New Edition of “Gourmet” Philosophy PhD Program Rankings
The 2024 edition of the Philosophical Gourmet Report (PGR) has been published.
The PGR is a ranking of PhD programs in philosophy in the regions of the world in which English is the dominant language, based on a reputational survey of philosophy faculty.
It offers “overall” rankings as well as rankings by areas of specialty on scale of 0 to 5.
Here are the top 52 departments in its current overall rankings:
The Philosophical Gourmet Report overall rankings for the English-speaking world, including mean, median, mode, confidence intervals, and region.
You can view all of the new survey results here.
The PGR is edited by Robin Kar (University of Illinois) and Christopher A. Pynes (Western Illinois University). Its last update was published in January of 2022.
In the past, concerns have been raised about the methodology of the PGR (see some of the links in this post; the PGR’s own description of its methodology is here), and the idea of a fine-grained ranking of philosophy departments strikes some people as silly. Still, others testify to its usefulness, both for prospective graduate students and others (for example).
Prospective graduate students in philosophy may also want to look at Academic Philosophy Data & Analysis.
Maybe now that Texas is “top 10 in the world” they can find a way to pay their graduate students a competitive stipend with competitive expectations. We make $21,000 a year, in exchange for a full 12 semesters of TAing/teaching/grading. I wonder how far down the list of top PGR departments one would have to go in order to find another such crummy package.
The philosophy of art rankings look pretty off to me (again). I expect that it’s (again) the result of too small a reviewer pool, which magnifies idiosyncracies in judgement.
It’s a low-status subfield, but it’s a fairly large one. The ASA alone has nearly 700 members, and hosts four divisional and one main conference every year. Then there’s the BSA and the ESA, too. It should be easy to get a good number of reviewers–provided there’s the desire to recruit them.
Alternately, of course, perhaps it’s my own judgement that’s off.
This proves that I am better than many of you.
It would be useful to be able to sort by public and private, though I recognize that distinction gets muddy with, say, Oxford.
It doesn’t really make sense for the UK as a whole.
The “History” tab remains an odd bunch. Things like “Kant”, “American Pragmatism” and “20th century continental” are in there, so one wonders whether the ranking is supposed to track work about or work in these traditions?
The “history” label seems to indicate the latter, and the rankings seem to bear out this indication. This is unfortunate for students seeking to work in these traditions.
For at least five years Binghamton U has been listed as not evaluated but recommended for consideration under the Political Philosophy specialty. How could Binghamton not be ranked after five years if, for five years, it has been recommended? This is the same as many other programs that are listed as recommended but not ranked.
I believe the historical practice has been that evaluated programs that weren’t in the top 50 overall in the US (a different number in other geographies) multiple years in a row, are not evaluated in the next few runs, unless the department specifically asks the editors to be included and points to some new hires or something else that could naturally change the overall ranking.
My department is also listed in this category for another speciality. However, I am the only person who works in this specialty, and I don’t have tenure, nor am I especially shiny. Before I was hired, it had been a few years since anyone in the department worked on this speciality or offered classes in it.
This makes me think that, perhaps, evaluators don’t always pay super close attention to that part of the survey. (In addition to Kenny Easwaran’s contribution.)
The representation of women evaluators is astonishingly poor. I can’t help but wonder whether if there was real representation of women evaluating programs we’d get different results.
Once again, here we find a reputational ranking of what a select group of people think of a select group of schools. For anyone interested in doing work in areas that this selective group of people know or care nothing about, this survey is useless. As chair of a philosophy department that is highly selective, where students complete their dissertations generally within 6 years, and then go on to get great jobs immediately afterward and TT jobs within a few years if not sooner, I would love it if someone would bother to do a survey that is in any way actually meaningful.
Let me add that this wouldn’t be difficult. Just get date on 1) percentage of applicants accepted into the PhD program; 2) percentage of those adimitted who accept; 3) percentage of those who complete the program within x years; 4) job placement data.
Why not do it yourself?
I’m a bit busy slaying other dragons. Also I think group like APDA could do something like this by using the database they already have.
For anyone interested in doing work in areas that this selective group of people know or care nothing about, this survey is useless, but that doesn’t mean that it is not in any way meaningful. For people who are interested in doing work in areas that this particular group of people *do* know or care about, it seems that this survey would be quite meaningful!
Also, note that Justin links to the APDA evaluation, which is based on much of the information you mention in your follow-up comment.
I think the Gourmet Report could be even more useful if the editors used some statistical methodology to identify subfields where there were two or more clusters of different rankings among the evaluators (and perhaps display those rankings in parallel), so that prospective students could see where the named group of people agree and where they have major differences of opinion.
Kenny, given that you say that the PGR seems to generate some meaningful data and since you obviously care about methodological soundness, I’m curious whether you (or anyone out there!) can answer a question I never see satisfactorily answered from PGR defenders.
The question: why should we take seriously the votes of such a small, peculiar sample of voters, if the goal is to identify the quality of the faculties?
