Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

Reader mail

From a young philosopher in Europe:

Your blog and Gourmet Report have helped me a lot over the years. They guided my grad school applications and final decision and are probably a large part of why I'm employed today. I don't always agree with everything you say, but I applaud you for saying it and for using your position and power to defend some of the saner positions in the profession that many junior people feel too professionally vulnerable to voice.

I am grateful for such missives.  Thank you!

Best 'general' journals of philosophy, 2018

636 votes in our latest poll, on the best "general" journals of philosophy (those that publish in multiple areas).  The "top 20" are bolded--beyond that the results are even less meaningful I expect.   Recall that The Monist was wrongly omitted from the poll, and might have made the top 20.  I suspect that among readers of this blog there is probably some bias in favor of on-line, open access journals, which might help Philosopher's Imprint and Ergo, although the former has performed strongly in these polls for many years now.   Comments are open for readers to identify other journals that should have been included or to otherwise comment on the results.   (Submit comments only once, they may take awhile to appear.)

1. Philosophical Review  (Condorcet winner: wins contests with all other choices)

2. Mind  loses to Philosophical Review by 371–165

3. Nous  loses to Philosophical Review by 386–153, loses to Mind by 272–256

4. Journal of Philosophy  loses to Philosophical Review by 397–133, loses to Nous by 326–206

5. Philosophy & Phenomenological Research  loses to Philosophical Review by 420–121, loses to Journal of Philosophy by 303–231

6. Australasian Journal of Philosophy  loses to Philosophical Review by 466–82, loses to Philosophy & Phenomenological Research by 433–115

7. Philosopher's Imprint  loses to Philosophical Review by 462–77, loses to Australasian Journal of Philosophy by 299–227

8. Philosophical Studies  loses to Philosophical Review by 476–72, loses to Philosopher's Imprint by 282–245

9. Philosophical Quarterly  loses to Philosophical Review by 475–59, loses to Philosophical Studies by 303–206

10. Analysis  loses to Philosophical Review by 489–62, loses to Philosophical Quarterly by 279–236

11. Synthese  loses to Philosophical Review by 499–60, loses to Analysis by 366–159

12. Canadian Journal of Philosophy  loses to Philosophical Review by 508–31, loses to Synthese by 311–191

13. Erkenntnis  loses to Philosophical Review by 501–45, loses to Canadian Journal of Philosophy by 253–216

14. American Philosophical Quarterly  loses to Philosophical Review by 502–30, loses to Erkenntnis by 253–218

15. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly  loses to Philosophical Review by 513–23, loses to American Philosophical Quarterly by 233–195

16. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society  loses to Philosophical Review by 512–25, loses to Pacific Philosophical Quarterly by 247–213

17. Ergo  loses to Philosophical Review by 491–38, loses to Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society by 246–217

18. European Journal of Philosophy  loses to Philosophical Review by 491–47, loses to Ergo by 241–203

19. Journal of the American Philosophical Association  loses to Philosophical Review by 489–30, loses to European Journal of Philosophy by 244–199

20. Thought  loses to Philosophical Review by 511–15, loses to Journal of the American Philosophical Association by 226–193

21. Philosophical Perspectives  loses to Philosophical Review by 503–13, loses to Thought by 198–196

22. Inquiry  loses to Philosophical Review by 502–21, loses to Philosophical Perspectives by 192–178

23. Dialectica  loses to Philosophical Review by 504–25, loses to Inquiry by 206–171

24. Analytic Philosophy  loses to Philosophical Review by 498–21, loses to Dialectica by 196–171

25. Ratio  loses to Philosophical Review by 505–17, loses to Analytic Philosophy by 186–184

26. Midwest Studies in Philosophy  loses to Philosophical Review by 500–13, loses to Ratio by 198–163

27. Philosophical Issues  loses to Philosophical Review by 498–11, loses to Midwest Studies in Philosophy by 191–167

28. Philosophical Topics  loses to Philosophical Review by 499–5, loses to Philosophical Issues by 187–120

29. Philosophy  loses to Philosophical Review by 499–9, loses to Philosophical Topics by 198–126

30. Southern Journal of Philosophy  loses to Philosophical Review by 507–16, loses to Philosophy by 178–149

31. Metaphilosophy  loses to Philosophical Review by 494–16, loses to Southern Journal of Philosophy by 175–147

32. Philosophia  loses to Philosophical Review by 504–5, loses to Metaphilosophy by 173–109

33. Res Philosophica  loses to Philosophical Review by 500–6, loses to Philosophia by 150–115

34. Review of Metaphysics  loses to Philosophical Review by 498–13, loses to Res Philosophica by 139–128

35. International Philosophical Quarterly  loses to Philosophical Review by 485–14, loses to Review of Metaphysics by 179–9

 

 

 

 

 

The best "generalist" philosophy journals: a new poll

MOVING TO FRONT FROM NOVEMBER 6--POLL CLOSES TOMORROW

35 choices of Anglophone journals that publish in multiple areas of philosophy (e.g., philosophy of language and mind, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of science, ethics, political philosophy, history of philosophy:  all these journals publish in many, but not necessarily all, of these areas).  Have fun!

UPDATE:  Alas, I realize I omitted The Monist, which didn't make the top 20 last time, but still, should have been part of this poll.   Let me also mention, again, that the more journals you rank, the more impact your vote has.  Simply picking your 2 or 3 favorites will have little effects on the final results.

