Digressions&Impressions

On Completing the PGR Survey

I have received no email invitation to complete a PGR survey. My (not modest) vanity is a bit hurt -- 'surely, I should qualify as a rater on 17th and 18th century philosophy as well as philosophy of social science by now? I am fully at home in the PGR ecology; yet because I work in a small far away place, I would be an impartial spectator!' --, but I am also relieved not to have to face the decision to complete the survey.

Despite all the non-trivial social and intellectual harms that the PGR generates, the discipline needs a well-functioning PGR (and some competitors) given the institutional metrics-focused environments we inhabit (recall my defense).* So, I would welcome contributing to a social good. Even so, there are also compelling reasons to withhold one's services to the current PGR, which almost certainly inherits all the known serious methodological flaws and biases from previous generations (recall this post).* I am hopeful that the new co-editor, Brit Brogaard, who is also an accomplished practicing scientist, will  address these in the design of future editions. While the current (2011 survey) PGR is getting dated, a further delay to fix some of the most glaring problems would have been the more optimal approach. 

Finally, Ichikawa notes that "since the reason his [Brian Leiter] control [of PGR] was relevant in the first place was his social power as a result of the general perception of his control, and the current un-clarity will allow that perception to continue, I don't consider it consistent with the September Statement to participate." Oddly enough, perhaps, I have always been un-bothered by the ways in which Brian Leiter leveraged the perceived linkage between PGR and Leiterreports as a means of (perceived) social power; this 'social power' always rested in large part on Leiter being able to articulate a more widely held (if inchoate) common sense. That this common sense is animated by social justice and adherence to high intellectual standards as well as often by an adversarial and unreceptive to others conception of philosophy (which is also implicated in non-trivial patterns of exclusion) is no surprise to those of us within the ecology (there is a very nice analysis by Bharath Vallabha of the "double talk regarding Leiter Reports"). All professional worlds have some socially powerful. This is not to deny that one could wish for more gentle rule in the future and, especially, the encouragement of the development of multiple measures/rankings of quality and employability.

Rather, the problem goes in the other direction; the design of the PGR serves not just the general interests of the PGR ecology by providing it a measure that serves its professional autonomy (at the partial expense, of course, of certain outsiders), but it also serves the particular scholarly and disciplinary interests of its originator and owner in violation of the ordinary canons of impartiality (incentives matter, after all, also to professional philosophers). Perhaps, such an appearance of a conflict of interest is unavoidable as long as the editor of PGR comes from within the PGR ecology (no, I am not volunteering, funny one!), but filling out the survey makes one complicit in it.***

So, what would I do if I had been invited?

Oh Alex...on PGR and validity (and all that)

Over at DailyNous there are two extremely eloquent guest posts on the PGR controversy; one is by Simon May, which is stirring reminder what philosophical nobility looks like. I happen to agree with most of it, although I am inclined to think that the statement that it is "impossible to overlook that so many women feature prominently amongst Prof. Leiter’s recent targets" is itself a consequence of selective perception. Lots of men are also among Prof. Leiter's targets; they have been for a  long time. It's just that these many other targets have been less popular than some of the recent female ones that were the tipping point. (Yes, I know it's more complex than that, but still.) I know that Prof. May is extremely careful not to attribute sexism to Prof. Leiter ("Once again, this is not a question about his moral character—there is no suggestion of implicit misogyny here. But character is beside the point.") Even so, the not-subtle-sub-text here is: 'he's targeting women.' But even if one thinks that Prof. Leiter's actions contribute greatly -- because of the popularity of his blog and the perceived power derived from his control over the PGR -- to 'climate' issues for women in philosophy (and I am not unsympathetic to that line of argument, although as always the situation is complicated because he has also done a lot more than 99.9% of the other men in the profession to make those issues visible in the profession),* it's not because there are also women among his targets. For, even if there had been no women, he would be contributing to the (in the apt phrase of May) "vices of sexism." (And I am self-aware enough to recognize that as a polemical blogger and particular kind of boy-philosopher I may also be contributing in that way.) Women and feminists have been among his targets -- and in ways that contribute to climate issues --, but they have not been targeted because they are women and feminists (unlike the continental feminists, Creationists, Randians, Straussians, etc.). I say all of this not because I have sympathy for Leiter's attempts to brand his critics a 'cyber mob' or admire his demagogic rhetoric ("smear campaign,") but because it matters that we draw the right lessons [separation of power, no monopoly rankings, adoption of best practices in our rankings, etc.] from this whole sordid affair.