To clarify: that goal is not just what pre-identified A-listers think about other A-listers, which IMO is obviously useful information about networking your way to the A-list but not obviously useful info about the intrinsic quality of philosophy being done–though I also believe that there is strong (not anywhere close to perfect, but strong) overlap between A-list departments and philosophical quality.
For example, I’ve heard the PGR compared to other industry rankings like the Oscars. That’s a fair analogy to strive for, but the Academy that doles out the Oscars is made up of more than 10,000 voters, many/most of whom are simple rank-and-file members of the film industry, not glamorous A-listers. (And even then it has had trouble with having skewed sample [too white, etc.].) If the PGR is to be analogous to the Oscars, it would need to have many, many more voters, say upwards of 1,000, hailing from a very wide range of professional avenues. (Where’s the PGR voter equivalent of Academy voters like the 18th best assistant makeup artist or the 26th most employed matte painting supervisor?) I’ve never understood how the PGR claims methodical soundness without including much larger and more representative samples of the profession, such as (A) all Philosophy PhDs, or (B) all Philosophy PhDs at PhD-granting institutions, or (C) all Philosophy PhDs who work in various editorial capacities at Philosophy journals.
To Noelle’s point, without having a much larger and more representative sample of voters, the PGR seems at best distorted and at worst an exercise in A-listers and the A-list-adjacent putting a shiny veneer on A-listers being A-listers. I respect the work done by the people who voted this year, but there are a lot more members of the profession I have roughly similar respect for, and I would respect the outcome of the PGR a lot more if it sampled their opinions as well as the current very small, very skewed set of voters.
At a very rough estimate, there are maybe two thousand philosophers employed at PhD-granting institutions in the US (there are 400-odd PhD’s per year granted in philosophy in the US; figure ~4 graduating per year from a PhD-granting department, so ~100 departments with ~20 faculty each). About 200 people reviewed for the PGR, so very roughly the PGR reviewer group is ~10% of the total PhD-granting population. Even if you thought the relevant body was all academic philosophers in the US, whether or not at PhD-granting universities, it’s still going to be around 2%-4% (the total APA membership is 10,000).
There are apparently around half a million people working in the US movie and sound recording industries (https://www.statista.com/statistics/184412/employment-in-us-motion-picture-and-recording-industries-since-2001/), so only around one in fifty, or around 2%, of those people are in the Academy.
So I think the comparison to the Oscars works pretty well, but the PGR panel is if anything less rarified than the Academy. In any case, the two are qualitatively similar in size compared to their respective populations.
(In both cases this is a bit simplified by restricting to the US, but I think the comparison is robust enough that it won’t be qualitatively changed.)
Given that the PGR ranks and makes statements about various non-US institutions and their qualities (despite no clear acknowledgement of the differences between countries on how PhD admissions and PhDs themselves work), I don’t think these back of the envelope numbers that are US focused work well.
Even if they do, the qualitative difference is important to note. The PGR says that it is a ‘A Ranking of Graduate Programs in Philosophy in the English-Speaking World’, but it is so US-focused to be distorted for all other countries that it talks about (even leaving aside the fact that many parts of the ‘non-English speaking world’ offer PhD programmes in English now). There are only THREE people not based in North America on the advisory board, for example, and NO non-North America-based woman on the advisory board.
And, even if we for some reason agree that the numbers are useful, there is so much additional strange commentary on that website, most of it highly speculative and idiosyncratic at best, and downright wrong (either historically, factually, or philosophically) at worst, and no way for any prospective student to know that they are. If Brian Leiter is truly not involved actively with this ranking anymore, then they should strip away all remaining editorial parts from the website, assuming he wrote them as many have the feel of being very old (again, I can see this, a prospective student who this ranking is supposedly for, will not). If he did not write them, then they should still be removed.
I think those involved with the PGR report do not realise the image they are portraying, even if they do not intend to. It LOOKS like a very closed shop of a relatively small group of people based at ‘top’ places to further build up the reputation of those ‘top’ places. Again the response will be that there are in fact a representative number of people involved (An aside: I think this response ignores the fact that even if the total number is representative, the specialisms are ranked by only a subset of the total, and those numbers are small and hence will lead to strange results – 8 people for example it seems decided the ‘art’ category – 8 for a major area of research like aesthetics. The part of this sub-domain that I work on is not represented at all by those 8 people). But even if we accept that that is right, it LOOKS unrepresentative, and we all know that appearances on such things are important.
My advice, though it will be ignored I’m sure, for the editors of the PGR: if you think these numbers are valuable and important, then just present the data and methodology information. Stop editorialising. Acknowledge that you are, in many ways, comparing apples and oranges. A PhD in the US looks very different from Europe, and the advice on how to choose somewhere is also very different. Be open to adjusting the methodology. Include more people in the ranking process.
(The method section says little about actual methodology, but we get things like this on Brian’s website: “”Snowball sampling,” the technique utilized by the PGR, is not a disreputable method, it is the correct method to use when what is wanted is expert, “insider” information.” This is clearly not engaging with criticisms or concerns: ‘The method is right because it is the right one’. ‘Snowball’ method is not explained anywhere on the PGR website as far as I can see)
Just narrowly on one point:
“The PGR says that it is a ‘A Ranking of Graduate Programs in Philosophy in the English-Speaking World’, but it is so US-focused to be distorted for all other countries that it talks about (even leaving aside the fact that many parts of the ‘non-English speaking world’ offer PhD programmes in English now). There are only THREE people not based in North America on the advisory board, for example, and NO non-North America-based woman on the advisory board…A PhD in the US looks very different from Europe, and the advice on how to choose somewhere is also very different.”