ADDENDUM:  I will eliminate journals from the final results if there is evidence in the detailed breakdown of votes of strategic voting.   That wasn't the case for Ethical Theory and Moral Practice in the last poll, but there is one journal where that concern is arising in the current poll.  (Also, if anyone sees efforts on social media to mobilize votes for particular journals, please let me know:  I will eliminate those journals as well from the results.)

The best journals specializing in moral and/or political philosophy

So with over 310 votes in our last poll, here are the results (the top 20 are bolded):

1. Ethics  (Condorcet winner: wins contests with all other choices)

2. Philosophy & Public Affairs  loses to Ethics by 201–60

3. Journal of Political Philosophy  loses to Ethics by 243–18, loses to Philosophy & Public Affairs by 217–41

4. Journal of Moral Philosophy  loses to Ethics by 253–13, loses to Journal of Political Philosophy by 147–77

5. Utilitas  loses to Ethics by 246–16, loses to Journal of Moral Philosophy by 131–104

6. Oxford Studies in Metaethics  loses to Ethics by 245–14, loses to Utilitas by 114–108

7. Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy  loses to Ethics by 254–10, loses to Oxford Studies in Metaethics by 110–109

8. Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics  loses to Ethics by 249–13, loses to Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy by 121–97

9. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice  loses to Ethics by 250–21, loses to Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics by 118–116

10. Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy  loses to Ethics by 245–10, loses to Ethical Theory and Moral Practice by 129–95

11. Politics, Philosophy & Economics  loses to Ethics by 246–8, loses to Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy by 100–96

12. Economics & Philosophy  loses to Ethics by 236–14, loses to Politics, Philosophy & Economics by 109–72

13. Journal of Applied Philosophy  loses to Ethics by 245–15, loses to Economics & Philosophy by 99–88

14. Journal of Ethics  loses to Ethics by 249–13, loses to Journal of Applied Philosophy by 105–92

15. Social Theory & Practice  loses to Ethics by 249–13, loses to Journal of Ethics by 112–94

16. Social Philosophy & Policy  loses to Ethics by 246–9, loses to Social Theory & Practice by 109–72

17. Journal of Social Philosophy  loses to Ethics by 247–8, loses to Social Philosophy & Policy by 88–85

18. Journal of Value Inquiry  loses to Ethics by 249–12, loses to Journal of Social Philosophy by 96–87

19. Political Theory  loses to Ethics by 240–10, loses to Journal of Social Philosophy by 86–84

20. Public Affairs Quarterly  loses to Ethics by 242–12, loses to Political Theory by 101–73

21. Res Publica  loses to Ethics by 245–11, loses to Public Affairs Quarterly by 89–83

22. Bioethics  loses to Ethics by 233–14, loses to Res Publica by 88–80

23. American Journal of Bioethics  loses to Ethics by 230–14, loses to Bioethics by 83–55

24. Hastings Center Report  loses to Ethics by 229–9, loses to American Journal of Bioethics by 81–51

25. Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal  loses to Ethics by 233–10, loses to Hastings Center Report by 64–57

A couple of observations of my own.   The top four are pretty solidly the top four:  each outperformed the next closest journal by a wide margin.  Special kudos to Robert Goodin (founding editor of J. of Polit Phil) and Thom Brooks (founding editor of J. of Moral Phil.) for establishing their journals' reputations so quickly and effectively.  Outside the top four, there is more clustering, with some effective ties.  I was astonished by the strong showing for Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, a journal I don't think I'd ever had occasion to look at--but it may be that it has a higher visibility in Europe, from which, as we know, many readers hail.  Given the number of important papers that have appeared over the years in Social Philosophy & Policy, I'm surprised it didn't land squarely in the top ten:  my guess is this has something to do with the fact that while the papers are ultimately peer-reviewed, it is an invitation-only journal.  Finally, it's striking that the journals specializing in bioethics do not seem to have a strong reputation, compared even to other "applied" journals; that is consistent with my own impression that bioethics is still viewed by many philosophers as a weak field.

Comments from readers?

Which specialty journals publish the best work in moral and/or political philosophy

MOVING TO AGAIN--IF YOU WORK IN MORAL AND/OR POLITICAL, PLEASE VOTE

A new poll, just with specialty journals, including several that were wrongly omitted from the last, more general poll.  One reader who asked for a poll just with the specialty journals wanted something that promotion and tenure committees could point to.  If you work in moral and political philosophy, please vote!  And remember, the more journals you rank, the more impact your individual vote has.

