Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

What really happened three years ago (fall 2014), a recap

The 2014 campaign to take down the Philosophical Gourmet Report (hereafter "the Report") was, as I've had occasion to note before, a fraud, but with a new Report about to appear, perhaps it's worth recapping yet again what actually happened before a new round of misrepresentations begin:

1. Noelle McAfee, a professor at Emory with a long history of attacking the Report and me personally, was caught vandalizing the Wikipedia entry about me in February 2014. I sent her several sharply worded private e-mails demanding that she cease and desist her campaign of misinformation and defamation; at the same time, the Wikipedia editors stopped her vandalism.
2. In July 2014, in the course of a raging dispute in philosophy-related social media about my criticisms of some misleading and inaccurate data about academic job placement, Carrie Jenkins, a professor at British Columbia, took to social media to denounce my criticisms as “unethical” and threatened not to treat me as a "normal or representative member[] of" the profession. Jenkins had a history with me on social media of such sanctimonious outbursts, and on this occasion, I sent her, privately, a single derisive e-mail wondering what precisely she was going to do to make good on her threat.
3. Throughout 2014, I repeatedly disagreed in public fora with feminist activist and philosopher Sally Haslanger of MIT about issues related to the profession, freedom of expression and due process. Haslanger has also been a longtime opponent of the Report.
4. In September 2014, just a few days before surveys for the philosophy Report were set to begin (that fact was public), Haslanger and David Velleman of NYU, another longtime opponent of the Report, released portions of the private e-mails from February and July, without asking me for permission or about any of the relevant context, which they omitted.  They did so in order to mobilize opposition to me and to the Report. 
5. Haslanger coordinated the selective release of the e-mails with a petition organized by Jenkins and her appalling colleague Alan Richardson calling on philosophers to “boycott” the surveys for the Report unless I stepped down as editor. The petition alleged--falsely we now know--that the single e-mail from me to Jenkins had caused serious harm to her “health” and her ability to contribute to the profession.   In fact, Jenkins gave multiple professional talks to departments in Canada, the U.S., and New Zealand in the months immediately following the e-mail.  Even half her own colleagues would not sign the petition.  When my Canadian counsel challenged the petition statements as defamatory, Jenkins’s lawyer, tellingly, did not defend them as true, but said they were nonetheless lawful.   Under Canadian law, it was obvious why he had to frame the "defense" this way:  defending false statements as "true" would have aggravated my damages against Jenkins.
6. The boycott petition was sent to somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 philosophers throughout the English-speaking world, of whom about 600 signed. Ironically, 90% of the signatories were not even nominated evaluators for the Report’s surveys (they were “boycotting” an event to which they were not invited); of the 550 nominated evaluators, only about 10% signed the petition.
7. I did not step down as editor of the 2014 philosophy Report.  I had told friends and colleagues for some time that 2014—the 25^th anniversary edition of the Report—would be the last I was going to produce, and since I had been preparing for three years for the 2014 Report and did not want that work to go to waste due to a fake controversy, I agreed to turn over the work for subsequent rankings to the co-editor of the 2014 ranking and another co-editor that we would agree upon as suitable (that became Christopher Pynes).

PGR surveys end Sunday at midnight CST

As Christopher Pynes announced last week, the time was extended for the survey until this Sunday.  I think that was wise, since we had never before pulled off a two-week window for the PGR surveys (rather than three weeks), certainly not at this time of year.  So for those sitting on your invitations, the time is at hand!  And for those pressed for time, just rate programs in your specialties.

PGR Survey Update & Extension

Brit and I want to thank all those who have already completed the survey. More people than you realize appreciate the time and effort you put into this work.

Many people have emailed asking about extending the survey time given personal commitments over the Thanksgiving holiday. I was also traveling during the last week and didn’t have email access to answer questions of survey takers. I will have most of those emails answered by Sunday afternoon. Also, the PGR has traditionally given a three-week window to take the survey.

Thus, given the holiday, my email blackout, and the traditional three-week evaluation period, we have decided to extend the survey a week allowing a three-week evaluation period.  The new deadline is Sunday, December 3^rd at 11:59 p.m. central standard time.

We also want to let evaluators know that they can choose to only rate in specialty areas, and they can choose only to evaluate programs they feel they know enough about, whether overall or in specialty areas.

Two minor comments folks have asked about while taking the survey.

• How to remove a stray rating? There is a blank above 0 in the drop down menus that isn’t obvious. You can reset any rating by selecting the blank as the rating.
• What do * and # indicate? * indicates over 70 and # indicates over 75 in 2018.

Survey takers can email either of the editors if they have questions: Brit Brogaard, brogaardb-at-gmail-dot-com or Christopher Pynes, cpynes-at-gmail-dot-com.

A reminder for PGR evaluators

According to Professors Brogaard and Pynes, the surveys are set to end this Sunday, November 26.  So American evaluators can use their Thanksgiving break to turn in their scores, and all others:  take note and get to work!  As noted, I did mine already.  I found the new suvey format really focussed one's attention on the make-up of the faculties, and I gather from Professor Pynes that each evaluator gets the faculty lists in a different order, thus fully eliminating all potential for ordering biases, which is a welcome improvement.

On taking the PGR without doing all the work to make it possible

This past weekend, I filled out my PGR surveys, which was great fun, since I had done almost no work to make it happen.  I had occasionally answered questions or offered advice, but the bottom line is that two professional philosophers, Brit Brogaard and Christopher Pynes, had put in dozens of hours to work to make this happen.  (That includes dozens of hours devoted to finalizing faculty lists, checking with departments, and answering questions from them, as well as compiling the evaluator lists on spread sheets, updating e-mail addresses, double-checking affiliation and PhD information etc.)   I realize that the pissers-and-moaners (you know who you are!) are aggreived that they are being evaluated again, but perhaps pause, for just a moment, to recognize that two individuals have given a huge amount of time to provide this service to students.

The 2014 PGR was the 25th edition for me, and I am so happy that Brit and Christopher are carrying it on for the benefit of students.  Perhaps folks might take a moment to thank those who are doing the work!

