Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

PGR Update

Philosophers Berit Brogaard (Miami) and Christopher Pynes (Western Illinois), editors of the PGR, asked me to share the following:

We are working to have a 2021-2022 report available for later this year.  The timeline for the survey isn't fixed yet, but the plan is for it to be early in the fall.  If folks have specific questions, they can email the editors.

Schools with the *most* philosophy majors and the highest percentage of philosophy majors among undergraduates

Fascinating data, courtesy of Professor Schwitzgebel.

Michigan philosophy will not be accepting PhD applications this fall, but will resume accepting applications the following year

Announcement here; they had unexpectedly large yields the last two years, so want to get back to a more normal size for the graduate program.

(Thanks to Abdul Ansari for the pointer.)

Australasian programs in the PGR

Several students have written regarding possible "updates" for Australasian progarms in the 2017 PGR; I apologize that I haven't put together an update similar to others I've done for other regions (with the generous help of Mitchell Barrington).  The top five in 2017 were ANU and Sydney at 1 and 2, and then a drop-off in scores before Monash, Melbourne, and Auckland.  I would expect that order to hold in 2021, but the big change in Australsia is the arrival of the Dianoia Institute of Philosophy at the Australian Catholic University.  ACU could come out as #1 in Australasia, given the strong faculty in M&E broadly speaking that they've put together, but ANU and Sydney will still be stronger for students interested in, e.g., philosophy of the sciences or many parts of value theory.  In any case, I would expect ACU, ANU and Sydney to be the dominant programs in Australasia in the next PGR.   (Readers will recall that Professors Brogaard and Pynes postponed the 2020 PGR due to the pandemic; I have not chatted with them recently about this, but the plan was to try to do a new set of surveys this fall.)

Declining Admissions Offers in a Timely Way

MOVING TO FRONT, SINCE RELEVANT AGAIN (originally posted Mar. 2, 2011)

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

Keith DeRose (Yale) writes:

    Since prospective graduate students read your blog for information and advice on applying to graduate programs, I was wondering whether it might be a good idea for you to run a short post on an important way that applicants can help one another.

     Every year, many applicants get into better programs than they otherwise would have by eventually being accepted by a program that initially put them on a waiting list.  (I myself got into the program I attended off their waiting list.  In fact, I think I was quite a ways down UCLA's waiting list.)  Often, though, the management of waiting lists gets extremely messy, especially right before and on April 15, and the consequences of this messiness are often results that are far from optimal for the students involved.

     I don't think there's any feasible way to completely solve these problems, but the applicants themselves can make things much better for one another by declining offers as soon as they're in a position to, so the programs involved can then go to their waiting lists.

     Sometimes this can be done simply by making one's decision earlier.  Once they have all the relevant information, given it a little chance to sink in, mulled it over a  bit, and talked things over with their advisers, students can often do everyone -- including themselves!-- a favor by making a decision significantly in advance of April 15. 

    However, I realize that for various reasons, some will delay making their decision until the bitter end.  In addition to reasons of personal psychology, sometimes this is done because students are hoping themselves to get into a better program than they've so far been accepted at off of a waiting list.

Deciding Between Admissions Offers: The Importance of Visiting/Talking With Current Students

MOVING TO FRONT FROM LAST YEAR (SINCE TIMELY AGAIN--originally posted March 6, 2009)

Applicants to PhD and MA programs are now receiving offers of admission and, if they are lucky, are beginning to weigh choices between different departments.  I want to reiterate a point made in the PGR, namely, that students are well-advised to talk to current students at the programs they are considering.   There are often things you will want to know that you won't glean from familiarity with the excellence of the faculty's work, even if that remains the most important, if defeasible, reason for choosing a particular department.  Here are some examples of information that no ranking, no departmental brochure, and no "official" departmental representive will tell you about; all of these are drawn from stories I've heard from students over the last few years about ranked departments (the departments will remain unnamed, obviously).  You can think of them as representing "types" of problems you should be aware of before enrolling.  I've tweaked some of the details to protect identities.

The Absent Faculty:  Are the faculty who look so good on paper actually around and interested in working with students?  I heard a story about a key senior person in one department who is an alcoholic, and who simply ignored his students.  In another department, almost all the graduate students had to sign an open letter to the faculty a number of years ago protesting the failure of faculty to return graded papers and their general lack of interest in mentoring the students.   In yet another department, a well-known senior member of the faculty spent so much time travelling and lecturing around the world, that he rarely had time to review or discuss work carefully with students. 

The Sexual Predator Faculty:  Are women treated as young philosophers and aspiring professionals, or do faculty regularly view them as a potential source for dates and sexual liasons?  It's a bit shocking to realize that this is still a live issue in some departments, but, sadly, it is.  Are faculty-student sexual relations common in the department?  What happens when the relations end?  Are there repeated cases of sexual harassment complaints against faculty in the department?  Do they ever result in discipline?  I suppose it is possible this could be an issue for male students, but all the reports I've gotten over the years have been from women victimized by male faculty. 

PhD programs that have suspended admissions for 2020-21

CHE has a comprehensive list.  Humanities fields dominate.

Where should students interested in post-Kantian German Idealism be applying this year in the US...