Journals that publish the best work in moral/political philosophy, poll results (Part 1)

Not quite 300 folks voted in last week's poll.  Several readers wrote that they thought it was a mistake to include generalist journals that publish some moral/political papers along with the specialist journals; others pointed out omissions, including Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy, Oxford Studies in Metaethics, Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics, Social Theory & Practice, Res Publica, and Social Philosophy & Policy.  In light of these concerns, I will run a second poll shortly with only specialty journals in moral and/or political philosophy.  But here are the top 25 from the first poll (I've put an * next to those journals that are specialty journals in these areas):

1. *Ethics  (Condorcet winner: wins contests with all other choices)

2. *Philosophy & Public Affairs  loses to Ethics by 151–66

3. Philosophical Review  loses to Ethics by 180–29, loses to Philosophy & Public Affairs by 147–60

4. Journal of Philosophy  loses to Ethics by 200–18, loses to Philosophical Review by 102–58

5. Nous  loses to Ethics by 195–18, loses to Journal of Philosophy by 93–72

6. Philosophy & Phenomenological Research  loses to Ethics by 200–18, loses to Nous by 86–76

7. Mind  loses to Ethics by 195–16, loses to Philosophy & Phenomenological Research by 84–77

8. *Journal of Political Philosophy  loses to Ethics by 202–20, loses to Mind by 99–86

9. Philosophical Studies  loses to Ethics by 210–11, loses to Journal of Political Philosophy by 104–85

10. Australasian Journal of Philosophy  loses to Ethics by 209–14, loses to Philosophical Studies by 101–62

11. Philosopher's Imprint  loses to Ethics by 205–12, loses to Australasian Journal of Philosophy by 84–82

12. *Journal of Moral Philosophy  loses to Ethics by 212–13, loses to Philosopher's Imprint by 90–84

13. *Utilitas  loses to Ethics by 207–15, loses to Journal of Moral Philosophy by 102–75

14. Philosophical Quarterly  loses to Ethics by 206–14, loses to Utilitas by 88–81

15. *Ethical Theory and Moral Practice  loses to Ethics by 213–14, loses to Philosophical Quarterly by 92–84

16. *Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy  loses to Ethics by 211–10, loses to Ethical Theory and Moral Practice by 96–76

17. *Politics, Philosophy & Economics  loses to Ethics by 203–15, loses to Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy by 94–80

18. Canadian Journal of Philosophy  loses to Ethics by 212–6, loses to Politics, Philosophy & Economics by 84–79

19. *Journal of Ethics  loses to Ethics by 210–10, loses to Canadian Journal of Philosophy by 96–70

20. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society  loses to Ethics by 210–8, loses to Journal of Ethics by 89–73

21. American Philosophical Quarterly  loses to Ethics by 202–11, loses to Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society by 72–66

22. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly  loses to Ethics by 208–6, loses to American Philosophical Quarterly by 69–54

23. European Journal of Philosophy  loses to Ethics by 208–12, loses to Pacific Philosophical Quarterly by 72–63

24. Ratio  loses to Ethics by 211–10, loses to European Journal of Philosophy by 71–70

25. *Journal of Value Inquiry  loses to Ethics by 209–10, loses to Ratio by 83–52

2018-19 update of the PGR's top U.S. philosophy programs: changes to the tenured faculties (UPDATED)

MOVING TO FRON FROM SEPTEMBER 5

This is a summary of changes at the tenured ranks at the top 50 PhD programs in the 2017 Philosophical Gourmet Report; more precisely, these are changes that were not reflected in the faculty lists evaluators saw for the 2017 PGR surveys (some moves that weren't official until 2018 were reflected in the faculty lists).

Rutgers University, New Brunswick (#2 in 2017 PGR):  hired Karen Bennett (metaphysics) from Cornell and Brian Leftow (philosophy of religion, medieval philosophy) from Oxford University.  Rutgers was already tops in metaphysics, and will now be close to tops in philosophy of religion as well.  Because these appointments play to strengths, they will not do much to close the gap with #1 NYU, which is still broader in its coverage of philosophy, especially history of philosophy, including the post-Kantian Continental traditions.

Princeton University (#3 in 2017 PGR):  hired Andrew Chignell (Kant, philosophy of religion) (primary appointments in Religion and Center for Human Values) from the University of Pennsylvania; will definitely boost Princeton's specialty ranking in Kant and maybe also philosophy of religion.

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (#4 in 2017 PGR):  lost Maria Lasonen-Aarnio (epistemology) to Helsinki.

University of Pittsburgh (#4 in 2017 PGR):  hired Ann Cudd (political philosophy, philosophy of economics, decision theory) as Provost from Boston University; and Nandi Theunissen (ethics, metaethics) from Johns Hopkins University.  Pitt lost Michael Caie (philosophical logic, philosophy of language, formal epistemology) and (untenured) Jessica Gelber (ancient Greek and Roman philosophy) to the University of Toronto.

Yale University (#6 in 2017 PGR):  hired L.A. (Laurie) Paul (metaphysics, philosophy of cognitive science, formal epistemology) from North Carolina; Yale may crack the "top 5" overall again.

Columbia University (#9 in 2017 PGR):  hired Jenann Ismael (philosophy of science and physics, metaphysics, philosophy of mind) from the University of Arizona; likely to push Columbia into a tie with MIT and USC at #7.

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (#14 in 2017 PGR):  lost L.A. (Laurie) Paul (metaphysics, philosophy of cognitive science, formal epistemology) to Yale; Thomas E. Hill, Jr. (ethics, Kant), who had been on phased retirement, has now officially reteired.  Hired Sarah Stroud (ethics) from McGill University, who will also direct the Parr Center for Ethics.  UNC is likely to slip a bit in the overall rankings, though will surely remain in the top 20.