The other post is by Alex Rosenberg, who is one of the most important philosophers of economics and, you know, when he is at his best somebody I look up to immensely. Rosenberg does not just defend the PGR (he's  in good company), rather, Rosenberg defends it come what may--not even deigning to acknolwedge the existence of known problems with the PGR:

About five years ago, Kieran Healy, a sociologist...subjected the PRG rankings to an analysis. The most striking finding of his analysis was that the rankings of the top 20 departments by philosophers from the top 20 departments was almost identical to the ranking of the top 20 departments by philosophers from the bottom 20 departments. Our discipline is more like mathematics in its social structure than it is like other humanities or social sciences. What’s more, Kieran’s findings revealed what sort of weightings philosophers give to the various subspecialties in their reputational rankings (alas, I learned, the philosophy of science is not in the top three—phil of mind, phil of language and metaphysics).

All this means that Brian Leiter has provided us with a reliable picture of our discipline, one we can use, to advise our students, our junior colleagues, and even to correct myths about our discipline cherished by our administrators.

Come on, Alex.

Really, Alex, you gotta be kidding me. 

It may well be that (a) there is a "reliable picture of our discipline" (more about that below), but (b) it does not follow that there exists “construct validity” (Rosenberg introduces this technical term in his  post), and (c) it does not follow that the methods cannot be improved, say, by (d) responding to constructive criticisms and (d*) systematically incorporating best practices.

Yes, but, we do need rankings.

Now that the future of PGR is hanging in the balance, some folk are thinking a future not just with multiple rankings (recall Weatherson and my response), but no philosophy rankings [HT Winsberg & Huebner on Facebook]. Several of my friends in the discipline have expressed surprise that I defend rankings in our future and that I have even expressed some desire to keep a modestly reformed PGR as one of the more important rankings in the discipline. I am not ignorant of the technical problems with the PGR -- and it is really astounding that in a discipline with so much knowledge about, and so often pays lip-service to, scientific method these problems have not caused more concerns -- and, given that I always insist that incentives matter, I am not sanguine about the perverse incentives PGR has generated in its own ecology, and the harm done to those on its margins and those excluded. For all I know, it has deformed the lives of some that thrive under it (I am not joking--it really deforms characters and moral sentiments). So, why defend it?

One defense might be that by generating competition for scarce talent along a whole range of sub-niches, it has elevated the salaries of people who would otherwise could never expect to rank as special (or distinguished, etc.). I have trotted out this defense, and I think it true. But I recognize that for the vast majority of folk this argument from self-interest will seem not very compelling, if only because they may have justified fear that these increases come at the expense of their salaries (or tenure, etc.). Given that I am stipulating a zero-sum environment, I don't have a good response to this concern (except to note that the expense may be felt by disciplines outside philosophy). (I thank Enzo Rossi for discussion.)

Rather, the most important thing to remember is that we live in an imperfect world, where scarcity matters and where, among the many constraints that influence our choices, judgments of quality need to have a place at the table,--or they will be simply ignored. The key virtue behind PGR is that it has given a wide enough group of very good professional philosophers a chance at shaping some disciplinary autonomy when it comes to judgments of quality. Rather than farming this judgment out to supposedly objective scientific metrics, or to outside news agencies, or more informal local judgments, the PGR gives a flawed and imperfect and often unfair, but decent snapshot of the evolving sensus communis. It's an imperfect proxy, but still a proxy that tracks perceptions of quality. To put the point differently: we will be ranked anyway by Deans, by grant agencies, by donors, etc. So, perhaps it's because I spent my time in a grant environment trying to track quality by silly metrics, but I am convinced it is better to have some disciplinary control over the rankings.

