, 4)

Columbia University (4, 4)

New York University (4, 4)

University of California, Riverside (4.25, 4.5)

Evaluators:  Anne Margaret Baxley, Jessica Berry, Lee Braver, Thomas Carson, Maudemarie Clark, David Dudrick, Stephen Houlgate, Andrew Huddleston, Peter Kail, Paul Katsafanas, Pierre Keller, Michelle Kosch, Brian Leiter, Yitshak Melamed, Brian O’Connor, Peter Poellner, Mathias Risse, Michael Rosen, Iain Thomson, Eric Watkins, Robert Wicks, Allen Wood.

"Deep Disagreements: Philosophical and Legal Perspectives"

In Berlin in June.  There's also a call for papers.

APA Board of Officers issues statement on Salaita case

Here.

More PGR specialty rankings: the top ten in "Metaethics"

The schools are ranked in peer groups by their rounded mean score to .5 intervals; after a school's name appears the median and mode scores.  Where the median and mode scores are higher than the rounded mean that usually indicates that a minority of evaluators scored the program a bit more lowly than others.

 

Group 1 (1-3) (rounded mean of 4.5)

Princeton University (4.5, 4.5 & 5)

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (4.5, 4 & 4.5)

University of Southern California (4.5, 5)

Group 2 (4-6) (rounded mean of 4.0)

Harvard University (4, 4.5)

New York University (4, 3.5 & 4.5)

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (4, 4)

Group 3 (7-10) (rounded mean of 3.5)

Brown University (4, 4)

University of Arizona (3.5, 3.5)

University of Wisconsin, Madison (3.5, 4)

Yale University (3.5, 4)

 

Evaluators:  Thomas Carson, Justin Clarke-Doane, Justin D’Arms, Stephen Darwall, John Doris, James Dreier, Michael Huemer, Shelly Kagan, Brian Leiter, Alex Miller, Veronica Rodriguez-Blanco, Mark Schroeder, Russ Shafer-Landau, David Sosa, Larry Temkin, Evan Tiffany.

Controversy at Marquette as philosophy TA targetted by right-wing campus monitors

IHE has the story.

Colorado philosopher Monton reaches settlement with university in return for resignation in 2015

Story from the local Boulder paper here.

The scientist and his shirt: two interesting perspectives

Here and here.

Retinal detachment

I suffered one the other day, now healing, but it threw me off-line (indeed, off most reading) for a bit, will gradually catch up on various news items during the week.

North, Sider from Cornell to Rutgers

Jill North (philosophy of physics) and Ted Sider (metaphysics), both professors at Cornell, have accepted the tenured offers from Rutgers University, New Brunswick.  As noted earlier, several Cornell faculty were being pursued by top ten departments, including North and Sider (as well as Karen Bennett, who turned down the MIT offer).  This move, which postdates obviously the PGR surveys, would likely push Rutgers past Princeton in the overall rankings, and drop Cornell down two or three spots as well.

(Thanks to Derk Pereboom for letting me know yesterday about this.  At his request, I held off posting about this until Professors North and Sider had a chance to communicate with their colleagues.)

Colorado English professor raises doubts about Admin's handling of Adler, Barnett, and Kaufman cases

Here.

More PGR specialty areas: top programs for Kant

Here are the 2014 results for the top 15 programs; the median and mode follow in parentheses after the school name.

Group 1 (1) (rounded mean of 4.5)

Brown University (4.5, 5)

Group 2 (2-8) (rounded mean of 4.0)

Indiana University, Bloomington (4, 4)

Johns Hopkins University (3.5, 3 & 3.5)

New York University (4, 4)

Stanford University (4, 4)

University of California, San Diego (4, 3.5)

University of Notre Dame (4, 4)

University of Pittsburgh (4, 3 & 5)

Group 3 (9-15) (rounded mean of 3.5)

Boston University (3.5, 3.5)

Cambridge University (3, 3)

Columbia University (4, 4.5)

Cornell University (4, 4)

Harvard University (4, 4)

University of California, Los Angeles (3.25, 3 & 4)

University of California, Riverside (3, 3 & 4) 

Evaluators:  Anne Margaret Baxley, Andrew Chignell, Maudemarie Clark, Paul Guyer, Stephen Houlgate, Pierre Keller, Michelle Kosch, Derk Pereboom, Peter Poellner, Michael Rosen, Helga Varden, Eric Watkins, Robert Wicks, Allen Wood.