The PGR is pretty transparent, I think, that it’s a ranking of programs in the Anglosphere (the “English-Speaking World” construed as the EFL countries, not the broader construal where it includes countries with large ESL populations). Academic philosophy in the Anglosphere is (a) very tightly integrated (there are huge amounts of connectivity between the US and Canada, and between the UK and North America – I’m less informed on Australasia to be fair), and (b) very dominated by North America (which has ~80% of the population of the Anglosphere). And as a ranking of the Anglosphere (and speaking as someone who has spent most of their academic career outside the US) I don’t think the PGR is more US- (or North-America-) dominated than I’d expect, and has plenty of expertise in the rest of the Anglosphere. I count at least seven (out of 30) members of the advisory board who spent time in the UK as faculty, for instance, and I’ve probably missed some.
Of course there are lots of strong philosophy departments outside the Anglosphere, including many who offer courses in English, but the PGR has never pretended to rank them, or to offer advice to students on applying to them. If other bits of the academic philosophy ecosystem want to set up their own resources (drawing on expertise that might overlap but will not coincide with PGR’s expertise), more power to them.
Ok, fine. I see the point, even if I would disagree that academic philosophy in the ‘Anglosphere’ is ‘very dominated by North America’ (I think this will vary widely on lots of variables, including, but not limited, to areas of research), and even though even if I agreed to that claim, a ranking that seems to be (or could very easily look like it is) designed to further entrench that dominance does not seem to me to be a good thing…
Then again in so far as to how it looks to most folks, I think there is still this issue, and in so far as there are other editorialising claims on the website about how to apply to ‘graduate school’ and on the analytic-continental divide, and what counts as a ‘Top Research University’, again I still think there is this issue. (On the ‘Top Research University’ page, for example, we are told 20 places ‘At the very top of world rankings’, some of which don’t make it into the current ‘Top 50’ behind, for example, UK universities that we are ‘competitive with the second or third tier of top research universities in the U.S.’, and there are some in the top 50 not even listed as having that honour of being ‘competitive’ with US 2/3rd tier places. If we are using the PGR to get rid of ‘one-person’ bias about where is good, then why does this page exist in a place that students who don’t want to see the numbers will easily find and click on it?)
I’d also note that on Brian’s own website where parts of the PGR are ‘previewed’ and is likely all that some people look at, there are none of the caveats about it only focusing on the Anglosphere’ and with different cut-off points for different specialisms for no clear reason. I realise Brian is no longer officially connected, but this would be another place where I’d advise the current editors to make a cleaner break and not allow him to drip feed the results, if only for how it looks to people
The “Top Research Universities” tab makes clear that it’s about “overall resources and quality of universities”, not about their philosophy programmes. It’s not too suprising that a university might have an outstanding philosophy department, but an unremarkable research profile overall — or vice versa. It also makes sense that an applicant would consider the overall research profile of a university alongside other factors. I agree though that there’s no good reason to use this list that seems to reflect the considered impression of one man, about two decades ago. Better to just provide links to reputable overall rankings
David, thanks for the reply. Some thoughts:
Here’s what I still don’t get. Why not just invite way more voters, like those in groups B and C I listed above? That would seem to avoid potential problems with both methodology and perception, without introducing too much noise into the results.
The PGR has never claimed to be a random survey. My point was just that the Oscars don’t seem to be either: the selection group appears to be a comparably small fraction of the profession, and explicitly chosen on grounds of (self-assessed) excellence.
That said, I appreciate those were pretty rough numbers. In particular, I couldn’t really find a good estimate of the number of philosophers total (at least in the 20 minutes I was prepared to spend on a blog post!) hence my imperfect proxies. The post was based on your 200 vs 10,000 comparison; I just had no idea how to assess that without some estimate of the relative populations, and this was the best I could do at short notice.
I understand, David (both your point and your not spending much time on this!). My point in comparing 200 to 10,000 survey respondents is only that — even if both numbers were identically proportionate to their broader professions — with 10,000 respondents, it is much easier be confident that the results are from a sufficiently large and diverse sample to be useful as judgments of quality. With 200 — or 8 philosophers of art — the sample appears appears too small and skewed to be very useful, regardless of what fraction of the overall field or sub-field they represent.
(Additional point: in some of my sub-areas of specialization [not philosophy of art], I look at the respondents and note that many of them are not very well published in these areas, too–not people I would consider especially well-placed to make such judgments, unless they happen to be extraordinarily well-read in my areas even though they are not well-published in those areas.)
FWIW, I come at this as someone who is not in a PhD-granting program–I have no personal stake in this, other than wanting resources that are useful for my undergraduates.
I hope that the PGR folks consider getting a much wider range of respondents.