Penn Philosophy will not require GRE for PhD applicants this year

Michael Weisberg, Chair of the Department, invited me to share this announcement:

The University of Pennsylvania's Department of Philosophy will not require PhD program applicants to submit GRE scores this year. In fact, we will not look at them even if an applicant submits them. We reached this decision unanimously after considering that: The GRE can be financially burdensome for low-income applicants ($205 for the general test in the USA, only 50% of which is waivable by the ETS, plus the non-waivable $27 per school to send your scores to after 4 schools) and offer unfair advantages to wealthy applicants (e.g. ETS offers a score review service for an extra fee and Kaplan offers test prep services for a fee that isn't entirely waivable). Second, GRE scores do not, in general, accurately predict academic performance in graduate school (e.g. Q,V, & AGRE scores explain only 4.4-7.8% of graduate GPA variance according to replicated studies). Third, significant gaps in GRE performances by women and underrepresented racial and ethnic minorities made it especially difficult for them to be accepted, even though their scores sometimes dramatically underpredicted their academic performances in our program. Fourth, in our judgment, nothing of significant epistemic value was gained by our use of the GRE that we couldn't figure out from looking at transcripts, writing samples, etc. Our deadline for applications is December 15th.

Claremont Graduate University shuts its philosophy department, and two tenured faculty will be terminated!

MOVING TO FRONT FROM JUNE 7--SEE THE LATEST COMMENT BY PROFESSOR YAMADA; HE AND PROF. YOUNG HAVE BOTH BEEN FIRED

The Claremont colleges in Southern California--Pomona, Scripps, Harvey Mudd, Claremont-McKenna, and Pitzer--boast an impressive aggregated philosophy faculty, in addition to beautiful campuses and excellent undergraduates.  (The Claremont colleges are the Amherst/Haverford/Bryn Mawr/Colgate/Hamilton of the West Coast.)  I did not know that the PhD program in philosophy, part of the Claremont Graduate University, had additional faculty, but I've now learned that the Claremont Graduate University will be closing the PhD program and terminating two tenured faculty!  One, Charles Young, a specialist in ancient philosophy, may have the reasonable option to retire, but the other, Masahiro Yamada (epistemology), a tenured associate professor (with a family), will need to find a new position.  This presents a real opportunity for other departments to hire an accomplished young scholar!

If anyone has more information, comments are open.  (This is summer, and I am paying less attention to the blog, so please be patient about comment moderation.)

UPDATE:  Please see the additional information supplied by Professor Yamada in the comments, below.

ANOTHER:  Philosopher Zach Barnett (who is joining the faculty at the National University of Singapore this fall) writes:  "Masahiro Yamada was one of my thesis readers when I was a student at Pomona College, and he supported me in applying to graduate school. Actually, that's an understatement – he read countless versions of my writing sample, and when I wrote to him in a panic at the final hour, he called me up on New Year's Eve, calmed me down, and helped me put the finishing touches on my application.  I always hate to see philosophers affected by these sorts of cuts, but it is especially hard to see it happening to such a great philosopher/person."

Kurth from Wash U/St. Louis to Western Michigan

Charlie Kurth (ethics, metaethics, moral psychology), Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Washington University, St. Louis, has accepted appointment as Associate Professor of Philosophy at Western Michigan University, which has long had a notable terminal MA program--and this appointment is certainly a big catch for them.

Blast from the past: the failed 2014 attempt to take down the Philosophical Gourmet Report

The comments make interesting reading several years later, now that Carrie Jenkins, Alan Richardson et al. have been exposed.

Deciding between graduate school in philosophy and law school

A recent philosophy graduate gave me permission to share his questions, which might be of interest to others:

I am currently deciding between graduate school in philosophy (I graduated in honors philosophy from [school name omitted] in 2015) and law school. In the long run I am considering whether to pursue philosophical or legal academia. I have benefitted greatly from your advice to prospective philosophy graduate students and prospective law school students with philosophical interests on Leiter Reports. Since I have a couple of questions that as far as I can see have not been directly discussed in a Leiter Report blog post I thought I would email them to you in case you have the time to answer them.

1. My primary area of philosophical interest is political philosophy. In the spirit of your post on the difference between the study of political philosophy in political science and philosophy departments, I am wondering about the difference between working in political philosophy in a law school or in a philosophy department. What would you say are the most significant differences that someone considering both options should take into account?

2. a. If one were to plan on obtaining a philosophy PhD and a JD separately in order to pursue legal academia, is there a significant difference academically in doing one of them first? For instance, would there be a significant impact on one's study of the subjects themselves? on job market chances?

b. If there is, is one course of study preferable? In other words, is it more beneficial to come to the study of law with significant training in relevant philosophical areas (political, moral, epistemology), or to come to the study of philosophy with philosophical questions arising from one’s study of law?

Here are my answers:

1.  At many good law schools (see this section of the PGR), there are serious opportunities to study political philosophy, but even at the best law schools, given that most of your studies will not be philosophy-related, you can't get adequate training to do professional work.  At best, you can acquire competence with themes, authors, and arguments, but you won't emerge as a political philosopher with a JD only.

2a.  I've known students who have done it in both directions, and had good success at it.  PhD programs seem, in recent years, to be keen to admit those with a good JD record, but those who come to the JD with a PhD in philosophy already have a set of intellectual and disciplinary skills that can help them thrive and do quite well in law school.

2b.  I don't think there's a one approach fits all answer to this question.  But I'm opening comments for thoughts from other readers.