In this area, among others, the Advisory Board may recommend the addition of programs that weren't part of the survey but have strength in the area, eihter in the judgment of the Board or based on past survey results.

Schindler's truck

Interesting.

Sydney's Dalia Nassar interviewed...

...at 3AM.

On cyber-defamation

I'm not a fan of Sam Harris, to put it mildly, but this is typical of the crap that happens in cyberspace, to which even philosophy professors (e.g., Sheffield's Jennifer Saul) have been party.

Philosophy of snow clearance...

...in St. Paul.

The top 4 programs in philosophy of physics

At the very top is Oxford, with a rounded mean score of 5.0 (on a 0-5 scale) and median and mode scores of 5 as well.

The other top programs (with rounded mean scores of 4.5) are UC Irvine, Michigan and Western Ontario.

98% of undergraduates and their advisors wouldn't know to recommend these programs as top choices in philosophy of physics--how could they, but for the PGR?  They'd recommend Oxford, of course, which happens to be excellent in this area, but also Harvard, Yale, MIT, Stanford, which are not.  But the PGR makes available to students everywhere the opinion of leading experts.  It makes available the judgment of philosophers like Princeton's Hans Halvorson (who teaches at another top ten philosophy of physics program, as it happens), and Huw Price (the Bertrand Russell Professor of Philosophy at Cambridge [another top 10 program in philosophy of physics] and a Fellow of the British Academy), and Jill North (a leading young philosopher of physics at Cornell University), and Lawrence Sklar (Michigan Professor, former John Locke Lecturer at Oxford and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences), and David Wallace (leading young philosopher of physics at Oxford), among others.  (Remember:  evaluators can't evaluate their own departments.)

It's slightly crazy that some people think making these assessments available to everyone somehow "harms" students and the profession.  But as we've seen, some "philosophers" are slightly crazy.

UPDATE:  Here's the full list (after each school's name are the median and modes):

PHILOSOPHY OF PHYSICS

Group 1 (1) (rounded mean of 5.0)

Oxford University (5, 5)

Group 2 (2-4) (rounded mean of 4.5)

University of California, Irvine (4.5, 5)

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (4.75, 5)

University of Western Ontario (4.5, 5)

Group 3 (5-8) (rounded mean of 4.0)

Cambridge University (4, 4)

Columbia University (4, 4 & 5)

New York University (4, 3 & 5)

University of Pittsburgh (4, 4)

Group 4 (9-14) (rounded mean of 3.5)

London School of Economics (3.75, 4)

Princeton University (3.5, 3 & 3.5)

University of Arizona (4, 4)

University of California, San Diego (3.5, 3.5 & 4)

University of Minnesota, Minneapolis-St. Paul (3.5, 3.5)

University of Notre Dame (3.5, 3.5)

Group 5 (15-19)  (rounded mean of 3.0)

University of Aberdeen (3.25, 2.5)

University of Bristol (2.75, 3 & 4)

University of Illinois, Chicago (3, 3 & 3.5)

University of Maryland, College Park (3, 3)

University of Sydney (3, 3)

Evaluators:  Jeffrey Barrett, Hans Halvorson, Marc Lange, Barry Loewer, Jill North, John Norton, Huw Price, Lawrence Sklar, David Wallace, Christian Wuthrich.