Does, my better a flawed autonomous disciplinary ranking than no ranking absolve us all from the complicity in the many petty (and a few larger) injustices and biases embedded in them and their application in the real world of hiring, tenuring, and graduate school choices? No, of course not. We -- that is, the inner core of a thousand to two-thousand professional philosophers that really benefit from the PGR (even if some never admit it) -- could have all done much more to encourage the systematic, ongoing adoption of known best practices into the PGR and more thoughtful ways to expand the PGR ecological reach in ways beneficial to more professional philosophers. The intellectual sparkle of even the most eminent of our humanitarian thinkers will be tainted and dimmed forever by their quiet acceptance of the PGR culture during the last decade(s); but even so, the embrace of the PGR is defensible. 

An Alternative Future for Leiterreports

The philosophical blogosphere and social media are abuzz. Brian Leiter speaks of a "smear campaign" in the headlines of two of his posts (here and here)--it's unclear if he thinks there is a smear campaign against the PGR, his stewardship of the PGR, his blog (Leiter reports), or him personally. In another post, Leiter quotes some anonymous correspondents, who seem to think that the smear campaign is directed at the PGR and him personally.

The so-called statement of concern by Sally Haslanger and David Velleman only describes him as "the editor of the Philosophical Gourmet Report." Another group, which has "decided to decline to volunteer" its services to the PGR focuses primarily on Leiter's control over the PGR (e.g. "Professor Leiter has the power to have this kind of impact on Professor Jenkins in part because of his control over the Philosophical Gourmet Report.") A third letter, drafted by David Chalmers, Jonathan Schaffer, Susanna Siegel, and Jason Stanley, (not yet fully disclosed) urges Leiter "to turn over the PGR to new management." So, the three letters all focus on Leiter's control over the PGR, and at least two of the letters call attention to the power that springs from this control.

It is worth noting that so far nobody suggests that Leiter should give up or scale back blogging/tweeting. Maybe I note this only because I am a blogger and I am inclined to overvalue its significance? This is a bit odd because many of the most public problems associated with Leiter's role in the discipline are associated with his agressive public-blog-persona. (Not all the problems: as noted before, PGR does not conform to best practices in (i) transparency/sharing of data; (ii) managing conflicts of interests; (iii) the results in 'Continental' miss out on important stuff.) In fact, he has 'leveraged' PGR to drive traffic to his blog through which he has considerable influence on opinion/discussion in the profession and, in turn, used his blog to create awareness about the PGR

A whole lot of problems could have been prevented if Leiter did not blog/tweet at all or if he had channeled his famous personal charm into his cyber-persona. I do not think an aggressive blog persona is problematic per se. I believe that norm changes sometimes require in addition to careful public education, a variety of tactics that may be perceived as bullying or shaming. And I have supported many of Leiter's efforts. Rather, the main problem has been that he seemed very aggressive in defending his turf, as Brian Weatherson puts it, "highlighting the deficiencies of every possible rival." As readers of D&I know, I was especially surprised by his hostility toward the Jennings rankings (which he repeatedly called "nonsense"). Maybe I was extra sensitive to this because I used to blog with Jennings at NewAPPS. But as I highlighted in my postings on the Jennings rankings, I thought many of his harsh criticisms missed the mark and, more important, her research had already uncovered non-trivial hiring patterns in the profession.

Now one reason why Leiter's blog persona causes trouble is because he sticks (by his own lights) to the following norm: "if people say and do things in public, I respond to what they say and do, not who they are." In one sense this is refreshingly egalitarian, but in another sense this is patently unfair. If we worked and operated in a perfectly rational communicative community Leiter's norm would make sense. But de facto in many interactions there are non-trivial power differentials due to diverging status, tenure, blog influence, sub-specialty, risk aversion, tolerance for disagreement, and other possible salient differences. These differences have normative significance. Even if one is merely responding to provocation, the world is more likely to perceive the actions of the haves. (I learned this the hard way during my stint at NewAPPS, where we developed a reputation for snark against anonymous junior members of the profession.)