...given that two strong choices, Columbia and Chicago, have both suspended admissions.  Even if they hadn't, Johns Hopkins would be one of the top choices anyway (Michelle Kosch, Yitzhak Melamed, Dean Moyar), and deserves a serious look from all students interested in post-Kantian Idealism.  Other schools with tenure-stream faculty members (including at least one tenured) working on German Idealism that deserve a look include UC San Diego (Hardimon, Tolley, Watkins), UC Riverside (Keller, Newton), Harvard (Matherne, Rosen), Yale (Franks), Syracuse (Beiser), Northwestern (Alznauer, Zuckert), BU (Sedgwick, Speight, Dahlstrom), Berkeley (Novakovic), Georgetown (Pinkard), Purdue (Yeomans).  (Allen Wood at Indiana tells he may retire in the near future, so I don't think Indiana makes sense any longer.)

ADDENDUM:  Philosopher Karin Nisenbaum (Boston College) informed me that Frederick Beiser at Syracuse is no longer accepting graduate students.  It's also worth noting that Nisenbaum is one of two junior faculty at Boston College (the other is Elisa Magri) working on post-Kantian Idealism.

2020-21 Update for the top ten U.K. schools ranked in the 2017 PGR

MOVING TO FRONT--ORIGINALLY POSTED OCTOBER 14 (changes to:  Leeds)

Since the 2020-21 PGR has been delayed, this is a summary of changes at the tenured (or almost tenured) ranks at the top 10 PhD programs in the United Kingdom since 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 for the 2017 surveys).  (Please e-mail me any corrections or additions, thanks.)   My thanks to Mitchell Barrington for his assistance in compiling this information.  (I will fill out the top 15 from the UK at a later date.)  (The Canadian updates are here, the U.S. updates are here.)

Oxford University (#1 in the UK, #2 in the world):  Added Catherine Abell (philosophy of art) from Manchester; Joel David Hamkins (logic) from CUNY; Nicholas Jones (metaphysics) from Birmingham; Amia Srinivasan (epistemology, social-political philosophy) from UCL; John Tasioulas (ethics, philosophy of law) from King's College, London; and Mark Wynn (philosophy of religion) from  Leeds.  Lost Ralf Bader (Kant, political philosophy, ethics) to Fribourg (Switzerland); John Hyman (philosophy of action and mind) to UCL; Brian Leftow (medieval philosophy, philosophy of religion) to Rutgers.  Stephen Blamey (logic, philosophical logic) and Elizabeth Fricker (epistemology, philosophy of language) retired.  John Gardner (philosophy of law, ethics) passed away.  Will surely remain #1 in the UK, and probably #2 in the world.

Cambridge University (#2 in the UK, #19 in the world): added Alexander Bird (philosophy of science & medicine) from King's College, London.  Lost Tim Button to UCL; Tom Dougherty (moral & political philosophy) to North Carolina/Chapel Hill; Huw Price(philosophy of science and physics, philosophy of language, metaphysics) to retirement (although he retains a half-time role at Cambridge, but has no formal teaching duties); Maarten Steehagen (aesthetics, philosophy of mind) to Uppsala.  Will probably still remain #2 in the UK.

University of St Andrews/University of Stirling Joint Program (#3 in the UK, #24 in the world).   Lost Barbara Sattler (ancient) to Rohr University Bochum.  Added Franz Berto (logic, metaphysics) from the University of Amsterdam.  Crispin Wright (philosophy of language, math and logic, epistemology) is also now back part-time at the University of Stirling (he is at NYU the rest of the time).   St Andrews has also added a number of short-term visitors, mostly from the U.S.

MA programs in philosophy with funding

Via Geoff Pynn's FB page, I discover this useful resource.  It lists both free-standing terminal MA programs and those embedded in PhD-granting departments.   But do see the guidance in the PGR on how to approach MA programs, especially those embedded in PhD departments.  I increasingly counsel students to avoid Tufts, notwithstanding the strength of the faculty, since they do not provide adequate financial aid for their MA students.

 

2020-21 Update for top five Canadian schools from the 2017 PGR

MOVING TO FRONT FROM SEPTEMBER 25--CORRECTED

Since the 2020-21 PGR has been delayed, this is a summary of changes at the tenured (or almost tenured) ranks at the top 5 PhD programs in Canada since 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 for the 2017 surveys).  (Please e-mail me any corrections or additions, thanks.)   My thanks to Mitchell Barrington for his assistance in compiling this information.

University of Toronto (#1 in Canada, #10 in world in 2017 PGR):  Added George Boys-Stones (ancient) from Durham; Michael Caie (philosophical logic, philosophy of language, formal epistemology) and (advanced junior lateral) Jessica Gelber (ancient Greek and Roman philosophy) from the University of Pittsburgh; Chris Fraser (classical Chinese philosophy, comparative philosophy) from the University of Hong; Elisa Freschi (advanced junior lateral) from the University of Vienna and Jonardon Ganeri from NYU-Abu Dhabi, both experts in Indian philosophy; and Michael Rosenthal (early modern, Jewish philosophy) from the University of Washington.  Lost Charles Brittain (ancient) back to Cornell University.  May lose Karolina Hubner (early modern) to Cornell, where she is currently teaching (but it appears she has not resigned yet from Toronto).  Will now be the strongest department in North America, and probably the Anglophone world, for students interested in some of the major non-Western philosophical traditions.

PGR haters are strangely self-unaware

Here is philosopher Udo  Schuklenk (Queen's/Canada) declaring that "no serious academic would...lend their time to" the PGR.

You can see a complete list of the several hundred "unserious" academics who "lend their time" to the PGR:  it includes Brian Skyrms, Anthony Appiah, Ernest Sosa, Penelope Maddy, Cristina Bicchieri, Paul Guyer, Timothy Williamson, John Hawthorne, Alex Byrne, Gregory Currie, Martha Nussbaum, Terence Irwin, Jennifer Lackey, Cheryl Misak, Calvin Normore, Ian Rumfitt, Carolina Sartorio, Susanna Siegel, Allen Wood:  "no serious academics"!