UPDATE:  A couple of readers asked how Sydney could have made the list, given that Huw Price is now at Cambridge (he was at Cambridge for purposes of the 2011 surveys already).  It's important to remember that philosophy and HPS faculties at the same university are aggregated for evaluation purposes, and in addition to the philosophers of time in philosophy proper, there are philosophers of physics in HPS as well:  see http://sydney.edu.au/science/hps/staff/academic.shtml.

 

Civilization is over...

...thanks to some non-entity called Kim Kardashian.  Well, not really, since our reality is a social totality, as Adorno emphasized, but Kardashian is a symptom of it.

Neoliberalism in higher education watch: funding the University of California

IHE has the story, a familiar dispute being played out in most states in America.

My reply to Simon May, or why the PGR has nothing to do with my private correspondence

In talking to philosophers elsewhere regarding the smear campaign earlier in the fall, I realize that several never saw my reply to Simon May (Florida State), who had given the most cogent statement of what the connection was supposed to be between my response in private to two critics (to one, Carrie Jenkins, I sent a derisive e-mail, to the other Noelle McAfee, I was more aggressive, given that she had been a serial dissembler and defamer of me over many years) and my work on the PGR.  The reply was an update to an earlier post, but here it is in full:

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

THE 'PGR AURA':  The worry that some have, as I understand it, is that "the PGR aura" gives my criticisms a weight and importance they would otherwise not have.   Simon May (Florida State) gave the most cogent statement I've seen from any of the boycotters, though in my view the weaknesses of his argument are also illuminating (more on that in a moment). 

Here is what I take to be the core issue.  I respond aggressively with only a miniscule fraction of my critics out there in the world.  (The Internet is awash with literally thousands of criticisms of my rankings, my views, and me, and 99% of their authors have never heard from me--contrary to those falsely asserting a "pattern" of my targetting "vulnerable" people--even in the cases at hand, the "targets" are tenured professors at major research institutions.  This is one of many reasons why the description of any of this as "bullying" is absurd).  Do such aggressive responses raise questions about the work I have done for many years as editor of the PGR?  Simon May thinks it does.  He writes:   

[T]he point is that Prof. Leiter’s status as the editor of the de facto or quasi-official rankings of philosophy departments indicates the community’s endorsement of his behaviour as within the bounds of acceptability.

I would have thought that participation in the PGR indicates that people think I and the Advisory Board have done a good job running it as a useful service for students and departments.  It constitutes an endorsement of my extramural statements to critics as little as it constitutes an endorsement of my atheism, my left politics, or my contempt for Jacques Derrida and Ayn Rand.  Perhaps, though, "endorsement" is the wrong word:  the issue is whether participation in the PGR constitutes "toleration" of conduct that should not be tolerated? 

A lot of Simon's case turns, as he correctly acknowledges, on his judgment that my e-mails were "abysmal and utterly unacceptable."  This is strong language, melodramatic in my view, but perhaps not in the view of others.  There are no doubt great differences of style and temperment between me and Simon, partly due to culture, to professional background, and to life experiences.  I do not think anything I did was "abysmal and utterly unacceptable," even as I regret, as I've said repeatedly, sending the e-mail to Prof. Jenkins.  (Although I would have written them slightly differently in retrospect, I do not regret the thrust of the other e-mails to a malevolent and persistently dishonest critic over a period of many years [McAfee], one who has repeatedly walked the line on defamation and who even took to vandalizing my Wikipedia page under a pseudonym.)  But I understand why some people would prefer I not send intemperate e-mails or assert what I take to be my legal rights so aggressively. I will no doubt do it less often in the future, and think more carefully before doing so.  (I am hopeful that if I step down from the PGR, there will be fewer outbursts directed my way, and so less need for any kind of redress.)

Simon continues:

As things stand, as uncontested PGR editor, Prof. Leiter has relatively free rein to act in as belligerent a manner as he might wish towards any member of the community.

This is also not true.  I have "free rein to act in as belligerent manner as" I might wish because I am a citizen of a free society, in which I can speak my mind. Simon's worry, I take it, is that the "PGR aura" enhances the effect of a belligerent critique.  I am not sure it does, but maybe there are cases where it does.