Note that the previous paragraphs I have not challenged Leiter's continued stewardship of the PGR. Not unlike Weatherson, I hope we will see more ranking in the future. But I recommend that if Leiter and the PGR Advisory Board think it wise that he should stay intimately involved in the future of PGR,* then that Leiter be strongly encouraged to suspend his blogging/tweeting. I say this not because I think Leiter is especially unsuited for combining editing the PGR and active role in social media (on the contrary, as I am able to recognize more than most observers, his achievement at combining service to the profession alongside demands of scholarship, teaching, family, etc. is nothing less than astounding and awe-inspiring); rather we have learned that combining these tasks leads to the perception of "too much power concentrated in any one person’s hands." (Weatherson)

How to Kill the Golden Goose of American Higher Education

Late Friday afternoon (August 22), the University of Illinois broke its three-week long silence on the controversy regarding the Chancellor's revocation of a tenured offer to Steven Salaita, who had accepted a faculty position in the American Indian Studies Program at the flagship campus at Urbana-Champaign. Chancellor Phyllis Wise and Board of Trustees Chairman Christopher Kennedy both issued statements explaining the revocation, but in terms far more alarming than the original decision itself. It is not an exaggeration to say that the Chancellor and the Board of Trustees have now declared that the First Amendment does not apply to any tenured faculty at the University of Illinois.--Brian Leiter, Huffington Post.

I kept quiet on the Salaita affair because while I felt that Prof. Salaita was treated unjustly and I recognized that this was a genuine academic freedom issue, I was not especially eager to strengthen the U.S. Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel (see this petition [about that some other time more]). So, forced to choose between two bad choices, I was happy to have others do the legitimate protesting. But I have asked John Protevi to include me in the philosopers's boycott of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Right now my participation is largely symbolic -- I have not been invited to the UIUC --, but to be frank: Brian Leiter, who is not known for mincing his words, understates the significance of the situation. To be clear: Leiter is absolutely right that this is a classic first amendment case.

In addition, The Chancellor and the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois are changing the nature of academic employment in the Humanities and Social Sciences, and -- in the process -- redefining the nature of tenure.* If you read the statements by Chancellor Phyllis Wise and Board of Trustees Chairman Christopher Kennedy, it is no less an attempt to intimidate and regulate faculty so as to tame them thoroughly and bring faculty into the orbit of the surveillance state. For if some polemical tweets can cost a professor his job in the name of a non-existing and non-desirable "civility," (see here for analysis), then basically it says, we're watching you and we can strike at you whenever we choose (see here). In effect, Salaita has been made an exemplar; and because he defends an unpopular cause -- and it is not my cause at all -- he is an easy target to send a wider message to the rest of us. If this decision is allowed to stand, then the privileged few tenured (I return to this below) are at-will employees, subservient to the whims of technocratic, university management and its ability to monitor approved behavior.

UIUC is one of the world's great research universities. It represents what's finest of the American heartland. (I lived in the Midwest for nine years, seven of which in Illinois.) It, and its sister institutions (the land grant universities and, especially, the "Big Ten"), are engines of upward mobility, the backbone of lots of research and development, job creation centers, and -- to be romantic for a second -- a glorious symbol of civilization that nurtures the arts and sciences (for example, read Galatea 2.2 by Richard Powers, who spent a good chunk of his writing life at UIUC). They are also the acknowledged havens for the talented and hardworking misfits (the eclectic, the original, the idiosyncratic, the unpopular, etc.) in society. These institutions are, due to their size and flag-ship status, a key part of the enduring social compact between society, citizens, and academics. But all humane institutions decay if not nourished and cultivated with spirit of generosity.

I know that a lot of folk who are not tenured think of the tenured as spoiled brats and privileged parasites. But if you want to destroy what is arguably one of the ongoing success stories of the American economy and higher education -- and the best kept secret in higher education is that the humanities/social sciences are also extremely profitable at a lot of universities+ -- this decision, if emulated by other institutions of higher educations, is the way to go. In the long run it will reduce innovation and academic talent will be lured abroad (helped by a low dollar and growing demand for higher education in the growing and young economies of Asia, and Brazil). It will also increase the cost of recruiting and hiring academics that are in demand; these will demand better pay and more secure contracts.