 

 

The Leiter top ten in philosophy

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

Where tenure-stream faculty at the U.S. top 20 (2017-18) got their PhDs

This is where all tenure-stream faculty (junior and senior) at the PGR top 20 programs for 2017-18 earned their PhDs.  Remember that Harvard and Princeton were the top departments in the country from the mid-1950s through the 1980s (Harvard for much longer than that before, though Harvard declined more than Princeton in the 1990s); in the 1990s, first Rutgers, then NYU emerged as dominant programs.  MIT's PhD program began in the early 1960s, and was a top ten program from the start (early faculty included Hilary Putnam and John Rawls); Pittsburgh emerged as a philosophy powerhouse in the early 1960s as well.  Michigan had a top ten, often top five, PhD program from the 1950s onwards.  UCLA emerged in the 1950s (first with Hans Reichenbach, then Rudolf Carnap, Richard Montague and others) as a major PhD program, while Berkeley became a more prominent player in the field in the 1960s.  Yale went from top ten status in the 1950s, through many years of conflict and decline, before reemerging in the 1990s as a major PhD program.   Cornell was one of the top ten programs from the 1950s until the early 1990s.  Columbia, like Yale, had ups and downs, sometimes in the top ten, sometimes not even in the top twenty.  Chicago was a solidly top ten program during the time Donald Davidson was on the faculty (1976-1981), and a top 15-20 program most of the rest of the time.  Stanford has been a top ten program since the 1960s, with Patrick Suppes and a young Donald Davidson, among others.

Programs are ranked by the total number of graduates in tenure-stream positions in the current U.S. top twenty, though I also note the number of those faculty who are untenured but on tenure-track; in ten years time, Rutgers and NYU will be giving Harvard and Oxford a run for the money (probably Berkeley too).

1.  Princeton University (55 total, 7 currently junior)

2.  Harvard University (43 total, 4 currently junior)

3.  Massachussetts Institute of Technology (31 total, 5 currently junior)

4.  Oxford University (24 total, 3 currently junior)

4.  University of California, Berkeley (24 total, 7 currently junior)

Two senior hires for St Andrews: Dickie from Toronto, Berto from Amsterdam

The Department of Philosophy at the University of St Andrews has announced two senior hires:  Francesco Berto (logic, philosophy of logic, metaphysics) will join St Andrews in the summer of 2018 from the University of Amsterdam; while Imogen Dickie (philosophy of language, mind and action; epistemology) will join St Andrews in summer 2019 from the University of Toronto.  The St Andrews/Stirling joint program ranked 3rd in the U.K. in the most recent PGR surveys, before these hires with a score of 3.4, trailing Cambridge at 3.6.  It's possible these new senior appointments would push the program into a tie at 2nd with Cambridge.

MIT's ups and downs in the Philosophical Gourmet Report

I recently had a bizarre exchange on social media with an MIT PhD about the fluctuating fortunes of MIT in recent iterations of the PGR.  Much of the exchange was based in ignorance:  the young philosopher who was puzzled by MIT's drop from 7 to 13 between 2011 and 2014 (it jumped back to 7 in 2017 after several appointments) attributed the drop--bizarrely but consistently with the mystical views of cause and effect in certain segments of the 'profession'--to the "Leiter vs. Haslanger and feminist philosophers" dispute in 2014 (I guess meaning things like this and this).  How this was supposed to work was puzzling:  was it that voters scored MIT more lowly because Haslanger was on the wrong side of a dispute with me?  That seems unlikely, to put it mildly.  The simpler explanation, which I pointed out, was that between 2011 and 2014, MIT lost three senior faculty, Richard Holton, Rae Langton, and Robert Stalnaker (to retirement).  It was objected, reasonably but again reflecting ignorance, that Stalnaker didn't retire until 2016.  That's true, but Stalnaker was listed in the 2014 survey as on phased retirement ending in 2016--so evaluators unsurprisingly discounted Stalnaker, who simply wouldn't be availabale as an advisor for PhD students beginning their studies in fall 2015.  Since 2014, MIT made several new appointments as well as tenurings and promotions, bouncing them back into the top ten.

In general, when people puzzle about changes in the rankings, it often turns out that their puzzlement is due to not being aware of relevant facts.  Hopefully the new PGR will get on-line the faculty lists evaluators used, which may help dispel some of the mysteries.

Philosophical Gourmet Report in the real world

LSE for example.

PGR haters seem more unhinged this time around

I assume it's because the fake 2014 controversy failed to derail the PGR as intended:  not only did the 2014 PGR appear, the 2017 PGR has appeared, and with even higher rates of participation (and Wiley-Blackwell has even contracted for two more iterations over the next six or seven years).   So this is obviously frustrating to the self-serving liars who would benefit from the PGR going away.  Even more aggravating for the haters, I suspect, is that none of the "suggestions" made for changing the PGR were taken, exactly as I  predicted some time ago.   An indication of their disconnect from reality is that Brian "I make things up" Bruya recently surfaced on social media to declare that having been exposed as an incompetent fraud was actually a 'badge of honor" proving the soundness of his criticisms of the PGR!  On Twitter--the ideal forum for blowing smoke--Aaron Thomas-Bolduc from the University of Calgary replied to my tweet that the PGR measures quality not quantity (in response to someone who thought the more "specialists" in an area the more deserving the program of accolades) with an incisive "hahahahaha."  When asked, however, to name the programs that had not been correctly evaluated in terms of their quality, he could not name any.  For those who want to be amused, I post the exchange below the break: 

Web of Science's "global reputation" surveys

These are much better done than the Quirky Silliness rankings, though not as detailed in the published results (there is on separate philosophy listing).  See also the discussion of the University of Tokyo, which highlights the perils of world reputation surveys.

