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 the reputations of the published academic works of their respective senior (generally tenured) Ph.D supervising staff. 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 in the United States of America.

There are currently a total of 110 philosophy Ph.D programs in the U.S.A alone and this report attempts to list the 50 most reputable. It also lists the top 15 from the United Kingdom, top 5 from Canada and top 5 from combined Australia/New Zealand.

Legal philosopher Brian Leiter of the University of Texas, Austin first compiled and distributed the report in 1989 and it was first published in both book and web versions in 1998 - since then it has been published bi-annually. It is based on a voluntary survey of senior (generally tenured) staff at various tertiary educational institutions. It should be noted that Leiter has no formal training in issues relating to surveys, methodology and other relevant epistemological concerns.

This ongoing reports have been fairly controversial for various reasons, including methodological concerns, strong bias towards analytic philosophy, its Anglo-American focus, restricted survey sample of both staff and universities, institutional politics, and other unmeasurable factors. Ranking of philosophy departments is opposed by many academic philosophers, as well as the American Philosophical Association and other relevant professional philosophical societies.

Methodology

Strengths and 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.

Weaknesses and 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

• The 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.
• The 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.
• Inclusion of number of staff evaluated at each department.
• Inclusion 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.

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Suggested Advice on how to use the report

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

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Related Articles

• College and university rankings
• Doctor of Philosophy

External Links

• for an alternative ranking and criticism
• http://www.ephilosopher.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=Diner_Wrapper&file=index&req=ShowFile&file_wrap=html/rankings.htm
• http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/researchdoc/
• http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/resources/sthphi.htm
• http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/resources/realguide.html
• http://ndpr.icaap.org/content/archives/2002/10/hoekema=leiter.html
• http://webapp.utexas.edu/blogs/archives/bleiter/001605.html
• http://www.utexas.edu/law/faculty/bleiter/hoekemawilshire.html
• http://philosophy.anu.edu.au/gpp/jobindex.html
• http://www.csulb.edu/%7Ejvancamp/Female_Friendly.html
• http://tar.weatherson.net/archives/002763.html