Now, I recognize that in many places the privileges of tenure are grounded in the cheap and relatively unprotected labor of adjuncts, graduate students, and temporary faculty. But such systemic problems are not resolved by a further leveling down of working conditions. Finally a skeptic might think that I am just engaged in special pleading to protect my own supposedly outdated, labor market privileges. But while I have deep roots in American higher education, I am not employed Stateside. Rather, I worry that if even America's institutions of higher learning voluntarily turn their backs on the inquisitive spirit of freedom, the American century will shade into every gloomier forms of darkness.

 

 

*I am deliberately excluding the so-called STEM disciplines; for there 'tenure' tends to mean you are as privileged as your last grant.

+Humanities and social science professors tend to have low overheads and relatively low salaries.

The view from up here

He who studies with a philosopher should take away with him some one good thing every day: he should daily return home a sounder man, or in the way to become sounder.--Seneca Letter 108

In the bowels of cyberspace, philosopher Eric Schliesser (Ghent) has earned the amusing nickname "the Ghent Balloon," in recognition of the amazing amounts of hot air he can generate on any topic, no matter how trivial.  Since he is a serious scholar and philosopher, my own suspicion is that he really doesn't believe a lot of the stuff he blogs, and that he does it mainly to garner attention or to satisfy his apparently   enormouos appetite for righteous posturing.  Whatever the explanation, his latest balloon ride warrants a couple of observations.  First, regarding its juvenile title, there was no "dust-up":  Prof. Haslanger made a claim, and I disgreed with it for the reasons given.  I often agree with Prof. Haslanger on issues in the profession, but I did not agree with her about this.  That is not a "dust-up," but Prof. Schliesser apparently would like to make it one.  Second, if Schliesser does not believe that meaningful qualitative judgments are possible, and that all we can do is meet the demands of each "constituency," then he should cut through the hot air with a bracing burst of icey directness and say so clearly.  Third, his feigned uncertainty about this line from my original comments--"Only if one thought every intellectual constituency within the APA produced good philosophical work could [representing them all] possibly be a desideratum:  but does anyone really believe that?  (One need only look at the MIT faculty to see that no one there does.)"--is a bit incredible, even allowing for his rhetorical tendencies.  If anyone at MIT believed that all the intellectual constituencies in the APA produce high quality philosophical work, then MIT would have--maybe just once in the last 25 years, say--hired a philosopher trained at a SPEP department, or a philosopher affiliated with the Society for American Philosophers.   In fact, MIT hires (even when they hire Continental and feminist philosophers) only from a small handful of departments, about a half-dozen (Princeton, Berkeley, MIT, Oxford, two or three others on occasion).  I conclude that no one there believes that all the intellectual constituencies in the APA produce high quality philosophical work.  I also think that is the only reasonable view to hold, and I would be astonished if it were not Eric Schliesser's view, posturing to one side.--Brian Leiter.

I have always admired balloons, from a distance. They courageously glide, silently through the sky, yet vulnerable to the unpredictable elements. They represent our noble inquisitiveness and sense of adventure, while reminding us of the fragility of our control over the environment. Piloting a balloon requires skill and judgment as well as a bit of luck. It's a lovely aesthetic; come visit us in Ghent some time (here).

But, yes, I have somehow managed to become a character in a Swiftian plot. And I know than when you have been defined in some such way, it's wiser to incorporate the new meme into one's identity than to pretend it away. After all, to give you my metaphysical thought of the day, the comedy of life is constituted by potentially contrary impressions! So, I give you an image of Ghent from a balloon as a reminder to myself that my aspirations look ridiculous to some as well as a mark of my timidity.