Student-maintained Philosophy admissions for 2020-21 spread sheet...

...here.

(Thanks to Linds Whitaker for the pointner.)

Dianoia Institute of Philosophy/Australian Catholic University now accepting applications for MPhil and PhD

There are more details here; note that the deadline is in October, and the term starts in February 2021.  Because all the faculty at the Institute hold research appointments, there are no courses, so this is degree by individual faculty supervision.  The faculty is quite narrow in its strengths (e.g., there is no history of philosophy), but very strong in several areas:  philosophy of language, metaphysics, epistemology, metaethics in particular.  I would expect the Institute to be one of the top 3 programs in Australasia in the next PGR (perhaps even the #1 program), and will likely be among the top 5-10 programs in its areas of strength in the world.

Coming soon: faculty updates for non-American programs ranked in 2017

Thanks to the work of reader Mitchell Barrington, I will be able to offer soon a report on changes to the faculties at the ranked programs in the U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand that were ranked in 2017, similar to what I've done for the U.S. programs.  Hopefully this will be ready in the next two weeks.  My thanks to Mr. Barrington!

"Ethics" jobs and moral psychology

MOVING TO FRONT FROM SEPTEMBER 4--ADDITIONAL COMMENTS WELCOME

A graduate student elsewhere recently asked me whether someone with an AOS of "moral psychology" can apply for jobs advertised as "ethics."   I'm inclined to think the answer is "yes," although whether a moral psychology AOS is well-received will probably depend on the kind of moral psychology one does and the kind of department advertising the job.  I realize posing a question before the Labor Day weekend isn't a great idea (so may move this forward next week), but here it is.  What do readers think?  Submit comments only once, they may take awhile to appear.

Chicago, Columbia are suspending PhD admissions for fall 2021

Chicago's announcement is here, Columbia's here.  The latter was flagged for me by a student in a terminal MA program, who wondered if others are planning to do the same.  Comments are open for additional links/announcements on that score (if you're making an announcement, please use a full name and valid email address).  That both Chicago and Columbia are out is especially unfortunate for students interested in Kant and German Idealism, both strengths of those programs.  Students with those interests should of course be looking still at Yale, Johns Hopkins, UC Riverside, UC San Diego, Syracuse, BU, and, maybe, Pittsburgh, among others.

Another Philosophy PhD program drops the GRE

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is the latest to no longer require the GRE.

(Thanks to Nir Ben-Moshe for the information.)

UPDATE:  Philosopher Kenny Easwaran (Texas A&M) writes:

I noticed your announcement that UIUC no longer requires the GRE for graduate admissions. Texas A&M's philosophy department actually made the decision last year as well and filed the paperwork so that applications for this upcoming cycle will not have GRE scores included.

But in the past few months, due to the difficulty of students finding test centers and times that are open during the pandemic, the university has actually made the move to end GRE requirements for *all* graduate programs unless the department specifically requests to keep it. I would not be surprised if many other universities have done something similar for at least this year. It may be worth doing a broader inquiry into this.

My partner is in the Chemistry department at Texas A&M and tells me that this process has been so widespread in the sciences, that as departments drop it, they are tweeting the fact with the hashtag #GRExit. (I had to add "gre" to the search term to avoid my results being dominated by decade-old worries about Greece leaving the EU.)

2020-21 PGR postponed due to COVID-19

MOVING TO FRONT FROM JULY 30

Due to the disruption and stress that so many in higher education are still facing caused by the world-wide pandemic, not to mention the uncertainty of what the fall holds, we, the editors, in consultation with Wiley-Blackwell, have decided to postpone a new set of PGR surveys until at least early 2021. We regret the inconvenience to students but encourage them to continue to consult the updates to changes since the 2017 PGR that Professor Leiter offers on his blog with the tag “philosophical gourmet report.”

--Berit Brogaard & Christopher Pynes, editors

Best places to publish in ancient philosophy and related questions

MOVING TO FRONT FROM JUNE 15--MORE COMMENTS WELCOME

A reader writes:

I know the top 4 specialist journals are (1) Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, (2) Phronesis, and tied for (3) Apeiron and Ancient Philosophy, but I've wondered about, e.g. The Journal of Ancient Philosophy, and also about the importance of varying between specialist journals and general history of philosophy journals. Also useful would be advice from established scholars on the extent to which one should form one's paper differently for an ancient philosophy specialist journal as opposed to a general history of philosophy journal as opposed to, potentially, a classics journal.

Signed comments will be very strongly preferred here.  Thanks.

Shoemaker from Tulane to Cornell

David Shoemaker (philosophy of action, moral psychology), Professor of Philosophy at Tulane University has accepted a senior offer from the Department of Philosophy at Cornell University, effective fall 2021.   He will join John Doris and Shaun Nichols in moral psychology, and Derk Pereboom in philosophy of action, making Cornell one of the top programs in those areas.

Open thread for departments to post pertinent updates about admissions/financial aid/budgetary issues

In light of the unfortunate turn of events regarding admissions at Arizona, a couple of readers suggested it might be useful to have an open thread for departments to post any relevant updates, perhaps along the lines of this statement that philosopher Mike Titelbaum, Chair of the Department at Wisconsin/Madison, shared with me.