PGR Survey Invitation Information

The 2017-18 Philosophical Gourmet Report survey is going to begin in the next few days. So Brit and I want to explain what those who have been invited to participate in the survey can expect.

(1) The survey is being run by the Center for Innovation in Teaching and Research (CITR) at Western Illinois University. CITR uses Qualtrics for all surveys.

(2) All invitations to the survey will come from a Qualtrics “no reply” email with the following name and address: PGR Editors, Pynes and Brogaard <noreply@qemailserver.com>, with the following subject line: “PGR: Philosophical Gourmet Report Invite.”

(3) Invited participants will NOT have a user name and password like past versions of the survey. Each invitation will have a unique web link that allows the user to access the survey. Progress made in the survey is saved automatically. If you close out of the browser, your work will already be saved (but not submitted until the end of the survey). If you use the link again, the survey will pick up where you left off. This feature makes it easy to take the survey in multiple sessions.

(4) Additionally, we want to remind everyone of the following PRG policies:

• A list of all persons completing the survey will be made public.
• Individual survey responses will remain confidential.
• Individuals should NOT rate their Ph.D. granting institution or graduate programs that employs them. The editors will remove any such stray ratings from the calculations.
• Participants should rate areas of specialization for which they are competent. If you rate in a specialty area, your name will be listed publically as an evaluator in that area.
• PGR editors, in consultation when necessary with the Advisory Board, will drop the scores of evaluators not qualified to rate a particular specialty area.

(5) The survey will run for about two weeks. Those who haven’t completed the survey will receive emails, from the same Qualtics email address and name, reminding them to compete the survey and provide deadline information. The survey deadline cannot be extended as in the past. So please be mindful of the emails and the stated deadline.

Thank you to everyone for donating your valuable time participating in the survey.

The "personal statement" for PhD applications

A lot of this advice seems sensible, but not all.  The point of the personal statement for PhD programs is to make clear your current interests and, in the process, make clear why you are a good fit for the program you are applying to.  You *must* "do your homework" about the departments you're applying to, it's not an optional part of the exercise in my view.  You needn't mention particular faculty by name (though you can), but you must know that your areas of interest fit the program you are applying to.  See this earlier thread on the subject from a decade ago.  Additional comments welcome from those who have recently served on admissions committees.

PhD programs (including in philosophy) where one can study Indian philosophy

Here's a listing, that looks right as far as the philosophy side of things goes.  Alberta, British Columbia, Buffalo, UT Austin, and New Mexico would seem to be the best overall philosophy programs where one can pursue Indian philosophy these days, though I only know about one of the specialists, Stephen Phillips at UT Austin, who is a leading scholar in the area.

The PGR in the real world of students, part 391

A student writes:

I studied history in addition to philosophy in undergrad and still have only a vague sense of where the top departments are for that subject. Since the first time I saw the PGR in high school, the same was never the case for philosophy. What you did in creating the PGR has been a great gift to those of us who didn't grow up on the coasts and don't originally come from backgrounds of prestige. I hope you know that there are still some of us out there (even in the younger generation!) who see past this drivel on Daily Nous and are grateful.

Folks can and will discuss the PGR on social media, though I fear they may be deluding themselves if they think their comments on another blog are going to be read by the two decision-makers.  (I should add that while I know many readers have concerns about the behavior of Justin Weinberg, the editor of the DN blog--his petty vindictiveness, his cheerleading for the abuse of Title IX, and bullying of junior faculty--I do not think that thread is the place to discuss them!)

Placement in PhD-granting programs in the new academic job placement report

MOVING TO FRONT FROM OCTOBER 3

I've started to look a bit more at the data from the new placement analysis (commissioned and paid for by the APA no less), and there were plainly some peculiar choices made in how to frame the data.  As David Chalmers points out, post-docs are lumped in with fixed term appointments, adjuncting, and VAPs, i.e., as simply "not permanent appointments."  That's extraordinary, given that some who take them postpone tenure-track jobs to do so, and many use them to launch into highly competitive tenure-track positions.  Even more curious was the decision to create a "placement ranking" based on "permanent placement" without regard to school quality.  Three of the schools in this "top ten" for permament placement--University of Virginia, University of Florida, and University of Tennessee--also have 0% of their graduates placed into PhD-granting programs.  (I'll have more to say about their permanent placements, below.)  By contrast, taking the report's data at face value (I can not represent that this is safe to do, but let's assume it is), here's how a ranking of U.S. programs by placement of graduates into PhD-granting programs (i.e., research universities and departments) would look (for schools with  at least 20% placement into PhD programs):

1.  University of California, Berkeley (59%)                               

2.  University of Pittsburgh (HPS) (43%)                                    

3.  Rutgers University, New Brunswick (36%)          

3.  Princeton University (36%)

5.  Massachussetts Institute of Technology (35%)

6.  Carnegie-Mellon University (33%)

7.  Harvard University (31%)

7.  New York University (31%)                                                          

7.  University of California, Irvine (Logic & Philosophy of Science) (31%)

10. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (26%)

11. University of Pennsylvania (25%)

12. University of Chicago (24%)

12. Yale University (24%)

14. Columbia University (23%)

15. Stanford University (21%)

15. University of Arizona (21%)

17. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (20%)

17. University of Southern California (20%)

Of course, this list looks a lot more like the PGR, especially when you factor in the specialty rankings which capture the niches of excellence at places like Irvine's LPS and Carnegie-Mellon. 

Placement and Funding Information for Prospective Graduate Students

As you may know, Christopher Pynes and I are currently in the process of preparing the 2017-2018 edition of the Philosophical Gourmet Report. There are some unintended delays in the process, owing to the transfer of technology, the learning curve, negotiating a new contract with Wiley-Blackwell, etc.

However, one thing that came up in our discussion was funding. Ph.D. and terminal-M.A. granting institutions have been encouraged by Brian years ago to make placement information available for prospective graduate students on their departmental websites. We hope that you will all make this information available this year if you have not done so already. This also applies to terminal M.A. programs. If you have a terminal M.A. program, the relevant placement information will be the Ph.D. programs (or law/medical schools, etc) that past students completing your program ended up going to.