On the Haslanger-Leiter dust-up

The Journal of the APA will be launching this coming spring. It is crucial to the success of the journal that it represent research done by the many different intellectual constituencies of the APA. The editorial board is highly sensitive to this fact.--Sally Haslanger

That seems to me the primary danger for the journal, not what is crucial to its success.  Only if one thought every intellectual constituency within the APA produced good philosophical work could this possibly be a desideratum:  but does anyone really believe that?  (One need only look at the MIT faculty to see that no one there does.)  - See more at: http://leiterreports.typepad.com/#sthash.umdkXwml.dpuf

That seems to me the primary danger for the journal, not what is crucial to its success.  Only if one thought every intellectual constituency within the APA produced good philosophical work could this possibly be a desideratum:  but does anyone really believe that?  (One need only look at the MIT faculty to see that no one there does.)--Brian Leiter

It is a remarkable fact in contemporary professional philosophy that the side that purportedly defends "quality" tends to attribute political motives and political machinations to its opponents  -- in this post, for example, Leiter talks of journal 'capture' by special "interest groups" --, while often recycling the Meme that the status quo institutions of professional philosophy are primarily epistemic in nature. (Often the defenders of the status quo imply that they are not engaged in politics; just to avoid confusion, this is not so of Leiter--he is very clear about his political aims and he is often most forthright when his domain, "continental philosophy," is at stake.)

We know from citation and publication data that the most prestigious journals in professional philosophy exhibit intellectual and demographic patterns of exclusion; they publish a remarkably narrow range of topics and methods; even folk  trained within the PGR ecology (in say aesthetics, political philosophy, various areas of history, applied areas, and non-Western traditions, etc.) often have a sense of exclusion (witness the recurring commentary  over the Philosopher's Annual). We also know that these same top journals have extremely high rejection rates (which causes predictable anxieties and tough strategic choices among junior faculty, who depend on the right publications for tenure). These two facts have been widely discussed. Less widely discussed, but familiar to those willing to reflect on it, is that these very same journals have been slow to adopt, shall we say, best practices that reduce intellectual nepotism/favoritism to insiders (yes, I know, some are better than others, and there have been reports that things are improving).

We also know that in many areas of intellectual life, competitive emulation can produce good consequences. So, professional philosophers ought to welcome experiments that might produce a better professional publishing landscape that can simultaneously reduce the existing lottery element in publishing and make more excellent work visible in the profession. (That can be done in ways that need not threaten the existing professional status quo at all.) Given that the APA is supposed to represent the interests of all its members the founding of the APA journal is a remarkable burst of energy for an association that has long been ridiculous in the face of the dire professional circumstances of a considerable number of its members and (lost-forever) would-be-members. (One is tempted to say, 'what took it so long?')

On Being Silent on Gaza

[A]s meaningless as asking which points in Ohio are starting points.--Quine "Two Dogmas" (1961).

I’m what you get when you cross Quine with Ryle and add some cognitive science.--Daniel C. Dennett.

I am writing in order to disrupt any possibility that the horrible conflation of Zionism and Judaism become further entrenched this week. And I am writing to draw attention to the uncontroversial fact that whatever the merits and legitimacy of the State of Israel and its military actions may be, it does not speak or act in the name of the Jewish religion or in the name of the Jewish people...

Today is the eve of the anniversary of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, the greatest calamity in the history of Judaism and the beginning of our long and bitter exile. The holy rabbis of the century that saw the rise of Israeli nationalism as a response to this exile have taught me that I will sanctify God's name if I declare publicly the Jewish belief that the Zionist mission is a struggle against God's very will.--Prof. Curtis Franks, "An open letter on Israel and Gaza from Notre Dame philosopher Curtis Franks," Leiter reports.

The fabric of sentences that constitute the "lore" of Quine's fathers "is a pale grey lore, black with fact and white with convention." Quine could not locate "quite black threads in it, or any white ones." Sometimes we do not have Quine's or Dennett's luxury in picking our (surrogate) fathers;+ in the lore of my family there wear dark, black hats tracing back matrimonially (and with a few genealogical gaps) to the Ropschitzer Rebbe. Given the possible puns on Ropschitz, I did not share this with my school friends; we can't all be a Prinz or a Gendler.* Of course, I could spin a story about myself as, say, Dennett's student (which is true), but it wouldn't fit with the work I do, so I have tried out others.