In Chicago, it's been unseasonably chilly for November...

...but in Buffalo...egads!

Philosopher asked to explain what rappers are talking about

Go figure.

More PGR "overall" results: top 5 programs in Canada and Australasia

In Canda (with mean score in parentheses):

1.  University of Toronto (3.8)

2.  University of British Columbia (2.7)

2.  University of Western Ontario (2.7)

4.  McGill University (2.3)

5.  University of Alberta (2.1)

5.  University of Calgary (2.1)

And in Australasia:

1.  Australian National University (3.3)

2.  University of Sydney (2.8)

3.  Monash University (2.1)

3.  University of Melbourne (2.1)

5.  University of Auckland (2.0)

Brit and I are processing the specialty rankings data, I'll try to post some samples of those over the next few days.

Video game philosophers

Curious!

(Thanks to Michael Swanson for the pointer.)

Mentoring for female job seekers

A new program.

(Thanks to my colleague Amanda Greene for the pointer.)

Diets of the philosophers...

...for example, Zeno and others.  Amy Kurzweil, the creator, welcomes suggestions.

(Thanks to Jacob Sparks for the pointer.)

Some more PGR "overall" ranking results for 2014

The top 20 departments in the U.S. (mean score in parentheses):

1.  New York University (4.8)

2.  Princeton University (4.4)

2.  Rutgers University, New Brunswick (4.4)

4.  University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (4.2)

5.  Yale University (4.1)

6.  Harvard University (4.0)

6.  University of Pittsburgh (4.0)

8.  Stanford University (3.9)

8.  University of Southern California (3.9)

10. Columbia University (3.8)

10. University of California, Berkeley (3.8)

10. University of California, Los Angeles (3.8)

13. Massachussetts Institute of Technology (3.7)

13. University of Arizona (3.7)

13. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (3.7)

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

17. Cornell University (3.5)

17. University of Notre Dame (3.5)

17. University of Texas, Austin (3.5)

20. Brown University (3.4)

The top 10 departments in the UK (mean scores in parentheses):

1.  Oxford University (4.6)

2.  Cambridge University (3.5)

3.  University of St. Andrews/University of Stirling Joint Program (3.2)

4.  University of Edinburgh (3.0)

5.  King's College, London (2.9)

6.  London School of Economics (2.8)

6.  University College London (2.8)

8.  University of Birmingham (2.7)

8.  University of Leeds (2.7)

10. University of Bristol (2.6)

10. University of Sheffield (2.6)

Interesting question about indemnification

A propos the question of universities indemnifying complainants about sexual harassment and misconduct, an experienced lawyer (who is also a philosopher) wrote to ask whether the proposal was to indemnify only for litigation costs, or also for adverse judgments?  I guess I was thinking only for costs, but I'm curious, what do readers think?

Social scientists and philosophers talk

Here.

What is SPEP?

For the benefit of those confused by the occasional references to this organization:  SPEP stands for the "Society for Phenomenology & Existential Philosophy."  It is a professional organization that primarily represents about a dozen philosophy PhD programs and their graduates:  Stony Brook, Penn State, Duquesne, Emory, Vanderbilt, New School, Boston College, DePaul, Villanova, Memphis, Oregon, maybe one or two others.  Many faculty from literature departments also participate in SPEP.  Most of the leading Anglophone scholars of the post-Kantian Continental traditions have nothing to do with SPEP, so it's important not to be misled by the false claim that SPEPPies make that their organization represents Continental philosophy in the US:  it does not.  ("Party-line Continentals" is closer to the mark.)  Some very distinguished scholars took their PhDs at SPEP programs, philosophers like Charles Griswold at Boston University, Terry Pinkard at Georgetown University, and Dalia Nassar at the University of Sydney.  These scholars are the exception, not the norm, as I noted in connection with the SPEPPie "Pluralist [sic] Guide" (see also this).  Some SPEP members participate as PGR evaluators, and most SPEP departments have been evaluated in the PGR at one time or another--they tend to get very low marks overall (outside the top 50), due to their narrowness and idiosyncrasies, but they sometimes rank decently in specialty areas.   Students who find the work done by faculty at SPEP departments appealing will be better-served by the Pluralist [sic] Guide than the PGR, but they will also get, on average, an inferior philosophical education.