Another request we would like to make is that Ph.D. and terminal-M.A. granting institutions provide a link on their departmental website that states what prospective students can expect in terms of funding. Here are some examples of questions we hope that you will be able to provide the answer to on your websites: Do admitted students receive a tuition and fee waiver? Do they receive a partial waiver? How much is the standard stipend provided for covering living expenses? What is the publicly announced cost of living for the city or town? 

I know that some graduate programs use additional funding as an incentive for people to accept an offer at their program. But most Ph.D. and terminal-M.A. granting institutions should be able to provide a minimum amount of funding provided (or a mean or median amount), and perhaps other details.

While we think prospective graduate students should go to the M.A. program or the Ph.D. program that is the best fit for them (and that offers them a tuition waiver and some kind of stipend), we also know that this is not always realistic, even when students do get accepted into their preferred M.A. or Ph.D. program. Cost of living varies greatly from country to country and from city to city, and so do the private lives of prospective students. Some have families and children that they need to support. Some are single parents. Some are required to pay child support. Some have disabilities or other personal conditions that require expensive professional intervention, etc. Accordingly, making information about funding available to prospective graduate students is likely to be very helpful to them.

PGR Faculty Lists for Fall 2017 Survey the October Draft UPDATE

MOVING TO THE FRONT with updated file -- Originally posted on 4 September 2017.

Thank you to all of you who have commented or sent emails with corrections.  This most recent draft list of faculties for the 2017 PRG survey is included below.

Download PGR Faculty Lists 2017-18 all (19 October 2017)

The benchmark for the faculty list is fall 2018, so, e.g., faculty who will be retired by fall 2018 are not included on the list, or faculty who have already committed to be elsewhere, are listed with the department they will be with (assuming it is part of the survey).

Cognate Faculty Questions: If you have concerns or questions about the cognate faculty category, please see this post about PGR cognate faculty.

Please post comments and corrections here.  Email me, Christopher Pynes, at cpynes-at-gmail-dot-com if matters are sensitive.  Issues other than corrections to this list should be sent to me and Professor Brogaard, brogaardb-at-gmail-dot-com. 

Only faculty at the department in question should post corrections.  Signed comments only.

Huemer's polemic against letters of recommendation

David Boonin (Colorado) kindly calls to my attention his colleague Michael Huemer's case against soliciting letters of recommendation.  Prof. Huemer is always pleasingly contrarian, though it seems to me his case is stronger in this instance when it comes to letters of recommendation for senior candidates rather than rookies.  With regard to rookies (1) no appointments committee has time to review in detail the submitted work of all applicants; (2) pedigree (the applicant was trained at a program with which one has had good experiences) is both under- and over-inclusive for narrowing the applicant pool down; (3) the same goes for publications; and (4) letters can be quite helpful, as long as one knows how to read them.  If one does appointments enough, one gets better at deciphering the codes in which they are written, and you learn who is reliable and who isn't (in the late 1980s and 1990s, Hilary Putnam wrote one too many time in letters of recommendation that "now I know what it was like to have Wittgenstein in class" that it became a joke in the profession--none of those young philosophers, to the best of my recollection, turned out to be major figures in philosophy). 

This year's amazing job market for post-Kantian Continental philosophy: the new hot area?

I confess I've never seen anything like it in 25+ years of watching these things.  There are jobs expressing serious interest in post-Kantian Continental philosophy at Berkeley, Notre Dame, Rice, Boston College, Harvard, Durham, William & Mary, Haverford, among other places!  The old "core analytic" is dying, but the much-neglected post-Kantian Continental seems to be enjoying a new "market demand."

Perhaps Anglophone departments have figured out that (1) post-Kantian Continental philosophy is a magnet for enrollments, given how interesting and influential across disciplines figures like Marx and Nietzsche and Foucault are, and (2) the quality of the candidates teaching in this area is now as high as in any other specialty?

One big advantage of having turned over the PGR burden to others is that I can now speak much more freely about what I think about trends in academic philosophy.   My prediction is that the most successful departments going forward will be those that offer serious coverage of post-Kantian philosophers on the European Continent.

Bias and neglect of non-Western philosophy in Anglphone departments is very real, but hardly surprising, given the remoteness of language and culture; much more surprising has always been the neglect of European philosophy of the last two centuries:  translations of these figures are widely available; the ideas of the great 19th-century thinkers in particular permeate the entire curriculum in Western universities; and, perhaps most importantly, there are now a large number of serious young scholars--in terms of basic scholarly discipline and philosophical competence--working on these issues.  For a long time, there was clearly an issue about finding young philosophers interested in the post-Kantian traditions who were not muddleheads.  That time is now past.   The best young scholars working on the post-Kantian Continental traditions are as good as the best scholars of early modern or ancient philosophy, not to mention the latest expert on the metaphysics of grounding!

The idea that any good department, whether at the PhD level or the undergraduate level, would not have a specialist in the rich European traditions post-Kant will soon, I am hopeful, become a relic of the past.  

ADDENDUM:  When I talk about post-Kantian Continental philosophy, I mean the German Idealists (Fichte, Schelling, Hegel), Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Marx, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Horkheimer, Adorno, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, Foucault--I do not mean charlatans like Zizek or the latest silliness out of Paris.  It's the former figures who now regularly attract excellent and philosophically informed scholarship, and it is these figures that the recent job ads are targetting.

The growing mismatch between jobs for philosophers and what the leading PhD programs emphasize, or, the so-called "core" is dying

PhilJobs is starting to fill up with ads, though not as many ads as one would like to see (at least not yet).  But what is striking is the pattern in areas of interest:  lots of value theory and history of philosophy (esp. early modern, but also a fair bit of 19th-century), some currently "trendy" areas like philosophy of race and gender, but very little "core analytic" (as the Stanford ad puts it), i.e., very little philosophy of language and mind, metaphyscis & epistemology, the latter being the historical "prestige" trackers in the profession for the last half-century.  But as I've remarked before, what is prestigious and central at the top PhD programs may no longer bear much relationship to most of the jobs that exist.  That seems increasingly true (we've seen other signs of it).