In professional philosophy, we tend to be separated by two degrees or less, but I have to admit I was unfamiliar with Curtis Franks. His website helpfully informs me that he "is the direct patrilineal descendent of Isaac Franks (b. 1772 in the Royal Province of South Carolina)." Not quite the Mayflower, or Newport, but certainly yiches, too. Franks is a logician, I learn, so undoubtedly careful with words. I was made curious because in his open letter, he cites a pacifist passage of the Chofetz Chaim al Hatorah approvingly with its author called "saintly."** It's been a while since I have heard "the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem" described as the "greatest calamity in the history of Judaism." (That's compatible, of course, with greater calamities --either the expulsion from Iberia or (in the one awkward locution of Franks's letter) "the most famous genocide attempt in all of hisstory" -- befalling Jews qua Jews.)

Of course, not in my lifetime would I have ever imagined to see the most important professional philosophy blog (and Brian Leiter is not exactly known as a friend of religion) give prominent space to ideas that I associate with Satmar and other ("Hungarian") Hasidic Anti-Zionists to whom I was sometimes introduced by my (non Hungarian/non-Satmar) grandparents during my childhood visits to Forest Hills. (To be clear Franks's Jewish authorities are neither necessarily Satmar or Hungarian.)

Yesterday Ingrid Robeyns asked me why I keep quiet about Gaza (etc.). She knows that recently I defended (in Dutch) the need for philosophy in the public sphere (while acknowledging that such philosophy is often a very different genre from what we professionals would ordinarily take seriously). Even so, because philosophers rarely have a comparative advantage when discussing newsy events, and we are not trained pundits (although some practice punditry),++ I think restraint on newsy events is advisable. Moreover, training in professional ethics, political philosophy, and meta-ethics does not, I fear, involve training in good moral-political judgment (and there is considerable evidence -- for those that wish to see it -- that becoming a professional philosopher corrupts one's moral reflexes as Ruth Chang has eloquently taught us and Eric Schwitzgebel documented.) The great danger of philosophical skill -- one not emphasized enough in our training -- is that when coupled with public utterances it becomes no better than extremely refined, lawyerly technique in the service of any end (but without the legal framework/rules), that is, propaganda, even war-time propaganda.

More on Philosophy Rankings

A proxy is an indirect measure. Sometimes a measure can have two functions; for example, you can measure X in order to (or accidentally) indirectly track Y (where X is something interesting in its own right). Something is a decent proxy (X) if it will co-vary with Y. Unless one has very well confirmed background theory, it’s very hard to tell if a proxy is reliable (accurate, etc.). Absent such background theory, one way to tell if your proxy (X) is reliable, is to measure the target system Y directly, say, periodically (and – let’s stipulate – with greater difficulty and expense). Of course, if one can measure Y directly and reliably without a proxy measure, then the proxy measure becomes dispensable unless X holds out independent interest. Ideally, direct and indirect measures work in tandem so that lacunae in each become visible and modelers and end-users of the models get a clearer sense of social reality. Of course, among intentional systems with feedback loops the measures themselves become part of the causal nexus and may well play some role in shaping the evolution of the system.  So, that a measure X can be a proxy for Y, and play some role in the future development of social ecology (Z).

With that jargon, let’s turn to professional philosophy (recall this post, in particular).

The Philosophical Gourmet rankings (hereafter PGR) are said to be "primarily measures of faculty quality and reputation" of selected institutions and indirectly measures of employability.  The PGR aggregates expert judgments by way of a survey of selected, expert faculty. In addition to measuring quality, one of the main purposes is to guide student choices in graduate education. Several tabs in the report are directly related to and informative about graduate education, choosing graduate departments, as well as job placement (and "employment"). They are, thus, also a proxy for employability. This was reiterated during the past weeks by Brian Leiter, who claimed in a series of (partly polemical) posts that there is “much correlation” between “PGR rank and overall tenure-track placement” (here), and that the PGR is an indispensable measure if one is interested in “academic employment” (here, read also Leiter’s important and sensible caveats).

