Before I retired after 25 years as editor of the PGR, it would have been impolitic to make too explicit my own views about the best philosophy departments (though, being an impolitic guy, I've hinted at those views more than once): best not simply in terms of their peer reputation (though that is important, and prospective students ignore it at their peril) but in terms of the kind of philosophical education they offer.
The great virtue of post WWII analytic philosophy is its training of students in argument and analysis; its grave deficiency has always been its ahistorical orientation and confusion of logically rigorous form with insight and significance. Still I do not see how any philosophy PhD program can be excellent unless it offers instruction in the central philosophical questions about metaphysics, epistemology, and value that have marked the tradition since antiquity. At the same time, any department that offers that without serious attention to the history of philosophy may provide good employment prospects (vide MIT) but a superficial education, leading to work that appeals to one's well-placed friends and peers but has little merit for understanding the perennial problems, at least in the Western traditions.
But history of philosophy--which is crucial to some perspective on the latest fads to emerge from Rutgers or Oxford--is not nearly enough! One thing we learn from the history of philosophy, is that philosophy isolated from the sciences is often wrong, silly, or embarrassing: "naturalist" departments (i.e., departments where faculty take seriously the relevant developments in the cognate scientific disciplines) are always preferable to the alternative. But more than that: the history of philosophy can not stop with Kant (and pick up with Frege!). The post-Kantian traditions in European philosophy--Schopenhauer, Marx, Nietzsche, Adorno, Foucault etc.--are the source of the most interesting ideas that bear on the human situation.
So we can grade programs on four dimensions: Core Philosophy (metaphysics, epistemology, value theory); History of Core Philosophy (ancient, modern); Naturalism; and Post-Kantian Philosophy (19th & 20th-century). I'll use a scale of 0 to 3 (0=inadequate in the area, 1=fair, 2=good, 3=strong). The full scoring is below the fold, but here is my personal "top ten"; the first nine are in alphabetical order:
Brown University
Columbia University
Harvard University
New York University
Stanford University
University of California, Riverside
University of California, San Diego
University of Pennsylvania
University of Pittsburgh (Philosophy & HPS)
Tied for 10th: Northwestern University, Princeton University, University of Notre Dame, Yale University
Boston University (7)
Core Philosophy: 1
History of Core Philosophy: 2
Naturalism: 1
Post-Kantian Philosophy: 3
Brown University (9)
Core Philosophy: 2
History of Core Philosophy: 3
Naturalism: 1
Post-Kantian Philosophy: 3
City University of New York Graduate Center (6)
Core Philosophy: 2
History of Core Philosophy: 1
Naturalism: 2
Post-Kantian Philosophy: 1
Columbia University (9)
Core Philosophy: 2
History of Core Philosophy: 2
Naturalism: 2
Post-Kantian Philosophy: 3
Cornell University (7)
Core Philosophy: 2
History of Core Philosophy: 2
Naturalism: 1
Post-Kantian Philosophy: 2
Duke University (6)
Core Philosophy: 2
History of Core Philosophy: 1
Naturalism: 3
Post-Kantian Philosophy: 0
Georgetown University (6)
Core Philosophy: 2
History of Core Philosophy: 1
Naturalism: 0
Post-Kantian Philosophy: 3
Harvard University (10)
Core Philosophy: 3
History of Core Philosophy: 3
Naturalism: 1
Post-Kantian Philosophy: 3
Indiana University, Bloomington (7)
Core Philosophy: 2
History of Core Philosophy: 2
Naturalism: 1
Post-Kantian Philosophy: 2
Johns Hopkins University (7)
Core Philosophy: 2
History of Core Philosophy: 2
Naturalism: 1
Post-Kantian Philosophy: 2
Massachussetts Institute of Technology (4)
Core Philosophy: 3
History of Core Philosophy: 0
Naturalism: 1
Post-Kantian Philosophy: 0
New York University (12)
Core Philosophy: 3
History of Core Philosophy: 3
Naturalism: 3
Post-Kantian Philosophy: 3
Northwestern University (8)
Core Philosophy: 2
History of Core Philosophy: 2
Naturalism: 1
Post-Kantian Philosophy: 3
Princeton University (8)
Core Philosophy: 3
History of Core Philosophy: 3
Naturalism: 1
Post-Kantian Philosophy: 1
Rutgers University, New Brunswick (5)
Core Philosophy: 3
History of Core Philosophy: 1
Naturalism: 1
Post-Kantian Philosophy: 0
Stanford University (10)
Core Philosophy: 3
History of Core Philosophy: 3
Naturalism: 2
Post-Kantian Philosophy: 2
Syracuse University (6)
Core Philosophy: 2
History of Core Philosophy: 1
Naturalism: 0
Post-Kantian Philosophy: 3
University of Arizona (7)
Core Philosophy: 3
History of Core Philosophy: 2
Naturalism: 2
Post-Kantian Philosophy: 0
University of California, Berkeley (7)
Core Philosophy: 3
History of Core Philosophy: 2
Naturalism: 1
Post-Kantian Philosophy: 1
University of California, Irvine (7)
Core Philosophy: 2
History of Core Philosophy: 2
Naturalism: 2
Post-Kantian Philosophy: 1
University of California, Los Angeles (7)
Core Philosophy: 3
History of Core Philosophy: 3
Naturalism: 1
Post-Kantian Philosophy: 0
University of California, Riverside (9)
Core Philosophy: 2
History of Core Philosophy: 2
Naturalism: 2
Post-Kantian Philosophy: 3
University of California, San Diego (12)
Core Philosophy: 3
History of Core Philosophy: 3
Naturalism: 3
Post-Kantian Philosophy: 3
University of Chicago (7)
Core Philosophy: 2
History of Core Philosophy: 2
Naturalism: 0
Post-Kantian Philosophy: 3
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (7)
Core Philosophy: 3
History of Core Philosophy: 2
Naturalism: 2
Post-Kantian Philosophy: 0
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (7)
Core Philosophy: 3
History of Core Philosophy: 3
Naturalism: 1
Post-Kantian Philosophy: 0
University of Notre Dame (8)
Core Philosophy: 2
History of Core Philosophy: 3
Naturalism: 1
Post-Kantian Philosophy: 2
University of Pennsylvania (9)
Core Philosophy: 2
History of Core Philosophy: 3
Naturalism: 3
Post-Kantian Philosophy: 1
University of Texas, Austin (7)
Core Philosophy: 3
History of Core Philosophy: 2
Naturalism: 1
Post-Kantian Philosophy: 1
University of Pittsburgh (Philosophy & HPS) (9)
Core Philosophy: 3
History of Core Philosophy: 3
Naturalism: 2
Post-Kantian Philosophy: 1
University of Southern California (5)
Core Philosophy: 3
History of Core Philosophy: 1
Naturalism: 1
Post-Kantian Philosophy: 0
University of Wisconsin, Madison (7)
Core Philosophy: 2
History of Core Philosophy: 2
Naturalism: 3
Post-Kantian Philosophy: 0
Washington University, St. Louis (7)
Core Philosophy: 2
History of Core Philosophy: 2
Naturalism: 3
Post-Kantian Philosophy: 0
Yale University (8)
Core Philosophy: 3
History of Core Philosophy: 3
Naturalism: 1
Post-Kantian Philosophy: 1
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