Far too many PhD programs currently operate on what we might call "the MIT model":   little or no history of philosophy or post-Kantian Continental philosophy, certainly no non-Western philosophy, but lots and lots of "core analytic" (sometimes with some philosophy of science thrown in), plus a bit of value theory, though mostly to the extent it is close to the former areas.  The MIT model served MIT well when Robert Stalnaker was active and training tons of students, and before Stephen Yablo was, tragically, taken ill (though Yablo is still teaching happily).   Perhaps the MIT model can survive as a viable model for graduation education, and might do so if MIT were the only purveyor--but the University of Southern California, despite being a much larger faculty, has adopted the MIT Model with a vengeance, and Rutgers has largely migrated in that direction.  Other "MIT model" programs--wholly or heading in that direction--include Michigan, Texas, U Mass/Amherst, Rochester, UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara, among others. 

A close, but preferable (at least by my lights) relative, is the "Princeton Model," where the investment is heaviest in "core analytic," but there is also a substantial commitment to history of philosophy and sometimes even post-Kantian Continental.  NYU followed the Princeton Model, more successfully than Princeton, which no doubt explains its dominant position in Anglophone philosophy.  "Princeton Model" departments include Pittsburgh, Yale, Berkeley, UCLA, Harvard, Brown, and Cornell, among many others.

JD/PhD Programs in the U.S. (and elsewhere): A Comment (revised)

ORIGINALLY POSTED MARCH 2008; A REVISED VERSION WAS POSTED SEPTEMBER 2011; NOW REPOSTED WITH SUBSTANTIAL REVISIONS IN LIGHT OF CHANGES IN THE INTERIM

I've had some inquiries lately about the section on the study of philosophy in law schools in the PGR like this one:

I am considering enrolling in a joint JD/PhD in philosophy next year, and I was reading through your rankings in philosophy, law, and joint JD/PhD programs. First, let me say thank you so much for the time and energy you've put in to make this information and these rankings available; it has been very helpful for me. My question, however, is if there is any reason why Harvard and Stanford are virtually not mentioned on the "The Study of Philosophy in Law Schools" page on philosophicalgourmet.com. Do their programs for law and philosophy not match up with the other schools mentioned? I ask because they both have very strong respective law and philosophy programs. I know you're extremely busy, so if you don't have time to respond about this, I completely understand. However, if you do get a chance, any comments would be greatly appreciated. Again, thanks so much for the rankings and information you've compiled about law schools and philosophy programs.

Legal academia is more pedigree-sensitive than academic philosophy (and I'm sure many of you think academic philosophy is way too pedigree-sensitive!), so this student's question is quite understandable.  Four law schools dominate the market for new law teachers:  Yale, Harvard, Chicago, and Stanford.  On a per capita basis, Yale is way ahead of the other three (primarily a selection effect, together with alumni networks), and these four are ahead of everyone else.  Yet two of these three "feeder" schools for legal academia go unmentioned in the current PGR section.  (For the 2009 PGR section, see here.)

Some blog highlights from the summer

MOVING TO FRONT FOR LAST TIME--ORIGINALLY POSTED SEPTEMBER 1

Regular blogging (i.e., most weekdays) resumes today.  Here's a few highlights from the summer readers might have missed:

JUNE

"Justifying Academic Freedom:  Mill and Marcuse Revisited," revised version

Feminist philosophers vs. scholars of Chinese philosophy 

What we know about the underrepresentation of women in philosophy 

Dozens of Israeli philosophers oppose proposed "Code of Ethics" 

Philosodogs!

Frances Kamm from Harvard to Rutgers

JULY

Philosophy and standardized test scores: causation or correlation?

The former Associate Editors of Hypatia learned nothing from their defamation of Rebecca Tuvel

"Philosophy Time," a new video series with actor James Franco

Why prospective grad students need to know about academic hierarchies, part 211

This study did not include philosophy, but I'm sure the pattern in philosophy is the same:

The data revealed that just a quarter of all universities account for 71 to 86 percent of all tenure-track faculty in the U.S. and Canada in these three fields. Just 18 elite universities produce half of all computer science professors, 16 schools produce half of all business professors, and eight schools account for half of all history professors.

While elite universities, with their deep resources and demanding coursework, surely produce great professors, the data suggest that faculty hiring isn’t a simple meritocracy. The top schools generate far more professors than even just slightly less prestigious schools. For example, in history, the top 10 schools produce three times as many future professors as those ranked 11 through 20.

Where untenured tenure-track faculty at the "top 20" U.S. PhD programs got their PhD 2017-18 edition (UPDATED AND CORRECTED)

MOVING TO FRONT AGAIN--REVISED AGAIN

The following universities have the most PhD graduates in "top 20" philosophy programs for 2017-18 ("top 20" is construed loosely to include some on the cusp given the last PGR).  For some schools PhD graduates of cognate programs (like HPS at Pittsburgh, and Logic & the Methodology of Science) are also counted, given their close ties to philosophy.  The number of graduates of each school currently in untenured tenure-track positions appears in parentheses after the name of the PhD-granting university. 

1.  Princeton University (8)

2.  New York University (7)

2.  Rutgers University, New Brunswick (7)

4.  University of California, Berkeley (6)

5.  Massachussetts Institute of Technology (5)

6.  Columbia University (4)

6.  Harvard University (4)

6.  Oxford University (4)

6.  Yale University (4)

10.  Cambridge University (3)

11. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (2)

11. University of Pittsburgh (2, both HPS)

The following schools have one PhD graduate each in an untenured tenure-track position in the "top 20" currently:  Stanford University; Cornell University; University of Chicago; University of Maryland, College Park; University of Wisconsin, Madison; University of York; University of California, Los Angeles; University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; University of California, Irvine; University of Western Ontario; University of Texas, Austin; University of Arizona; University of Leeds; University of California, San Diego; University of Paris I-Pantheon/Sorbonne; University of Toronto; University of Potsdam.  Below the fold is a listing of the PhDs at each "top 20" school; please e-mail me with corrections.

PGR Draft Faculty Lists for Fall 2017 Survey

MOVING TO FRONT--ORIGINALLY POSTED AUGUST 22

The draft list of faculties for the 2017 PRG survey is ready for review and correction.