The Philosophy Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has informed our applicants that we will not be admitting anyone from our waitlist.  To be clear—and to avoid inspiring further anxiety—this was a decision we made within our department, not because of any administrative edict or budgetary constraints.  We had an unusually high acceptance rate this year, and so have already reached the target size for our incoming class.  We couldn’t see ourselves admitting anyone further off our waitlist next week, so we decided to announce that now, in hopes that it allows the people on our waitlist to make other acceptance decisions as soon as possible.  In these times of uncertainty, we figured it was better to give people information as early as possible so they could move decisively.

We still have a few admissions offers outstanding, and are dearly hoping those folks will join our program.  All of the offers we made—both accepted and as yet unaccepted—are still good, along with their guarantees of financial support.

If any other departments find themselves in a similar fortunate position with respect to their acceptances, I would encourage them to consider a similar course.

Mike Titelbaum, Chair, Department of Philosophy, UW-Madison

Posts should include a full name in the subject line and a valid e-mail address.  Thanks.

Should students sitting on admissions offers with financial aid accept before other schools do what Arizona did?

The University of Arizona has always faced a difficult financial situation, with its tuition kept artificially low at the same time a slightly crazy legislature regularly underfunds the public system.   Among the publics with top PhD programs, I think Arizona has probably had the most trouble, although things have gotten more difficult in recent years in North Carolina with the takeover of rabid repugs in the state legislature.  I do think, ceteris paribus, anyone holding out hopes of getting in off a waitlist elsewhere would be well-advised to forget that (I strongly suspect many schools, even private ones, will decide not to go to their waitlists--or will be told not to go to them) and accept any good offer they have in hand from a public university.   The fact that one major research university, Arizona, has pulled financial aid from outstanding offers may inspire others to do the same thing.   Do note that the Arizona financial aid offers did, as Professor McKenna notes, come with an "escape clause" (offer conditional on funding availability etc.), so if your admissions offer did not include such an escape clause, you probably have less to worry about.

ADDENDUM:  Just to be clear, there is no reason to think UNC-Chapel Hill is thinking of revoking any financial aid awards.   I was only giving North Carolina as an example of a state with a crazy legislature in recent years!

University of Arizona did not revoke funding from PhD students who had accepted offers of admission...

...as another amateurish blog irresponsibly reported. I got the same e-mails about the rumors, but actually bothered to check with the department.  I'm awaiting more information, but I thought I should post this given the misinformation being put into circulation.

UPDATE:  Philosopher Michael McKenna (Arizona) gave me permission to share the e-mail he sent to admitted students who had not yet accepted about this unfortunate turn of events:

I write to you with some hard news. Just within the last three hours, I have been instructed by the Dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, JP Jones, to withdraw financial offers to all graduate recruits, and this includes our offer extended to you in our letter of admission dated February 28, 2020. Dean Jones was acting on the authority of the Dean of the Graduate College, Andrew Carnie. To be clear, this is not a withdrawal of admission into the graduate program but instead of the offer of financial support accompanying it. Naturally, I take this to be of little use to you, as we would not expect you to fund your own graduate studies.

I can report to you that I am just sick about this. I am so terribly sorry. So is everyone on our admissions committee. Please know that we did not know this was coming. (Yesterday afternoon was the first I heard wind of it, and I spent all of last night and today exploring whether this was going to occur and how we might avoid it.) Please allow me to explain this terrible result.

A worried senior philosophy major at a state flagship

An undergraduate philosophy major writes:

As somebody with serious intentions to apply to PhD programs in philosophy in the coming year or two, depending on how "gap year" plans pan out, and who will almost certainly be applying to JD programs, I have a question that I suspect many younger readers of the blog share. 

The transition to online courses will, of course, be disastrous, especially for those disciplines (namely, philosophy) that value and require classroom discussion. All-around, this is going to be a logistical nightmare -- especially for graduating seniors, with thesis defenses and such -- and I, alongside many others, am searching for ways to best streamline the process of finishing degree requirements, while also juggling other exigencies--personal and academic--of the moment. 

In my case, that (potentially) means doing away with courses that are, in relation to degree requirements, entirely supererogatory. I am, for instance, currently enrolled in an advanced course on Early Analytic Philosophy that, while of immense interest, doesn't at this point make much sense to pursue in the digital format, if I don't have to. 

Three senior hires for Wash U/St. Louis: Copenhaver, McGrath, Watson

The Department of Philosophy at Washington University, St. Louis has made three senior hires:   Becko Copenhaver (early modern philosophy, philosophy of mind) from Lewis & Clark College; Matthew McGrath (epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of perception) from Rutgers University, New Brunswick; and Lori Watson (political and legal philosophy, feminist philosophy) from the University of San Diego.   After last year's senior losses (John Doris, Julia Driver, Roy Sorensen), these new hires should preserve Wash U's place in the U.S. overall top 25-30.

(Thanks to Jon Kvanvig for the information.)

Maryland makes bid for UC Santa Cruz's Orlandi

Nico Orlandi (philosophy of mind and cognitive science), Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has a tenured offer from the Department of Philosophy at the University of Maryland, College Park.  Maryland is poised to be back in the U.S. "top 30" given recent hires, and this appointment would solidify that.  Prospective students should keep an eye on this.

The "quirky silliness" (QS) rankings of philosophy departments are back

And, as usual, it's garbage, outside of the top four (and Pitt, in the top four, is not better than several programs ranked much lower--this is the first year, however, in which Pitt hasn't been #1).   QS does not disclose the geographic distribution of survey respondents, even though that determines most of the results.   For more on QS's shady ranking practices, see this earlier discussion.  (Past coverage of the Quirky Silliness rankings here.)

