Philosophical Gourmet Report

The Philosophical Gourmet Report (also known as the Leiter Report or PGR) co-edited by philosophy and law professor Brian Leiter and by philosophy professor Berit Brogaard, is a ranking of graduate programs in philosophy in the English-speaking world.[1][2]

It is in response to the Gourman Report, and is based on a survey of philosophers who are nominated as evaluators by the Report's Advisory Board. Its purpose is to provide guidance to prospective Ph.D students, particularly those students who intend to pursue a professional career in academic philosophy. The Report first appeared on the web in 1996; it has been distributed by Blackwell since 1997.

In 1989, while he was a graduate student, Leiter made a subjectivelist of what he believed to be the top 25 graduate philosophy programs in the United States, which came to be the PGR.[3] The PGR was described by David L. Kirp in a 2003 New York Times op-ed as "the bible for prospective [philosophy] graduate students."[4] George Yancy, in Reframing the Practice of Philosophy: Bodies of Color, Bodies of Knowledge (SUNY Press, 2012), opined that Philosophical Gourmet Report ranking: "is, of course, very controversial. However, as is often pointed out, there is no real alternative."[5] Carlin Romano, in America the Philosophical (Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2013), referred to the PGR rankings as "often-criticized" and "biased towards mainstream analytic departments".[6]

In 2002, 175 philosophers signed an open letter calling on Leiter to stop producing the PGR.[7] In fall 2014, over 600 philosophers signed a petition to boycott the PGR. The petition was organized by some philosophers at University of British Columbia to protest what they called a "derogatory and intimidating" e-mail sent by Leiter to one of their colleagues. Leiter claimed the recipient had threatened him.[8] 24 of the 56 members of the Advisory Board of the PGR recommended he relinquish control over the Report's management.[9] In response, Leiter appointed Berit Brogaard, a philosophy professor at the University of Miami, as co-editor for the 2014 report and agreed to step down as editor.[10] Leiter joined the Advisory Board and Brogaard became the editor.[10]

Overall Ranking Worldwide (Top 10)

Rank (2014-15) School Country
1 New York University  United States
2 Oxford University  United Kingdom
3 Princeton University  United States
3 Rutgers University  United States
5 University of Michigan  United States
6 Yale University  United States
7 Harvard University  United States
7 University of Pittsburgh  United States
9 Stanford University  United States
9 University of Southern California  United States

See also

References

External links

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