Download PGR Faculty Lists 2017-18 draft

The benchmark for the faculty list is fall 2018, so, e.g., faculty who will be retired by fall 2018 are not included on the list, or faculty who have already committed to be elsewhere, are listed with the department they will be with (assuming it is part of the survey).

Cognate Faculty Questions: If you have concerns or questions about the cognate faculty category, please see this post about PGR cognate faculty.

Please post comments and corrections here.  Email me, Christopher Pynes, at cpynes-at-gmail-dot-com if matters are sensitive.

Only faculty at the department in question should post corrections.  Signed comments only.

Top 10 Anglophone PhD programs for 19th-century Continental philosophy according to an Internet Condorcet poll

Not quite 110 votes on this more specialized survey, results are again not crazy, though it's clear strength in Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, for example, counts for less than strength in Hegel and German Idealism typically (which, of course, stands the reality of respective insight on its head!).  I've listed the relevant faculty in parentheses at each school:

Top ten Anglophone PhD programs in 19th-century Continental philosophy

Continuing with our Condorcet fun this summer, let's try the top ten programs for 19th-century Continental philosophy.  The choices include all programs ranked in the 2014 PGR surveys, plus two of the programs added for consideration by the Advisory Board in 2014.  Go at it (but only if you know something about scholarship in the area!).

Top 5 Canadian PhD programs, per Condorcet

As with the U.S. and U.K. polls, plausible results, though Canada is a bit easier given the smaller number of programs and the fairly clear differences between most of them.  As before, I note the vote gaps between each school and have inserted inserted lines to reflect the more significant gaps in the votes.  In some cases where the vote gap was very small, I treated the results as a tie.

1.  University of Toronto

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2.  University of British Columbia (loses to Toronto by 243 votes)

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3.  University of Western Ontario (loses to UBC by 51 votes)

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4.  McGill University (loses to Western by 69 votes)

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5.  University of Alberta (loses to McGill by 138 votes)

University of Calgary was the runner-up for the top five, losing to Alberta by just 19 votes.

Top 15 Anglophone epistemology programs?

With the help of our friend Condorcet and the well-informed readership, we've gotten pretty plausible results in "overall" rankings, but what about a specialty area, like epistemology?  I've included all those that ranked in 2014.  Have fun!

The top 10 U.K. PhD programs in philosophy according to the readers here who participated in a Condorcet poll

Over 400 votes (!), and again fairly plausible results (below the fold),  noting the vote gaps between each school.  I've also inserted lines to reflect the more significant gaps in the votes.  In some cases where the vote gap was very small, I treated the results as a tie.

Top 5 PhD programs in philosophy in Canada...

...based on yet another internet (Condorcet) poll.  Only vote if you know something about Canadian philosophy programs!

So here's the top 25 American PhD programs in philosophy according to an Internet condorcet poll

The results (with nearly 500 votes) were actually not unreasonable (thanks to the well-informed readership of this blog), though there were a few slightly odd ones that I expect we won't see replicated in the PGR surveys conducted this fall; more on the odd results, below.  I list the top 25 below the fold, noting the vote gaps between each school.  I've also inserted lines to reflect the more significant gaps in the votes.  In some cases where the vote gap was very small, I treated the results as a tie.

Rank the top 10 U.K. philosophy programs

So the results for the U.S. poll were, with a couple of exceptions, quite sensible for the top 25, so let's give the U.K. a shot.  Obviously the readership here is well-informed!  Have fun!

Rank the top 25 U.S. PhD programs

Brit and Christopher will be running the real surveys in the fall, but it might be amusing to see how the top 25 looks in an unreliable Internet poll.  I've included the top 36 programs from the 2014 PGR, and will post the list of the top 25.  Have fun! 

UPDATE:  So after about 24 hours and nearly 370 votes (pretty good for the July 4th weekend here in the US!), here's the top 25 below the fold (the poll will keep running into next week):

Blast from the past: common sense about the PGR

Back in 2015.

AOS for jobs in 2016-17

The "core" was not so core.

Three things I'm happy about

1.  Interest in the new PGR, according to what Christopher Pynes has told me, is very strong.  (Folks, remember, e-mail Prof. Pynes, not me, about the faculty lists.)

2.  I don't have to do any work on the new PGR!  Three cheers for Brogaard & Pynes!!!

3.  Donald Trump hasn't killed us all, and it's been almost six months!

Northeastern makes two senior appointments in moral/political/legal philosophy

They are Adam Hosein, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and Matthew Noah Smith, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Leeds.  (We were fortunate to have Hosein as our Law & Philosophy Fellow at the Law School at Chicago a few years ago.)   Northeastern recently added Branden Fitelson, a leading contributor to formal epistemology and decision theory, from Rutgers University at New Brunswick, so it seems clear they are building up the national profile of the department.

PGR Draft U.S. Faculty Lists for Fall 2017 Survey

MOVING TO FRONT--ORIGINALLY POSTED MAY 30

We are in the early stages of gearing up for a new set of PGR surveys for fall 2017.  To that end, the draft faculty list for U.S. institutions is available for download and public comment.  The faculty list for universities in the UK, Canada, and Australasia will follow soon.

Download PGR_US_Faculty_Lists_2017_18

The benchmark for the faculty list is fall 2018, so, e.g., faculty who will be retired by fall 2018 are not included on the list, or faculty who have already committed to be elsewhere, are listed with the department they will be with (assuming it is part of the survey).

Please post comments and corrections here or email me, Christopher Pynes, at cpynes-at-gmail-dot-com if matters are sensitive.

Cognate Faculty Questions: If you have concerns or questions about the cognate faculty category, please see this post about PGR cognate faculty.

Faculties that would like to be included in the 2017-18 surveys should e-mail me at the address above copying Professor Brogaard, brogaardb-at-gmail-dot-com, and we will take that up with the Advisory Board.  Remember that only the top 50 U.S. PhD programs will be ranked.

Only faculty at the department in question should post corrections.  Signed comments only.

UPDATE:  Thank you to all those who have emailed and commented with corrections.  I will continue to make corrections as they come in and will have a second version for review in the near future.

My reduced summer blogging schedule...

...announced here begins today.   Berit Brogaard and Christopher Pynes, who both have posting privileges here, are likely to be posting PGR-related items throughout the summer as well.