Philosophy PhD applications spreadsheet

Several readers have sent along this useful spread sheet, produced by a user at the "Grad Cafe" discussion board.

Where untenured tenure-track faculty at the U.S. "top 20" programs got their PhDs, 2019-20

MOVING TO FRONT FROM NOVEMBER 22--UPDATED       

As prior studies have confirmed, PGR rank is a rather good predictor of professional outcomes, even though that's not what the PGR suveys measure. (Of course, NYU and Rutgers placement, below, would have been wholly predictable from PGR rankings of faculty quality in years past!) 

I look here, as I've done before, only at the untenured tenure-stream faculty at the top American PhD programs.  This is misleading in some obvious ways.  One of the most important is that tenure-stream jobs at liberal arts colleges may be the best jobs in American higher education:  teachers enjoy excellent students, good salaries, and research support.  My anecdotal impression is that tenure-stream faculty at leading liberal arts colleges in the U.S. (places like Pomona, Reed, Colgate, Wesleyan, Carleton, Macalester, Swarthmore, Grinnell, Bowdoin, etc.) are rather happy, and often have research qualification comparable to faculty at research universities.

With those caveats, here is where tenure-stream but untenured faculty at the "top 20" U.S. programs earned their PhD:

1.  New York University (9)

2.  Rutgers University, New Brunswick (8)

3.  Princeton University (7)

4.  University of California, Berkeley (5)

5.  Harvard University (4)

5.  Massachusetts Institute of Technology (4)

5.  Yale University (4)

8.  Cambridge University (2)

8.  Columbia University (2)

8.  University of California, Irvine (2)

8.  University of California, Riverside (2)

8.  University of Chicago (2)

8.  University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (2)

1 each:   DePaul University; Oxford University; Stanford University; University of California, Los Angeles; University of Leeds; University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; University of Paris I (Sorbonne); University of Southern California; University of Texas, Austin; University of Toronto; University of Western Ontario; University of Wisconsin, Madison; York University (UK).

Top 20 programs with 0:   University of Pittsburgh; City University of New York; Brown University; University of California, San Diego; University of Notre Dame.

Berkeley, once again, is a star performer relative to its (very good but not "top 5") PGR ranking over the last decade, a credit I suspect to the quality of the training.  The UC Irvine and Riverside PhDs were specialists in areas where those programs are quite strong, as reflected in the PGR.  Both Cambridge PhDs were hired at Notre Dame.  Both Chicago PhDs were hired at Columbia or Barnard (tenure-stream Barnard faculty are part of the Columbia graduate program faculty).  I was surprised at how few Oxford DPhils there are.  There is a widely shared sense that Oxford is in decline (and not just because of Brexit, although that can't help), but in past iterations of these snapshots, Oxford fared much better.

Below the fold, a list of PhDs by school (corrections welcome, of course):

Velleman from NYU to Johns Hopkins

J. David Velleman (ethics, moral psychology, philosophy of action), Professor of Philosophy at New York University, will retire from NYU  and has accepted appointment as Miller Research Professor of Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University, starting January 1, 2020.  According to Professor Gross, "He'll be doing some teaching {"not more than one course per term"] and will be available for graduate advising, though not as primary supervisor."

(Thanks to Steven Gross and Jared Mayer for the information.)

Pedigree and quality

It's rational for hiring schools to consider pedigree, as we've discussed on many prior occasions.  In the PGR era, everyone knows that an Ivy League name is compatible with being a top 30 or a top 5 department, and students and more faculty know that excellence in various specialties does not track "brand name" of the university, but rather faculty excellence in the subfield.

Harvard, because it has the "brand name," has perhaps had more latitude in ignoring pre-PGR pedigree factors than other departments, and has done so with remarkable success.  Consider that the current tenure-track faculty includes PhDs from Wisconsin and UC Riverside, and mid-career tenured faculty with PhDs from Penn and UC Irvine.  I know of no other top ten department with as many faculty with PhDs from non-top 10 programs.  Yet in most of these cases, the faculty were hired from programs that were at the very top in the PGR specialties at the time (e.g., UC Riverside in Continental philosophy, UC Irvine in early modern).

Glanzberg from Northwestern to Rutgers

Michael Glanzberg (philosophy of language, philosophical logic, metaphysics), Professor of Philosophy at Northwestern University, has accepted a senior offer from the Department of Philosophy at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, where he will start in January 2020.  That's another blow for Northwestern, which earlier this year lost another tenured faculty member in these areas, Fabrizio Cariani.

Joseph Raz retires from Columbia

Raz, certainly the greatest living legal philosopher in the Anglophone world, has apparently retired from Columbia Law School, where he taught for a semester each year since retiring from Oxford more than a dozen years ago.  

Philosophical Gourmet Report, 2019-20

MOVING TO FRONT; ORIGINALLY POSTED OCTOBER 1

For the convenience of students, and based on the 2017 results and the changes in the interim, here's a guesstimate of the clustering of the top 50 U.S. PhD programs if surveys were conducted this fall; programs are listed alphabetically within clusters, except for the programs that are "maybe" part of that cluster (which are likely to be towards the bottom of that grouping).  (Based on an earlier conversations with Christopher Pynes, I believe there will be new PGR surveys in early fall 2020.)