PhilJobs is starting to fill up with junior appointments news

Here.

Breaking news: philosophers from unranked programs in their specialties think the PGR is...

..."unreliable," "weird," "misleading."  I gather a team of crack psychologists is working on a study to try to explain what's going on here.  It is mysterious.

19th-century Continental philosophy in the new PGR

The PGR has always given substantial attention to the Continental traditions in post-Kantian philosophy, reporting, much to the self-interested consternation of those affected, the generally low opinion philosophers hold of the SPEP departments that would like to maintain an exclusive claim to these areas.  But the SPEP partisans are tireless in promoting the canard that the PGR neglects the Continental traditions, even though it is obvious to anyone who looks that the reverse is the case.

This year, we had a large and diverse grew of evaluators for 19th-century Continental philosophy; I've added their institutional affiliation:  Mark Alznauer (Northwestern), Jessica Berry (Georgia State), Lee Braver (South Florida), Taylor Carman (Barnard/Columbia), Maudemarie Clark (UC Riverside), Steven Crowell (Rice), Sebastian Gardner (UCL), Ken Gemes (Birkbeck), Gary Gutting (Notre Dame), Paul Guyer (Brown), Michael Hardimon (UC San Diego), Stephen Houlgate (Warwick), Andrew Huddleston (Birkbeck), Scott Jenkins (Kansas), Peter Kail (Oxford), Paul Katsafanas (BU), Pierre Keller (UC Riverside), Brian Leiter (Chicago), Yitzhak Melamed (Johns Hopkins), Dean Moyar (Johns Hopkins), Andreja Novakovic (UC Riverside), Brian O’Connor (Univ College Dublin), Michael Rosen (Harvard), Iain Thomson (New Mexico), Somogy Varga (Memphis), Georgia Warnke (UC Riverside), Eric Watkins (UC San Diego), Allen Wood (Indiana), Mark Wrathall (Oxford).

Probably the biggest divide among scholars who work on 19th-century Continental philosophy is between those whose focus is primarily on German Idealism, and those whose focus is more on Schopenhauer and Nietzsche.  Fortunately, we had a good mix here:  in the former group, we have Alznauer, Gardner, Guyer, Houlgate, Keller, Melamed, Moyar, Novakovic, Rosen, Watkins, and Wood, among others; in the latter group, Clark, Gemes, Huddleston, and Kail, among others.  And several evaluators cut across these figures (e.g., Braver, Jenkins, Hardimon, among others). 

Below the fold, the results followed by some comments:

Kant in the new PGR

The Kant evaluators were a mix of leading figures in Kant studies (e.g., Guyer, Keller, Pereboom, Proops, Watkins, Wood, among others) and leading historians of modern philosophy whose work intersects with Kant (e.g., Clark, Garber, McCann, Rosen, among others).

The results, below the fold, are followed by some comments:

Does the gender of the evaluators affect PGR results?

No.  In the various studies of prior iterations of the report, no gender effect has ever been found.  I would be surprised if that were different this time.  Some areas of specialization do affect the overall results (e.g., those who do 20th-century Continental or philosophy of language tend to overvalue those areas in doing the overall assessments).  Despite that, in every past iteration of the PGR, and I am pretty sure in this new one (2017-18) too, women are invited to be evaluators at a higher rate than men (relative to their numbers in the profession).  Although I do not know the results for this year, I do know that in past years, women tended to decline the invitation at a slightly higher rate than men.

Job seekers: please post your appointment information...

...at the PhilJobs site.  In addition to the USC placements noted this morning, I've heard of Stanford hiring PhDs from NYU and Berkeley, and Cornell hiring a Berkeley PhD.  There are unconfirmed rumors about others.

PGR rank and job placement: a case study

Take a look at USC's 2018 placements so far (two top PhD programs, two top liberal arts colleges).  These students would have been choosing grad school around the time USC ranked 11th overall (circa 2011) (and even then it was near the top in several relevant specialties that these students work in).  Although some folks try to create a misimpression, the fact is that faculty reputation continues to track, as it always has, job placement, especially for the most competitive positions.

UPDATE:  The Princeton appointment is not in Philosophy, but in Politics and the University Center for Human Values (still a great gig!).

Philosophy of mathematics in the new PGR, and a word about evaluators

For many years, the PGR was a beneficiary of the generous IT support I have enjoyed teaching in law schools.  But since I am (blessedly) no longer responsible for producing the PGR, the survey platform changed with the help of the IT support at Western Illinois University available to Professor Pynes.  The new format had a number of advantages, but one (possible) disadvantage:  namely, that all evaluators saw all specialty areas.  Evaluators were advised that their names would appear with any area they evaluated (one disincentive, it was hoped, to evaluating fields where the evaluator lacked competence), but Professors Brogaard and Pynes, with help from me, went through the raw data and removed evaluators who, it seemed, had over-estimated their competence.  That was a bit time-consuming, but essential for the soundness of the results.

It is predictable that the appearance of new rankings will produce the usual round of ill-informed gripes and complaints, so perhaps in this, and subsequent posts, I can preempt some of them.  Below the fold are the rankings for Philosophy of Mathematics:

Evaluators for the specialty rankings

As of this morning, there now appears a list of names of evaluators under each specialty (unfortunately, they are not labelled as the evaluators, but that's who they are).