About 15 years ago, SPEP created an "Advocacy Committee," whose explicit purpose was to try to counteract and undermine the PGR (if you search back through committee minutes included in the annual SPEP programs, this becomes quite clear).  You can see the current and past membership of the SPEP "Advocacy Committee" here.

A few preliminary results from the PGR surveys: biggest upward movers in the overall rankings between 2011 and 2014

In the U.S., they are Yale University (from #7 to #5, occupying that spot by itself), University of Southern California (from #11 to #8, tied with Stanford), University of California at Berkeley (from #14 to #10, tied with others), University of Texas at Austin (from #20 to #17, tied with others), University of California at Irvine (from #29 to #24, tied with others), Washington University in St. Louis (from #31 to #24, tied with others), University of Virginia (from #37 to #31, tied with others), University of Connecticut, Storrs (from #50 to #37, tied with others), and Saint Louis University (which was not evaluated in 2011 and was outside the top 50 in prior iterations, to #47 this time, tied with others).

In the U.K., they are University of Edinburgh (from #8 to #4), London School of Economics (from #11 to #6, tied with UCL), University of Birmingham (which was not evaluated last time, and was not in the top 15 in prior iterations, to #8, tied with Leeds), and University of Bristol (from #13 to #10, tied with Sheffield).

In Canada, the University of Calgary tied Albert at 5th, having not been evaluated last time and not been in the top five in prior iterations.

In Australasia, there were no big movers.

More results over the next few days.  Fortunately, the sociologist Kieran Healy has agreed to prepare confidence intervals for the overall ranking (since the further down, the less robust the ordinal rank), a useful idea raised during a session at the 2013 Central Division meeting in which Kieran participated, and which was organized by Pete Railton and Sandy Goldberg.

Why the visceral and largely irrational response to being evaluated?

While hundreds of philosophers were filling out the PGR surveys, various SPEPPies and hecklers were ranting and raving about the PGR in cyberspace (though without saying much new).  Since the PGR is so obviously a sound ranking system (as the actual research and analysis done by Kieran Healy has shown, though the amateur critics ignore it), as well as being so obviously useful to the profession and to students, it's really astonishing to see otherwise intelligent philosophers declare the opposite (it's less surprising when it comes to the unintelligent ones!).  Why the visceral and largely irrational response to being evaluated by one's peers?  Someone should research this!

UPDATE:  A note of caution to students:  do not be misled by philosophers who teach at or took their PhDs from poorly ranked departments (or unranked departments) who profess with great certainty and earnestness that there are serious methodological problems with the PGR:  there are not, and no one serious who has studied it thinks there are.  It has been hugely influential with students, faculty, and administrators because it is basically sound at what it does, though, as the Report itself says, there is much else to consider in choosing a PhD program.  Not all critics of the PGR have transparently self-serving motives, but most do.  I gave up long ago trying to reason with them, since they hold their views for reasons other than the transparently flabby ones they proffer.  As I've written in the past (see the last paragraph), the PGR has always brought noxious behavior out of the woodwork from alleged "professionals," and I have to confess to being glad not to have to deal with the PGR after 2014 for this reason in particular.

PGR surveys now closed

I'll post some preliminary results on the blog this week as we begin transcription of the data.  Many thanks to all those who participated; the full list of evaluators will appear in the PGR.

Marcuse's "One-Dimensional Man" fifty years later

Here.  One of the wonderful things about Marcuse is that he says clearly what other major Frankfurt School figures like Adorno and Horkheimer only say opaquely.

PGR surveys will close in a little over an hour from now (noon EST)

Last reminder!