Here goes:

New York University (1)

=======

Rutgers University, New Brunswick (2)

=======

Princeton University; University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; University of Pittsburgh; and, maybe, Yale University (3-6)

=======

Columbia University; Massachussetts Institute of Technology; Harvard University; Stanford University; University of California, Berkeley; University of California, Los Angeles; and, maybe, University of Southern California (7-13)

=======

Kriegel from Jean Nicod/Paris to Rice

Uriah Kriegel (philosophy of mind, metaphysics), previously at the Jean Nicod Institute in Paris (and before that a tenured Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona), has joined Rice University as Professor of Philosophy.   Along with the appointment of Elizabeth Brake (ethics, applied ethics) from Arizona State University, this should put Rice squarely back in the U.S. top 50 at least.

2019-20 Update to the Philosophical Gourmet Report's 2017 rankings for U.S. Departments (UPDATED)

MOVING TO FRONT--PUBLISHED ORIGINALLY ON SEPTEMBER 16

This is a summary of changes at the tenured (or almost 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).  (Please e-mail me any corrections or additions, thanks.)

New York University (#1 in 2017 PGR):  Lost Jim Pryor (epistemology) to the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Rutgers University, New Brunswick (#2 in 2017 PGR): hired Karen Bennett (metaphysics) from Cornell, Derrick Darby (social & political philosophy, philosophy of race) from Michigan, Nir Eyal (bioethics) from the Harvard School of Public Health, 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 and a good choice for philosophy of race and bioethics (with Frances Kamm, in addition to Eyal).  Because these appointments mostly play to strengths, they probably will not do much to close the gap with #1 NYU, which is still broader in its coverage of philosophy, especially history of ancient and modern philosophy, including the post-Kantian Continental traditions--but these appointments likely will increase the gap between Rutgers and the others in the top five (but see Pittsburgh).

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.  Also added junior lateral Una Stojnic (philosophy of language, philosophical logic) from Columbia University.

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (#4 in 2017 PGR): lost Derrick Darby (social & political philosophy, philosophy of race) to Rutgers, Maria Lasonen-Aarnio (epistemology) to Helsinki and advanced Assistant Professor Meena Krishnamurthy (political philosophy) to Queen's University in Canada.  Will probably still remain in the top five despite these losses.

University of Pittsburgh (#4 in 2017 PGR): hired Ann Cudd (political philosophy, philosophy of economics, decision theory) as Provost from Boston University; Nandi Theunissen (ethics, metaethics) from Johns Hopkins University; and David Wallace (philosophy of physics) from the University of Southern California.  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.  Pitt will move into the very top ranks for philosophy of physics (along with Michigan and Oxford) and should remain squarely in the U.S. top five.

Yale University (#6 in 2017 PGR): hired L.A. (Laurie) Paul (metaphysics, philosophy of cognitive science, formal epistemology) from North Carolina; lost advanced junior Elizabeth Miller (metaphysics, philosophy of science) to Brown University.  May crack the overal "top 5" again. 

University of Southern California (#7 in 2017 PGR): Lost Stephen Finlay (metaethics) and John Hawthorne (metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language) to the Australian Catholic University in Melbourne (although Finlay will continue teaching at USC for roughly half a semester each year, while Hawthorne will continue teaching at USC for a semester each year--both for at least the next two years) and David Wallace (philosophy of physics) to the University of Pittsburgh.  Gary Watson (ethics, philosophy of action) also took emeritus status.  USC will likely drop out of the top ten due to these significant losses, although they will surely remain on the cusp.

Columbia University (#9 in 2017 PGR): hired Jenann Ismael (philosophy of science and physics, metaphysics, philosophy of mind) from the University of Arizona; Philip Kitcher's phased retirement (noted in the 2017 surveys) ends in 2020.  Cognate faculty member Joseph Raz (philosophy of law, political philosophy) retired in fall 2019.  Should remain in the U.S. "top ten."

Harvard University (#9 in 2017 PGR):   lost Russell Jones (untenured Associate Professor) to his alma mater, the University of Oklahoma, Norman and Frances Kamm (ethics, applied ethics) to Rutgers (above); added advanced junior lateral Samantha Matherne (Kant, 19th- and 20th-century Continental philosophy, aesthetics) from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

University of California, Berkeley (#9 in 2017 PGR):   hired Andreja Novakovic (19th-century German philosophy) from the University of California, Riverside.

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 retired.  Hired Tom Dougherty (ethics, political philosophy) from Cambridge University; James Pryor (epistemology) from New York University, Jennifer Morton (philosophy of action) from the City University of New York, and Sarah Stroud (ethics) from McGill University, who will also direct the Parr Center for Ethics.  UNC should remain squarely in the top 15.

295 most-cited authors in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Courtesy of Professor Schwitzgebel.  Do note the counting principles:  for example, the list includes only authors born since 1900 and, more importantly, each author is only counted once per entry (even if, e.g., the author has six or seven entries in the bibliography).   Obviously the distribution of SEP topics affects the results, as Professor Schwitzgebel notes (a lot of philosophy of mind and philosophy of religion and feminist philosophy entries, for example).

ADDENDUM:  Using the Schwitzgebel method, I clock in at 22, which should put me in the top 400.  What a relief!  (Amusingly, it does make me the second most-cited non-emeritus philosopher on SEP here at Chicago, after Martha Nussbaum [who is near the very top of the whole list, of course] and in a tie with Jonathan Lear.)

Toronto makes big investment in Indian philosophy with Ganeri from NYU-Abu Dhabi and Freschi from Vienna

The University of Toronto has appointed two leading scholars of Indian philosophy, one senior and one junior.  Jonardon Ganeri, currently Professor of Philosophy and Humanities at NYU Abu Dhabi, will become the Bimal Matilal Distinguished Proessor of Philosophy at Toronto, effective July 2020.  Elisa Freschi, currently a half-time Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Vienna (and half-time at the Austrian Academy of Sciences), will become Assistant Professor of Philosophy, effective February, 2020.  Toronto will now be the destination of choice for Anglophone students interested in Indian philosophy.

