Philosophical Gourmet Report

The Philosophical Gourmet Report (also known as the Leiter Report) attempts to score and rank the university philosophy departments in the English-speaking world, based on a survey of philosophers who are nominated as evaluators by the Advisory Board of the Report. Its purpose is to provide a source of guidance to prospective research Ph.D students, particularly those students who intend to pursue a professional career in academic philosophy.

As of December 2004, there are a total of 110 philosophy Ph.D programs in the U.S. alone; in its latest version (2004 - 2006) the report attempts to list the 50 most reputable. It also lists the top 15 from the United Kingdom, top 10 from Canada and top 5 from Australasia.

Philosophy and Law professor Brian Leiter of the University of Texas at Austin first compiled and distributed the report in 1989 and it was first published on the web in 1996, and, since 1997, by Blackwell.

Contents

1 Methodology 2 Arguments For 3 Arguments Against 4 Observations, Concerns and/or Other Criticisms 5 Evolution since the first web report 6 Suggested Improvements and/or Alternatives 7 Suggested Advice on how to use the report 8 U.S.A data on philosophy Ph.D completion rates and academic employment prospects. 9 See also 10 External Links

Methodology

The report's ranking's are based on an anonymous survey of faculty members of philosophy departments throughout the English-speaking world. Respondants are asked to assign scores from 1 to 5 to lists of the faculty of each department (the name of the department is suppressed in the survey questionnaire.) The results are compiled and sorted into an ordinal ranking which is subdivided into "peer groups."

To be completed

Arguments For

• There is currently no objective alternative to the survey. Thus this is the most objective and useful source for students that is currently available.
• Before the report, students largely relied on the opinions of their undergraduate faculty lecturers, without knowing how well informed, or biased the lecturers were in their opinions.
• This attempts to shift the halo effect away from the prestige and reputation of the university, to more appropriately, the reputation of its philosophy department
• If anyone would know about the quality, reputation and influence of the published academic works of various philosophy departments, it is most likely to be the senior, experienced and active academic philosophers.
• This helps to combat unsubstantiated marketing language and claims, eg. 'This university has one of the top philosophy departments in the country'.
• There is most likely to be a strong correlation between strong research reputation and good Ph.D supervision practise by the respective staff.
• The sample skew towards popular subjects is likely to have a strong correlation with employment prospects.
• This reinforces competitive pressure on departments to be more open, honest and transparent about the research records of their staff, relative strengths of their staff, number of supervising staff available, etc.

Arguments Against

• There is no necessary causal link in quality between research record and teaching practise. In some cases, the research record is quite misleading, ie false positives or false negatives.
• It is extremely difficult for anyone to fairly and consistently assess the relative reputation of an individual academic, or an entire department, or a number of departments.
• An injustice is done to those departments which are not assessed and to those who narrowly miss out on the top 50/15/5/5 ranking on a statistically insignificant difference.
• The scores are likely to reflect (consciously/unconsciously) the biases, interests, knowledge and specialisations of the evaluators.
• The sample of evaluators is skewed towards popular areas of philosophy - this is not necessarily an indicator of quality of research program.

Observations, Concerns and/or Other Criticisms

• The survey intentionally acts as a market regulating mechanism of students and staff and recruitment practices.
• Different survey methodologies can sometimes produce different results. It is not clear that the method applied in this case, is the most appropriate or the most robust.
• Coursework students have mistakenly attempted to apply results to their own situations.
• This can be misleading as to the overall relative strength of a department, as departments with strong research records are omitted from the report if they do not have a Ph.D program.
• Local vs Foreign biases are evident in the scores.
• The composition of the consultative board is not proportionally representative of geography or area of specialisation.

Evolution since the first web report

• Addition of a consultative board who influence policy, ranking refinements, instructions to and nomination of evaluators.
• Elimination of peer grouping universities based on median scores, as this could potentially mislead consumer choice as to the difference in relative merits of institutions.
• Addition of specialised rankings (but not yet scores) of various areas of philosophy.
• Elimination of handicapping based on department size.
• Addition of median scores, and local (for non-U.S.A. universities) mean and median scores.
• Addition of some data on placement records and career prospects.
• Addition of some advice on some individual areas of philosophy.
• Addition of number of staff evaluated at each department.
• Addition of names and specialties of evaluators.

Suggested Improvements and/or Alternatives

• A philosophy Ph.D clearinghouse.
• Change to a larger score range (eg out of 100 instead of out of 5) to allow more finely grained scores.
• The addition of range (highest-lowest scores) and of a 'standard deviation' score, to indicate the variability in scores of each department.
• Number of students currently enrolled in philosophy Ph.D programs at each department would be useful and student to supervising staff ratios would be useful.
• A more open and transparent methodology debate process, eg. arguments for/against individual changes should be published on the website to allow for scrutiny and to improve the rigour of discussion; what the board's voting difference was for each issue; perhaps allow the posting of anonymous constructive comments and criticism on the website of the report and arguments over individual issues. This would help add to the perception of commitment to rigour and intent in following the best of academic and democratic traditions.
• A more proportionally representative sample of the board in terms of geography and area of specialisation.
• A more comprehensive (ie. as many as possible) survey sample size of departments and academics.
• Addition of degree entry requirements, modes of study, yearly costs and the minimum and maximum length of doctorate, statistics on drop out rate and average length of completion for each department. These would help to determine affordability, value vs quality comparison. The drop out rate and length of completion, may be an indicator as to the quality of fellow students and the support and quality of teaching.
• What student help services are available at each institution for postgraduate students, eg accommodation help, resource centres, etc.

Suggested Advice on how to use the report

To be completed

U.S.A data on philosophy Ph.D completion rates and academic employment prospects.

To be completed

See also

• College and university rankings

External Links

• The Philosophical Gourmet Report (http://www.philosophicalgourmet.com/)
• Criticisms of the Gourmet Report (http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~heck/aboutpgr)
• The Lighter Report - A parody of the Leiter's Philosophical Gourmet Report (http://www-personal.umich.edu/~velleman/Lighter.html)
• Female Friendly Departments (http://www.csulb.edu/%7Ejvancamp/Female_Friendly.html)
• A Ranking of U.S. Departments of Continental Philosophy (http://www.geocities.com/Athens/1575/report.html)
• The American Philosophical Association's statement on Rankings (http://www.apa.udel.edu/apa/governance/statements/rankings.html)
• Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy statement on rankings (http://www.spep.org/Statement%20on%20Ranking.html)
• A Letter of Concern about the Philosophical Gourmet Report (http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~heck/aboutpgr/html/letter.html)
  • Leiter's Reply (http://www.utexas.edu/law/faculty/bleiter/open_letter.html)
  • Reply by various philosophers supporting Leiter (http://pantheon.yale.edu/%7Ekd47/rankings.html)
• Hoekema's review of Wilshire, Fashionable Nihilism (http://ndpr.icaap.org/content/archives/2002/10/hoekema=wilshire.html)
  • Leiter's reply to Hoekema’s Review of Wilshire (http://ndpr.icaap.org/content/archives/2002/10/leiter=hoekema.html)
    • Hoekema's reply to Leiter (http://ndpr.icaap.org/content/archives/2002/10/hoekema=leiter.html)
      • Leiter's Second reply to Hoekema and reply to Wilshire (http://www.utexas.edu/law/faculty/bleiter/hoekemawilshire.html)
• Yale's Keith DeRose's position (http://pantheon.yale.edu/%7Ekd47/rankings.html)