Lots of new junior hires posted...

...at PhilJobs.

Top U.S. Research Universities, 2017

I've produced these lists before, using the reputational data from U.S. News surveys.  This year, they did new surveys of humanities and social science fields (as well as the professional fields).  In the past, I gave more weight to breadth of strength; this time I've used a weighting system that gives more weight to depth (i.e., really top programs).  We looked at sixteen areas:  Business, Law Medicine (Research), Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Earth Sciences, Economics, English, History, Math, Philosophy, Physics, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology.  Universities were scored as follows:  5 points for #1 programs, 4 points for programs ranked between second and fifth, 3 points for programs ranked between sixth and tenth, 2 points for programs ranked between eleventh and fifteenth, and 1 point for any additional program in the top twenty.  The results are not that different than in previous iterations, though I've not gone much beyond the top twenty since the metric, being weighted towards top programs, does a poor job distinguishing between research universities with considerable breadth, but few if any top ten programs. 

1.  Stanford University (69 total; ranked in the top ten in all 16 areas; six #1 programs)

2.  Harvard University (64 total; ranked in the top twenty in all 16 areas; 15 top ten programs; six #1 programs)

3.  University of California, Berkeley (61 total; ranked in the top ten in 15 areas [no medical school at Berkeley]; six #1 programs)

4.  Yale University (49 total; ranked in the top twenty in 15 of 16 areas; 11 top ten programs; three #1 programs)

5.  Princeton university (48 total; ranked in the top fifteen in 13 of 16 areas [no medical, law, or business at Princeton]; 11 top ten programs; four #1 programs)

6.  Massachussetts Institute of Technology (46 total; ranked in 11 of 16 areas [no medicine, law]; 10 top ten programs; six #1 programs)

6.  University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (46 total; ranked in the top twenty in all 16 areas; 10 top ten programs; one #1 program)

8.  Columbia University (45 total; ranked in the top twenty in all 16 areas; 11 top ten programs; zero #1 programs)

9.  University of Chicago (40 total; ranked in the top twenty in all 16 areas; 8 top ten programs; one #1 program)

10. University of California, Los Angeles (37 total; ranked in the top twenty in all 16 areas; 6 top ten programs; zero #1 programs)

Philosophical Gourmet Report, 2017-18

I'm very pleased to report that philosopher Christopher Pynes (Western Illinois)--familiar to readers here for his many guest-blogging stints--has agreed to join Brit Brogaard as co-editor of the PGR for 2017-18 (and subsequent iterations).   Professor Pynes will bring good philosophical values and moral and intellectual backbone to this demanding undertaking.  I am grateful to him and to Prof. Brogaard for their willingness to continue to make this resource available to students and to the profession.

Professor Pynes is already at work on revisions to the draft faculty lists for the 2017 surveys; I hope to post a draft in the next couple of weeks for feedback (which should go directly to him at cpynes-at-gmail-dot-com).   I will post other announcements from Professors Brogaard and Pynes once they have settled on a timetable for the next PGR.

ADDENDUM:  Christopher, like Brit, still has posting privileges here, so he will probably post the draft faculty lists himself when they are ready and then moderate comments to get corrections.  So watch for that in the next couple of weeks.

Accessing the PGR

Reader Skef Iterum kindly wrote the following to me and Brit:

The secure HTTP version of the philosophical gourmet site:

https://www.philosophicalgourmet.com/

currently has a non-matching TLS certificate, which will prevent it from displaying in most browsers unless the user enters an exception.  The certificate itself is valid, but can only be used to authenticate  a site with a domain name matching *.blackwellpublishing.com.

The non-secure version of the site is working properly [http://www.philosophicalgourmet.com], but googling "philosophical gourmet" provides a link to the secured version, so it's probably best not to ignore this problem for long.

Brit will take this up with Wiley-Blackwell.  For now use the http: version of the site.  I'll have more news about PGR business next week, including announcement of a new co-editor who will work with Brit on the 2017-18 edition; more announcements from the editors will follow.

Admitted PhD students who don't respond to departmental inquiries

A department Chair elsewhere writes:

Are you aware of any policy or practice regarding applicants who are holding an offer of admission and fellowship but who have not made contact with an institution for weeks, despite numerous emails, etc.? All we are asking for is an acknowledgement that our offer is still being considered and that they are still interested in it. Rudeness aside, isn't there some obligation on the applicant's part to respond to queries?

Have others had this problem?

I do not know if there are any rules governing situations like this promulgated by the APA or other bodies (please post links to any applicable rules in the comment section).  I would think one way for programs to avoid this kind of problem is, in the offer letter, to specify that the offer of admission is conditional on certain contacts/updates being acknowledged, or something like that.  And students really shouldn't behave the way this student is behaving:  other hopefuls may be waiting on your decision, after all!  Perhaps in this case there are extenuating circumstances, but if you really have no interest in an admission offer, turn it down!

PhD Programs behaving badly! (MOVING TO FRONT FROM EARLIER TODAY--UPDATED)

A major North American PhD program is pressuring a student to accept by this Friday (today)--in violation of (sensible) APA rules--in order to get a particularly good scholarship.  I know this because another major North American PhD program is interested in the same student, and alerted me to the misconduct  I will not name names just yet, but the guilty parties know who they are.  Abide by the rules, children!  Or face exposure!

UPDATE:  It turns out there is a university rule with respect to some forms of financial aid that this department must abide by.  Once I get permission, I'll post more.

ANOTHER:  The Chair of the Department in question kindly gave permission to post the following explanation:

Allow me to make two clarifications: (1) Our program abides by the APA rules. All admitted graduate students have until April 15 to decide on whether or not they accept our offer of admission. We do not pressure students to accept earlier. (2) Our university has two university-wide graduate student entrance fellowships reserved for international students, for which more than 70 different graduate programs compete. There are only two dozens of these fellowships in total, so the competition is fierce. Now it is these - extremely selective - fellowships that come with a shorter deadline. We are constantly lobbying our university for future changes and we ask as forcefully as we can for deadline extensions. But given that our university is not bound by the CGS deadline, there isn’t much else our department can do. (We are a Canadian university and the April 15 pledge is a resolution of the US Council of Graduate Schools; only US schools are signatories to the pledge.) However, we’d like to emphasize that we take our department to be bound by the April 15 pledge just as much as if our university had signed the CGS agreement. But with respect to these rare university-wide fellowships, our only other option is not to apply for them, and this would just deprive some international students from the opportunity to have a more attractive financial package. This is why we choose to continue nominating students for these fellowships with the understanding that they would still receive one of the standard financial packages if they cannot give us an answer by the fellowship deadline. 

