Amy: I know Erin’s at Georgetown, in Theology. That’s the whole point. Why rank a department in an area it has no expertise in, just because there are resources elsewhere at that school, and not rank phil departments that are responsible for most of the work done in that subfield? That seems to me to be sending the wrong message: it tells departments like Georgetown (and UCR and Indiana) they don’t need to hire in Chinese or any other underrepresented area, because they can piggyback on other programs. Imagine if we did that for, say, philosophy of mathematics or philosophy of physics? We know how programs get to be evaluated in the first place. You have to be on the map (as a strong department overall), and the map the PGR has been drawing over the years smacks of gerrymandering.

Re: 11, Eric Schwitzgebel at UC Riverside does a bit of Chinese philosophy.

people are misunderstanding what it means to be in the “programs not ranked but recommended for consideration by the board” (or whatever it is called) category. it doesn’t mean that those programs are ranked lower in the specialty rankings than those that are ranked–or higher. they are simply not ranked in comparison to the other programs.

Mencius, I think we agree. I posted what I did since I assumed (not knowing who you are) that you didn’t know about Cline. But I agree that there is something decidedly off about a ranking of *philosophy programs* including without acknowledgement what are effectively rankings of faculty outside of philosophy departments. And I agree that this shouldn’t give aid and cover to feeling good about how many places (outside philosophy departments!) one can study Chinese philosophy. Another methodological point here is just why, if one opens the gates to ranking faculty outside philosophy departments, the gates weren’t thrown wider open – i.e., if one looks for faculty outside philosophy departments to craft a ranking in Chinese philosophy, are there more than are included here? I just don’t think these rankings work at all for Chinese philosophy. They replicate more general problems people have noted elsewhere (e.g., leaving more continental focused programs such as Hawaii on the outs) and have problems more unique to the area (e.g., unclarity about what exactly, philosophy or more, is being ranked, as well as having vanishingly small numbers of evaluators).

Also, the “recommended for consideration” note appears at the bottom of the groups and so there is a natural tendency to read it as an honorable mention list. If it really is intended as a non-comparative note, then there should be no problem putting it at the top, above the groups.

I agree strongly with fm’s second suggestion – there doesn’t seem any reason to leave out departments from the specialty rankings just because they don’t make the overall ranking. For those who are interested in a particular area I feel as that would be a large help.

p: The rationale for the PGR, at least in principle, is to tell prospective students how the philosophy house of cards is stacked up so they better negotiate the overall and area strengths when considering where to apply. Let’s bracket for a moment complaints about methodology and the rest, and assume the PGR does what is intended to do: why, in that case, not tell prospective students that if you really want to study Chinese philosophy as an AOS then they better go to a place that has the critical mass of expertise to support that kind of training? You wouldn’t do that for any other subfield, so why assume it can be done for Chinese? Because certain subfields have become dominant, departments have been pressured to hire in those to maintain overall strength, resulting in further marginalization of underrepresented fields. So, yes, I would send a student who is serious about ancient philosophy to places like Munich rather than some of the programs in the 3rd and 4th tier for ancient. Overall strength matters, and having stars on faculty is a plus, but when we start telling ourselves that dabbling in a bit of Chinese philosophy is enough to put you on the map (just because you are already a (top) ranked program) something has gone completely amiss.

And speaking of ancient, how come Arizona with Julia Annas, Rachana Kamterkar, and Dan Russell comes in third, but NYU with Jessica Moss, Marko Malink, and Phillip Mitsis (in classics), plus visitors like Sarah Broadly and a couple of Bersoff fellows only makes 4th tier? And why is Yale in the second tier for ancient? Well, because of its joint PhD program with the classics department, which gives it a lot of coverage. I think it’s good to draw on expertise in other programs to boost rankings, but if we’re to do that, I’m with Amy: flung wide open the gates and rank relevant faculty outside philosophy departments for all subfields.

Lastly, I agree with fm’s (22) second suggestion, though I don’t see it currying much favor with many, if not most, of the folks on the advisory board.

Rachel: Sorry, I should have used ‘reliable’ instead of ‘scientific’. In any case, I think the procedure for picking schools for the overall ranking is fairly reliable. Partly, that is because there are a lot of people influencing that decision: the wisdom of crowds etc. I should add that I personally thought the old way of doing the specialty rankings was better, but I can see various reasons for doing it this way. I do think the fact that those unranked programs may well have been ranked if they had been evaluated should be made more clear. What would be interesting to know is whether those lamenting the current policy would prefer the old policy, or some other policy. If the latter, then what policy? (Of course they may prefer no policy/rankings at all. But I’m interested in improving the PGR, or building a better replacement.)