Much (but not all) of the Philosophical Gourmet Report for 2017-18 is now live

So the notice about breach of contract I sent Wiley-Blackwell last night had a salutary effect (I sent it after posting this, since I was annoyed about the delay which violated the terms of the contract), namely, that much of the material that Berit Brogaard and Christopher Pynes sent to them in January is now live!  (I assume Sally Haslanger and David Velleman, or others who publish private e-mails, will post this one before long!)   Revisions will be occurring over the next week--for example, the evaluators in each specialty area are not listed yet (though the full list of evaluators is available). The default setting, currently, on the specialty rankings is just for the first four programs listed; that will change, but readers should choose "50" to make sure they see the full array of programs, ranked by rounded mean (not ordinally).

In any case, thanks to the good efforts and hard work of Professors Brogaard and Pynes, as well as the contributions of hundreds of philosophers, the key evaluative data is now available for students (and faculty).  I'll post more about the results over the coming weeks.

PGR, again

I've now had an update from Christopher Pynes about the new PGR, which, in fact, is done, and been in the hands of Wiley-Blackwell for five weeks (or more, in the case of some parts of the PGR).    Despite representations, it probably will not be live tomorrow.  If it is not live Monday, then we will begin publishing more portions here, unless my lawyers say we can't.  I apologize to all the students waiting for the results, but the fault lies not with the editors, but with Wiley-Blackwell.

The QS--i.e., "the Quirky Silliness"--rankings are back...

...for 2018.  QS is a shady operation, as I've discussed at CHE (or see this earlier discussion), and the rankings incorporate a lot of noise/nonsense that is irrelevant for those choosing PhD programs (e.g., "employer reputation," which just reinforces the halo effect of their method of surveying academic reputation).  The real difficulty is that they do not disclose the georaphic distribution of the philosophy evaluators or even their identities, but the former surely explains all the oddities.  Pittsburgh's strong showing, together with the implausibly strong showing of several German departments that do not really compete with the very top North American and U.K. programs suggests that a disproportionately large number of respondents are German academics (Pittsburgh has a very high profile in Germany).  They also don't disclose the faculty lists on which they based, e.g., the citation studies; I strongly suspect they are not doing a very good job discriminating between active and retired faculty, or philosophy versus non-philosophy faculty.

New PGR for 2017-18 should be out next week

That's the jist of a short note I got from Professor Pynes, after he finally heard back from Wiley-Blackwell.  Apparently the redesign of the site has delayed things, but it looks like it should be live some time next week (i.e., during the week of March 5).

Uninformative PGR update

I know that PGR co-editor Christopher Pynes recently asked Wiley-Blackwell about the production schedule; under the terms of the contract, as I understood it, it really should have been on-line by now.  I hope it will be on-line imminently.  I've asked Professor Pynes to post an update when he has more concrete information.

Stroud from McGill to North Carolina

Sarah Stroud (ethics), Professor of Philosophy at McGill University, has accepted appointment as Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Parr Center for Ethics at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill beginning in the 2018-19 academic year.

Philosophical Gourmet Report, 2017-18, forthcoming

I know Christopher and Brit have sent most of the materials to Wiley-Blackwell, which is now readying them for the web--so probably by the end of this month, most of the new Report will be live--plus Wiley-Blackwell has proposed a snazzy redesign of the site, which I suspect readers will like.  After the new Report goes live, I'll have more to say about some of the results, especially in the specialty areas.

Top Metaphysics Programs 2017-18 PGR

The full results for the 2017-18 Philosophical Gourmet Report, will appear online soon. Here is a preview of the top eight programs for Metaphysics. For additional PGR related updates, click the PGR Update link.

Metaphysics

Group 1 (1-2) (rounded mean of 5.0) (median, mode)
New York University (5, 5)
Rutgers University, New Brunswick (5, 5)

2017-18 PGR Australasia Top 5

Professor Brogaard and I released the U.S. Top 50 results of the PRG survey, the top 25 programs in the Anglophone word, and the top 15 programs in the U.K.  Below the fold we offer the top 5 programs in Australasia. Like before, the overall mean is listed while the median, mode, and confidence intervals, along with the full results, will be provided on the new Philosophical Gourmet Report site hosted by Wiley-Blackwell.

Professor Brogaard and I released the U.S. Top 50 results of the PRG survey, the top 25 programs in the Anglophone word, and the top 15 programs in the U.K.  Below the fold we offer the top 5 programs in Australasia. Like before, the overall mean is listed while the median, mode, and confidence intervals, along with the full results, will be provided on the new Philosophical Gourmet Report site hosted by Wiley-Blackwell.

Top Metaethics and Moral Psychology Programs 2017-18 PGR

The full results for the 2017-18 Philosophical Gourmet Report, will appear online soon. Here is a preview of the top eight programs for Metaethics and Moral Psychology.

Metaethics and Moral Psychology

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

Princeton University (4.5, 4.5 & 5)
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (4.5, 4.5)
University of Southern California (4.5, 5)

2017-18 PGR Canadian Top 5

Professor Brogaard and I released the U.S. Top 50 results of the PRG survey, the top 25 programs in the Anglophone word, and the top 15 programs in the U.K.  Below the fold we offer the top 5 programs in Canada. Like before, the overall mean is listed while the median, mode, and confidence intervals, along with the full results, will be provided on the new Philosophical Gourmet Report site hosted by Wiley-Blackwell.