PGR, 2016-17

I've noticed a lot of traffic to the attempted updates of the PGR, no doubt because decision time is looming.  Here again is the post that includes all the relevant links. 

Best Anglophone philosophers since 1957?

470 votes were cast, and here's the top ten:

1. W.V.O. Quine  (Condorcet winner: wins contests with all other choices)

2. Saul Kripke  loses to W.V.O. Quine by 166–163

3. David K. Lewis  loses to W.V.O. Quine by 170–139, loses to Saul Kripke by 181–130

4. John Rawls  loses to W.V.O. Quine by 181–125, loses to David K. Lewis by 165–151

5. Hilary Putnam  loses to W.V.O. Quine by 196–112, loses to John Rawls by 163–146

6. Derek Parfit  loses to W.V.O. Quine by 204–103, loses to Hilary Putnam by 190–111

7. Bernard Williams  loses to W.V.O. Quine by 208–104, loses to Derek Parfit by 143–134

8. Donald Davidson  loses to W.V.O. Quine by 221–63, loses to Bernard Williams by 139–133

9. Thomas Nagel  loses to W.V.O. Quine by 218–88, loses to Donald Davidson by 128–123

10. P.F. Strawson  loses to W.V.O. Quine by 240–53, loses to Thomas Nagel by 138–117

David Lewis fans were caught rallying votes late in the process, thus displacing Rawls at #3!   G.E.M. Anscombe trailed P.F. Strawson by just five votes.  Filling out the top 20 were the following philosophers:

Bad admissions behavior by a philosophy graduate program

MOVING TO FRONT FROM APRIL 22, 2016--I HOPE WE WON'T SEE REPEATS OF THIS BAD BEHAVIOR THIS YEAR!

A prospective graduate student asked me to share her, shall we say, "unusual" experience during the recently concluded admissions cycle.   Here's how it started (prior to April 15):

I am a prospective graduate student currently considering offers for the following academic year. It has come to my attention that, in an attempt to gage the interest of wait listed students, some institutions may be inadvertently violating the rules set out by the APA -- that students should have until April 15th to accept or reject financial offers. On your blog, you have encouraged prospective students to report these violations. I have sent a brief sketch of this situation to the APA, and I thought it could be helpful to discuss this in the philosophical community. 

I experienced the following scenario this afternoon: I am wait listed at a highly ranked institution. The GDS called me and asked, "If I were to give you an offer right now, would you accept it?" I felt strongly that if I were to say yes, an offer would be given to me instantly, and I would be bound to accept it (on April 11th). However, this institution is not my first choice, and as a result I was put into the awkward position of rejecting what I perceived to be a conditional offer, the condition being my immediate acceptance. I would still like an offer from this institution, but I would also like the courtesy afforded to me by the APA, which is to have until the end of the 15th to decide. I am on other wait lists, and wish to see how that comes out before making a final decision. However, I worry that I may have lost out on an offer that would have been mine as a result of this exchange.

I think that this experience should perhaps encourage the APA to investigate this notion of a verbal offer—or the promise of one—conditioned on acceptance prior to April 15th. Does this seem to you as it does to me to be against the rules? Or do you think I'm reading too much into a DGS' attempt to gage interest in my likelihood of acceptance?

I think this kind of conditional offer violates the APA rules.  It's one thing to ask a candidate about their level of interest, it's another to frame an inquiry as reported here.  In the end, the student went elsewhere, but with yet another wrinkle:  

Interestingly, before I declined, they placed me in yet another cart-before-the-horse situation. This program guarantees a semester of fellowship and I had been told so on multiple occasions. However, they provided me an offer without any, and when I asked about it I was told that they had sent out more offers than fellowships, and that they would give them to those who accepted the soonest while supplies last. Perhaps this is less worrying than the earlier issue, but it still seems fishy that they would require me to sign a contract of the offer *without* a fellowship listed in order to potentially obtain said fellowship. Again, it seems rather against the spirit, if not the letter, of the APA deadline to take away previously guaranteed fellowship to those who execute their right to wait until the end of the day on April 15th. 

I sincerely hope this does not occur in the future to others. It makes this more difficult and stressful for all involved.

Indeed.

UPDATE:  J.D. Trout, a distinguished philosopher of science at Loyola University, Chicago, writes:

When I was fresh out of graduate school and on the philosophy job market, I received a call from a dean at a small rural college where I had interviewed. After exchanging pleasantries, the dean explained that they wanted to make a hiring decision soon, that they had winnowed the list down to two candidates, and that I was their top choice. He then asked, “What would you say if I were to make you an offer?” implying that I would get the real offer if I said yes to the hypothetical one. I explained that I still didn’t know; he hadn’t made me an actual offer. I told him that I would think differently about the attractions of a job if I had an actual rather than an imaginary offer. At the time, I think I was mainly interested in letting the dean know that I recognized his question as a low-rent hustle; they didn’t want to waste time on a candidate’s offer that might not be accepted (potentially losing their other candidate in the process). The dean made an actual offer and told me I had four days to decide. I took another job.

I'm opening comments, since I'm now back in town.

US vs. UK PhD programs in philosophy

A reader writes:

As a prospective graduate student weighing offers between schools in the UK and the US, I was wondering if you (or your readers) could answer a question. I have seen read on various blog posts comparing UK and US grad programs that UK programs train their graduates to be much more research-oriented, whereas US programs are more focused on teaching. Does this seem accurate to you? Since publishing is such an important factor in getting a job, it would be an important consideration to make.