(Thanks to Mohan Matthen and Jennifer Nagel for the details.)

PGR rank and tenure-track placement down the line

This is about what one would expect:  a strong but not perfect correlation between PGR rank and later tenure-stream placement.  Unlike some others, Professor Weisberg sensibly looks at  the correlation between PGR rank in 2006 with those who got PhDs six to eight years later, i.e., those who were relying on the 2006 rankings in choosing programs (an example of an earlier effort that wasn't so sensible).

Pryor from NYU to North Carolina

Jim Pryor (epistemology, philosophy of language), Professor of Philosophy at New York University, has accepted a senior offer from the Department of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.  That caps a big hiring year for UNC, including Tom Dougherty from Cambridge, and Jennifer Morton from City College/CUNY.  These additions, given some recent losses, should be more than sufficient to keep UNC at least in the overall top 15 in the U.S.

(Thanks to Ram Neta for the information.)

Lots of new junior appointments (tenure-track and post-docs) at PhilJobs

Add yours!

Going into debt for a PhD or an MA in philosophy

Perhaps it's worth reiterating something I've said in the past:  don't acquire debt to get a PhD or MA in philosophy, it's just too risky a proposition given the academic job market.   Good programs that really want you will offer funding, meaning, tuition waiver and living stipend.   This is worth emphasizing regarding MA programs in particular, since funding packages vary quite a bit.   Take a fully funded offer at any of the excellent terminal MA programs over an offer that requires you to pay tuition, unless you won't acquire debt to do so.  Tufts, in particular, while it has an excellent faculty, often requires admitted students to pay non-trivial amounts of tuition.  If you can go fully funded to Northern Illinois, Georgia State, or Wisconsin/Milwaukee, I'd recommend going there, unless there is a really compelling intellectual reason to prefer Tufts.

ADDENDUM:  It's true, as someone pointed out to me, that Wisconsin/Milwaukee has suffered some notable faculty losses (e.g., Magaret Atherton has retired, while Ted Hinchman and Andrea  Westlund moved to Florida State), but it's still a strong terminal MA program faculty.  Prospective students should ask about hiring plans.

How accurate are department placement pages?

MOVING TO FRONT AGAIN (ORIGINALLY POSTED MARCH 11):  Discussion continues in the comments

Not quite twenty years ago, I began pressing philosophy departments to provide comprehensive placement information on their homepages.  That effort was largely successful, and the average philosophy PhD program typically makes available better placement information than the average PhD program in other fields.  But periodically the issue arises about how accurate or complete this information is.  For example, a Wisconsin graduate (who is employed) wrote the other day as follows:

I wanted to make a follow up comment to your latest post about academic placement. I often wonder how accurate departmental descriptions of placement history are. For instance, I graduated from UW–Madison. On the Department's placement history, there are a number of people listed as "Did Not Seek Academic Employment" who in fact did seek such employment. They simply didn't get academic employment, and eventually gave up. "Does Not Seek Academic Employment" is a more accurate descriptor. (I'm not one of these people, just to be clear.)

I wonder how common this practice is.

I'm opening comments for other examples:  please include links.  And representatives of any of the departments named are free to post explanations or corrections as well. 

Placement in PhD-granting programs

Given the time of year, this is worth linking to again.  Also this (note esp. the junior numbers).

Today in Twitter crazy: Sandra Lapointe

Lapointe, an Associate Professor of Philosophy at McMaster University, showed up on my Twitter feed (without being tagged or provoked) to denounce the PGR back in 2018.  This outburst was puzzling, not only because I had had no contact with  her, but also because a number of McMaster faculty regularly participate in the PGR surveys, and McMaster has often advertised its strong showing in several specialties.   I asked a former student and friend of mine on the faculty there why she was so upset about this that she would attack me on Twitter out of the blue.  Lapointe subsequently tweeted out this transmorgification of what happened:

Once I said something Leiter didn't like on Twitter and he called on my Chair to point it out to them.  I don't know what were his intentions; hardly decent.

More accurate would have been:  "Once I attacked Leiter on his Twitter thread out of the blue, and he asked his old friend and former student, a colleague of mine (who happened to be the chair at the time, but Leiter had no reason to know that), why I was so upset about this."  Her lies were pointed out to her, even by her colleague, to no avail.   Lots of people retweeted Lapointe's lies.  This is a standing problem with social media:  fabrications by pathetic people get repeated as though they are factual.

Most important contributors to metaethics 1945-2000?

An undergraduate writes:

Hello! I'm an undergraduate at [SLAC name omitted] and a long-time reader of your blog. I'm wondering whether you could possibly do a poll on the most important Anglo-American metaethicists after 1945. Your other polls on subjects like this have helped me navigate me various philosophical sub-fields, and I'd be delighted to see who the readership of your blog thinks are the most important figures working in metaethics. 

As I explained to this student, in recent polls various  malicious jerks without actual lives have gone to a great deal of trouble to screw up the results with strategic or just irrational voting, so polling is currently on hold.   However, I did indicate I'd open this for comments from readers; signed comments only (full name, valid e-mail address).