Professor Brogaard and I released the U.S. Top 50 results of the PRG survey, the top 25 programs in the Anglophone word, and the top 15 programs in the U.K.  Below the fold we offer the top 5 programs in Canada. Like before, the overall mean is listed while the median, mode, and confidence intervals, along with the full results, will be provided on the new Philosophical Gourmet Report site hosted by Wiley-Blackwell.

Top Ancient Philosophy Programs 2017-18 PGR

The full results for the 2017-18 Philosophical Gourmet Report, will appear online soon. Here is a preview of the “top ten” for Ancient Philosophy.

Ancient Philosophy

Group 1 (1-4) (rounded mean of 4.5) (median, mode)

Oxford University (4.75, 5)
Princeton University (4.5, 4)
University of Toronto (4.5, 5)
Yale University (4.5, 5)

Summer seminar in philosophy at U of Colorado/Boulder...

...for undergraduates thinking about graduate school is now accepting applications.

2017-18 PGR U.K. Top 15

Professor Brogaard and I released the U.S. Top 50 results of the PRG survey and the top 25 programs in the Anglophone word.  Below the fold we offer the top 15 programs in the U.K. Like before, the overall mean is listed while the median, mode, and confidence intervals, along with the full results, will be provided on the new Philosophical Gourmet Report site hosted by Wiley-Blackwell.

Top Philosophy of Physics Programs 2017-18 PGR

The full results for the 2017-18 Philosophical Gourmet Report, will appear online soon. Here is a preview of the “top ten” for Philosophy of Physics.

Philosophy of Physics

Group 1 (1-2) (rounded mean of 5.0) (median, mode)

Oxford University (5, 5)
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (5, 5)

Group 2 (3-6) (rounded mean of 4.5) (median, mode)

New York University (4.5, 4.5)
University of California, Irvine (5, 5)
University of California, San Diego (4.5, 4.5)
University of Southern California (4, 4)

PGR Overall Rankings: from 2006 to 2017 (REVISED AND CORRECTED)

The (revised) chart belows shows the movement in the overall rankings over the last decade (from the 2006 Report), to the new 2017 results that Christopher Pynes revised yesterday last week.

2017-18 PGR U.S. Top 50 Results

Moving to the front from December 7th with an update and corrections due to a transcription error.

Professor Brogaard and I are in the process of cleaning and calculating the results of the PGR survey, the final results of which will be appear at a redesigned PGR site hosted, as before, by Wiley-Blackwell. Since application season is at hand in the U.S., however, we thought it would be useful to share some initial results here: the top 50 programs overall in the U.S. The overall mean is listed while the median, mode, and confidence intervals will be provided on the new PGR site. Additional glimpses of the results will be shared here while Wiley-Blackwell produces the full results. Finally, thank you to the 300 philosophers who participated in this year’s survey.

2017-18 PGR Top 25 Programs in the Anglophone World

Moving to the front from December 14th with an update and correction due to a transcription error.

Professor Brogaard and I released the U.S. Top 50 results of the PRG survey last week. The top 25 programs in the Anglophone word are listed below the fold. Like before the overall mean is listed while the median, mode, and confidence intervals, along with the full results, will be provided on the new PGR site hosted by Wiley-Blackwell.

Blast from the past: Brian Bruya makes things up

Two years ago, I predicted that Bruya's fraudulent and confused criticisms of the PGR and the whole Bruyahaha spectacle (and here) would have no influence on the new PGR, and it didn't.   Meanwhile, Metaphilosophy stands discredited by its handling of the matter, but we did learn a few useful lessons.

Some observations regarding the new PGR "overall" ranking results

The main thing that strikes me in looking at the new U.S. overall "top 50" posted yesterday by Professor Pynes is how almost all the changes from the 2014 Report reflect actual changes in the interim.  For example (and starting near the top and working down):

MIT's move from 13th to 7th:  that's a bit stronger than I would have predicted, but MIT did make two lateral hires in the interim (Tamar Schapiro from Stanford, Miriam Schoenfeld from Texas), as well as junior hires, and two faculty were tenured and/or promoted (Casper Hare, Brad Skow).

USC's move from 8th (tied with Stanford) to 7th (tied with MIT):  I had predicted this awhile ago, based on the senior hire of David Wallace, the philosopher of physics, from Oxford.

Harvard's drop from 6th to 9th:  Christine Korsgaard went on phased retirement, Frances Kamm left for Rutgers, and Matt Boyle left for Chicago.  (Chicago's position was unchanged, as in the interim, Josef Stern retired, and James Conant went to a half-time position while taking up a post at Leipzig).

CUNY's move from 16th to 14th (joining Arizona and North Carolina):  CUNY added Miranda Fricker from Sheffield and Charles Mills from Northwestern in the interim.

UCSD's move from 23rd to 20th (but, more significantly, leaping ahead of Chicago and Wisconsin):  UCSD made several tenured and junior hires in the interim, including the Kant scholar Lucy Allais and the philosopher of action Manuel Vargas (as well as retaining Clinton Tolley [Kant, phenomenology, history of analytic] in the face of a senior offer from Chicago).

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.