It seems right that UK programs are more exclusively research-focused than US programs, but there is considerable variation in US programs, with many wealthy private universities requiring very little teaching over the course of a 5-6 year degree.   But it would be useful to hear from students and faculty about some of the pertinent differences for students thinking about UK vs. US doctoral programs.

The virtues of timely responses to offers of admission

MOVING TO FRONT FROM LAST YEAR, SINCE TIMELY AGAIN (originally posted two years ago):

Students admitted to graduate school have until April 15 to respond.  You can't be made to respond sooner--let me know of schools violating that rule!--but if you can respond sooner that helps a lot of people!  Philosopher Kristen Inglis (Pittsburgh), for example, writes:

Because many prospective philosophy graduate programs read this blog, I’d like to reiterate Anthony Laden’s and Keith DeRose’s suggestions that prospective graduate students aim to decline admissions offers in a timely way. As the chair of an Admissions committee, I agree with DeRose that nearly every program appreciates knowing as early as possible that an admitted student is declining an offer. Most importantly, declining an offer early greatly helps waitlisted students who are otherwise in the tricky position of having to decide whether to accept an offer or to wait to get off the waitlist at a better program.

Of course, no one is suggesting that prospective students decline offers before they’ve had the chance to gather the relevant information, think the decision through, and discuss the decision with their advisors. Still, if one knows before April 15 (most schools’ decision deadline) that she will decline an offer from school X, then she can do a good service by declining the offer from X before April 15. 

March Madness, PGR version

Courtesy of J.J. Lang, a PhD student at Stanford:  Download Tournament Challenge - ESPN - PGR Bracket

The QS Rankings (i.e., the "Quirky Silliness" rankings) are back! And they're still basically bullshit!

The QS folks were booted by the Times Higher Education folks awhile back, partly for methodological reasons, and perhaps partly because their business model is dubious and full of conflicts of interest (see also).  We've commented on the "Quirky Silliness" rankings before: see here, here, here, and here. 

In any case, the new rankings are out, and the 2017 edition includes a "world" ranking for philosophy, based on some meaningless, non-academic factors, but several putatively academic considerations.   We noted several years ago the disreputable method by which QS rounded up evaluators, but things appear to have gotten better in the interim.  I have filled out these surveys several years running now, including this year.  QS still uses a foolish methodology, in which evaluators are to name top programs in the specialty, meaning the ultimate rank is determined by the dumbest evaluator (e.g., the one who forgot to list NYU among the top 10 or 15 programs in the field).  The resulting academic reputation scores are a weird artifact of (1) some actual knowledge on the part of evaluators; (2) pure halo effect (e.g., Oxford has an academic reputation score of 90.2, Cambridge 89.0, even though Oxford is dramatically stronger than Cambridge, and Cambridge is not better than, e.g., Princeton [see below]); and (3) the geographic and institutional distribution of evaluators, which QS still does not disclose, which is absurd.   Here is the "academic reputation" of the top 20 U.S. programs according to QS:

1.  University of Pittsburgh (100)

2.  New York University (92.5)

3.  Rutgers University, New Brunswick (92.4)

4.  Harvard University (88.7)

5.  University of California, Berkeley (86.2)

6.  Princeton University (85.8)

7.  University of Notre Dame (84.0)

8.  Stanford University (83.4)

9.  Yale University (82.8)

10. University of Chicago (79.7)

11. Columbia University (79.6)

12. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (79.1)

13. University of California, Los Angeles (77.9)

14. Massachussetts Institute of Technology (77.8)

15. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (76.1)

16. City University of New York (71.6)

17. Boston University (70.6)

18. Boston College (69.2)

19. Cornell University (66.5)

20. University of California, San Diego (64.9)

While in the past, NYU and Rutgers did not do well in the academic reputation component, that has changed, correctly.   I infer from the results that QS got a high response rate from philosophers in Germany--thus programs with faculty with a strong presence in Germany (like Pittsburgh [e.g., Robert Brandom], Chicago [e.g., Robert Pippin[, and BU [e.g., Manfred Kuehn] did surprisingly well.  (German programs also score quite highly, which confirms my suspicion.)   Throughout large parts of the world, the local Catholic or "Pontifical" University is often a major center of research excellence, and so I surmise many evalautors are solicited from those schools--which would explain the surprisingly strong showings of Notre Dame and, especially, Boston College.  Obviously top and somewhat narrowly "analytic" programs like Michigan and UCLA do not do as well as they should, presumably because they lack visibility in other parts of the world. 

Even weirder are the results for "citations per paper":

Choosing between graduate programs: overall vs. specialty standing

MOVING TO FRONT FROM 2/26/13, SINCE IT IS THAT TIME OF YEAR!  (And see this related thread from 2011.)

A prospective PhD student writes:

I had a question for you about choosing a graduate program in philosophy, once one has received offers. I thought this might foster a good discussion on your blog, but of course I would like to get your input as well. If you do post this on your blog for discussion, I would like to remain anonymous.

I've received two offers thus far that are competing for my top choice of program. The first is a top-10 program at a top-quality research institution (which will of course manifest itself with the nebulous "prestige" factor, generous funding, light teaching load, better travel opportunities, etc) with strengths broadly similar to mine, while the second is a top-25 program at a strong research institution (second-tier, perhaps) and is an undisputed leader in a couple of pretty specialized fields that are of interest to me. Moreover, the second program is reputed to have a very productive learning environment and great student/faculty relations (jury is out on the first program until I visit soon). In terms of job placement, the former of course has a strong placement record, while the latter has a strong placement record for those who remain within its specialization and work with the program's top philosophers. Given that my interests may change during graduate school (as I hear they often do), what additional considerations should I be making, and can you offer any advice?

My own advice was that if the financial aid packages were comparable (a really key question, in my view), and if the student was fairly confident about his interests, then going to the "top 25" program would make good sense (esp. since it wasn't clear to me the "top 10" program was actually as good in some of the areas the student was interested in--to protect anonymity, I can't disclose those; just to be clear, Chicago is not one of the programs the student is considering).   If others have thoughts on this kind of question, comments are open.  Signed comments will be preferred, though students may post anonymously, but must include a valid e-mail address, that will not appear.

Blast from the past: "A Quick Guide to the [2010] NRC Rankings"

They're still the only ones around.