I think it's fairly easy to name the major figures, say, 1945-2000:  Charles Stevenson, R.M. Hare, J.L. Mackie, Gilbert Harman, Richard Boyd, Allan Gibbard, Simon Blackburn, Peter Railton, John McDowell; maybe also David Wiggins, Nicholas Sturgeon, David Brink, among others.   Since 2000, others would be added (e.g., Derek Parfit, T.M. Scanlon, Sharon Street, David Enoch), but let's focus on 1945-2000 in the comments:  you can either add to the list, above, or express a view about the relative importance/influence of the philosophers mentioned above.

UPDATE:  Two signifciant omissions brought to my attention:  Michael Smith's The Moral Problem (1995) and Christine Korsgaard's Sources of Normativity (1996).  Just ot be clear, by metaethics, I mean contributions to questions about the metaphysics, epistemology, and semantics of value and value judgments.

McDaniel from Syracuse to Notre Dame

Kris McDaniel (metaphysics), Professor of Philosophy at Syracuse University, has accepted a senior offer from the Department of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame.   That's a real loss for Syracuse, and will further enhance Notre Dame's already strong position in metaphysics.

The real diversity problem in Anglophone philosophy

It's usefully illustrated by the MIT Department, which helpfully lists the research areas of its faculty clearly.  Excluding emeriti, there are 14 tenure-stream faculty.  Here are the areas of philosophy as represented:

Metaphysics:   9

Epistemology:  5

Philosophical logic or logic:  5

Philosophy of language:  5

Philosophy of mind:  4

Ethics:   4

Philosophy of science:   2

Feminist philosophy/Philosophy of Race or Gender:  2

Philosophy of physics:  1

Philosophy of biology:  0

Ancient philosophy:  1

Medieval philosophy:  0

17th-century philosophy:  0

18th-century philosophy:  0

19th-century Continental philosophy:  0

20th-century Continental philosophy:  0

Non-Western philosophy:  0

So much for the idea that Anglophone departments are departments of "Western" philosophy:  MIT ignores several centuries worth of Western philosophy, and although MIT is a bit extreme, it is not atypical in its emphases.   Take the "top ten" programs in the 2017-18 PGR:   NYU, Rutgers, Princeton, Michigan, Pittsburgh, Yale, MIT, USC, Columbia, Harvard, Stanford, UC Berkeley, UCLA.   Rutgers, Michigan, MIT, USC, and UCLA have no specialists in either 19th- or 20th-century Continental philosophy:  none!   Princeton has one specialist in one major figure of 19th-century Continental philosophy, Pittsburgh has two (although their primary interests lie elsewhere), Yale has one, and Berkeley has one and has just hired another.   Only NYU, Columbia, Harvard, and Stanford have two or more faculty with research interests in 19th- and 20th-century Continental philosophy--although one of NYU's two senior faculty in these areas will be retiring soon.  The irony, of course, is that undergraduate demand for courses on figures like Marx, Nietzsche, and Foucault remains huge, and yet many of the leading PhD programs can't be bothered.  (ADDENDUM:  As some readers point out, both Yale and NYU are presently looking at junior Continental candidates; we'll see what happens.)

The American Academy of each other's friends in the Arts & Sciences

Usually known as the AAAS, every observer knows what it mostly is, as conveyed in the title of this post:   it is friends electing friends for "honor" ostensibly for their academic contributions.   The AAAS is not meaningless, to be sure, and its sins are mostly ones of omission, as I've remarked previously, as well as current fashions.   Past philosophy members of the AAAS, no doubt eminent and well-connected in their time, include Harry Berger, Francis Bowen, John Cobb, Jr., Irwin Edman, John Fiske, Levi Hedge, Laurens Hickock, Henry Mansel, James McCosh, James Pratt, James L. Walker, Richard Whately, and James H. Woods, among others that are probably unknown to most contemporary philosophers. 

Elections to the Academy follow certain patterns.   For example, in 2012, MIT's Stephen Yablo was elected to the Academy.  The following year, his MIT colleague Rae Langton (now at Cambridge) was elected.  Two years later, Langton's friend and former colleague, and Yablo's spouse, Sally Haslanger at MIT was elected.  Haslanger (well-known, of course, for her commitment to diversity [vide Reed for an explanation]), quickly joined the selection committee for Philosophy, and that year only one white man (in his 70s) was elected while two prominent feminist philosophers were among the small number of honorees.  The latter is hardly suspicious:  I've observed the same patterns over the years with formal philosophers, with epistemologists, and with Kant scholars--once one gets in, others in that sub-field are admitted in the subsequent years.  As one AAAS member wrote to me a couple of years ago:  "newly admitted members are often energized to make nominations," and, unsurprisngly, they invest that effort in their friends and colleagues. 

But if there was ever a "popularity contest," it would be the AAAS, in which existing members vote on possible new members on a scale of 1-5 (just like the PGR scale for whole faculties!).  Ballotting proceeds in two stages.  Any two members can nominate someone for election to the Academy of Friends, and after an initial round of voting, 8-10 candidates are submitted to the membership for final votes.  The "panel" is, I'm told, bound by the votes of the existing members, except when there are "diversity" considerations. The current panel consists of Susan Wolf (North Carolina, the chair), Julia Annas (Arizona) Sally Haslanger (MIT), Dan Hausman (Wisconsin), Beatrice Longuenesse (NYU), and Stephen Stich (Rutgers).  The Chair of the panel must ultimately negotiate with chairs of other humanities committees over how many philosophers get to be put forward for membership.

A current Academy of Friends member sent me the list of the current first-round candidates.  This was against the rules, but I suspect that s/he was concerned about the way things have been going.  I will not name any of the nominees.