As an aside, if the PGR indeed measures quality, and if it indirectly tracks (even predicts) hiring patterns, then we might also be inclined to think that the labor market for professional philosophers functions very well. One explanation for this may then well be the existence of the PGR, which provides prospective employers with crucial information (that would otherwise have been left un-aggregated) and, hence, becomes part of the causal nexus. One need not be a Hegelian (or Leibnizian, or Smithian) to appreciate the cunning of history that a self-proclaimed admirer of Marx is, in part, responsible for guiding the invisible hand of the market-place by aggregating expert judgments. Only in America, as my grandmother used to say. (I return to this below.)

Philosophy Rankings: Experts And Markets, Part (I)

The Philosophical Gourmet rankings (hereafter: "Gourmet" or "Rankings" or "Gourmet rankings") are said to be "primarily measures of faculty quality and reputation" of selected institutions. These Rankings aggregate expert judgments by way of a survey of selected, expert faculty. These Rankings serve multiple functions in the profession. In addition to measuring quality, one of the main purposes is to guide student choices in graduate education. Several tabs in the report are directly related to and informative about graduate education, choosing graduate departments, as well as job placement (and "employment"). It has been a true service to the profession that the report "was used to encourage all departments to provide comparably candid and thorough information." So, one non-trivial impact of these rankings is to create far more transparency about professional philosophy in North America, the UK, Irelands, Australia, and New Zealand. By and large, the advisory board and the evaluators are drawn from members of the profession who were trained and work in these countries. (I counted four exceptions to this claim in the 2011 list, but I may have missed a few.) In addition, the vast majority of evaluators are drawn from PhD/MA granting programs. (My eye-ball guess is that this is true of around 90% of the evaluators)

In the report the coverage of Gourmet is described as "The English-Speaking World," even though it excludes quite a few populous English speaking countries (South Africa, India, Pakistan, Nigeria etc.). It is, especially, worth nothing that much professional philosophy in Europe and increasingly Asia and South America has switched to English as its lingua franca during the last decade. Perhaps I am biased, but there is now considerable interaction between European philosophers and North American ones; they share professional journals in common and increasingly the job markets are becoming integrated.I mention this not to nit-pick but because it helps us see thatthe Gourmet's experts are judging their own professional ecology (henceforth: "ecology" or "Gourmet ecology" or "the ecology.") In particular, they are judging the institutional elite within this particular ecology.*

Of course, these institutions have many different characteristics (e.g., private/public) and they inhabit different funding regimes. But on the whole, the Gourmet ecology shares – what I will call – competitive emulation as a key axiological commitment. Relative quality is the scarce good, and by increasing (relative) quality one moves up in the rankings (itself another scarce good). Within this particular ecology, the rankings, thus, also serve to alert outsiders (Deans, Administrators, Alumni, foreign observers, potential students, etc.) to the aggregated expert judgments and can also helpguide policy – for example, hiring and curriculum decisions – in the area. Given that Gourmet offers both overall and niche rankings, it has created a variety of 'markets' and 'market strategies' for (relative) quality in lots of areas of philosophy within the ecology. Not to put too fine a point on it, it is my opinion that the existence of Gourmet has helped increase the average salaries of quite a few professional philosophers that have benefitted from the possibility of competitive bidding of their services within the ecology; I believe I have benefitted from this mechanism. It has also helped that thanks to Brian Leiter's efforts, professional philosophy has been a first mover in these areas, and that neighboring disciplines have been relatively slow to catch up. Moreover, as anybody that is old enough to remember can attest, the existence of Gourmet has undermined, in part, a more close-knit old-boys-club centered on the Ivies, Oxbridge, and a few Midwestern/West Coast Institutions; from a low base-line, it has promoted a more meritocratic ethos within the profession. By updating the Rankings relatively frequently, it has also undermined folk resting on their laurels and, thereby, promoted increased activity within the profession.**