I've been working through the online responses to the Pluralist's Guide, a lot of which is boring, and some of which is shockingly silly.
My biggest surprise, though, is the relative silence of some of the more vocal opponents of the Leiter Report. The Pluralist's Guide actually and overtly manifests all of the methodological flaws that critics of the PGR typically (though mistakenly) claim undermine the PGR and render it pernicious. So anyone who (misguidedly) objects to the PGR on methodological grounds has especially strong reason to object to the Pluralist's Guide-- the Pluralist's Guide really is what Leiter's ignorant critics say the PGR is.
Someone care to explain?
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24 comments:
http://theoriekritik.wordpress.com and http://philosophicalchasm.blogspot.com both speak to this issue -- albeit badly.
Cynical reason: claims of methodological flaws in the PGR were otherwise motivated (e.g., by general antipathy).
Non-cynical reason: the PGR is (obvs) way more influential than the PG, so even if you think that shit stinks no matter whose it is, you might think that stinky shit whose odour is carried far and wide is a bigger practical problem than stinky shit that goes comparatively unnoticed, and therefore the former more strongly merits (ahem) raising a stink about.
(The latter seems reasonable to me, though without prejudice to any question about which guide better captures where the good philosophy is. I'm quite certain the PG would have very little influence on those not already firmly within its philosophical/ideological orbit, and that's a comparatively small and committed group. Indeed, would it even influence them, or merely affirm what they all already believed anyway?)
My use of "latter" there is confusing. I mean it to refer to my non-cynical reason: I can see how one might think it more worth one's time to protest influential bad behaviour than inconsequential bad behaviour.
I can see how one might think it more worth one's time to protest influential bad behaviour than inconsequential bad behaviour.
The problem with that, though, is that the PGR report isn't bad behavior- it's extremely helpful behavior (that people sometimes react to stupidly, but that's not it's fault). The "pluralist" guide, however, is just garbage (and bad behavior, in bits of it.)
We realize that Leiter et al are either good Nietzscheans or just a bunch of Anytuses (is that Anytoi?) Once you see that it is all politics, i.e. that your opponent is merely asserting prejudices dressed up as pseudo-objective evidence, you realize the only response is to do the same. Welcome to the pomo-ification of college rankings, sort of like the desert of the real, but more annoying. Necessary readings include Baudrillard, Karl Rove, Brian Leiter, and George Lakoff. PGR rulz!
Yeah, I'm joking, but I'm crying too.
9:37, that was pretty stupid.
Let me guess: you wasted your time learning pomo/continental/'feminist' 'philosophy rather than how to think.
10:18, that was pretty stupid, too.
@8:42:
I meant my claim to be without prejudice to who was behaving badly. The question Spiros asked was about why those who think that the PGR does a bad job of x, y, and z are not complaining about the PG doing a bad job of x, y, and z. So stipulatively, such people already think the PGR is an example of bad behaviour, and the question is directed at their apparent inconsistency, not at their having a false view of the PGR per se (though Spiros evidently also thinks their view is false).
I endorse 4:47's non-cynical, 'practical stinky shit problem' explanation.
Beyond that, I suspect those who object to the PGR are less likely to read Leiter's blog and thus less likely to comment, regardless of the issue.
10:18 Yeah perhaps it was a stupid joke, but you know, your response might lead someone to think it is not that far from the truth. Sheesh, learn continental (feminist!) philosophy or learn how to think, surely there's a third alternative that we could use to deconstruct the hierarchical binary and undermine the hegemonic assumptions underlying this assertion. But, perhaps, just getting irony would be a start.
But, more seriously, I think that the methodologies are flawed, but that these lists are not exactly objective but rather capture the doxa at a certain time about what is important work in philosophy. Thus, any methodology is about as good as the polls that Leiter puts up on his blog for e.g., the most awesome mereologist of the 18th century. Thus, with the exception of the climate for women section which seems egregiously flawed and embarrassing, the lists are on all fours. Perhaps, PG recognizes the problematic nature of the project (as seems to be indicated in part by their avoidance of rankings) and offers their guide with a greater sense of the limitations of any such project.
An Aristotelian might criticize the Utilitarian's appearance of quantitatively precise calculations on which a moral judgment is founded (on methodological grounds) while still offering moral guidance that they believe holds true generally and for the most part.
8:31, you are a blowhard. The PGR report doesn't purport to be an infallible list of good philosophy. Nor does anyone think that small numeric differences mean much at all. You are attacking a scarecrow with typical brain dead pomo reasoning.
I wasn't kidding, 8:31. I've met several people who have taken PhDs in continental/pomo or , 'feminist', philosophy.
They can all talk 'theory' with big words until they're blue in the face. But as soon as you put some real issue in front of them that involves some critical thinking, they act as the 'pluralist guide' writers do: lots of bluster, no self-criticism, and an inability to think critically at the level of any second-year undergrad making a decent stab at learning mainstream phil.
I seriously do think that's a big issue to consider here.
http://philosophyapplicant.wordpress.com/2011/03/24/alternative-program-guides/
This is fucked. The philosophy of art list is linked to on the same page as the PG! Oh no! Thank god the link is dead.
This page is linked to from the SPEP page.
The PG is the kind of think that makes tolerant folk Part Line Analytics. I just might start carrying a card.
Have you ever had students that came out of someone like 8:31's class? Good lord. They have to be deprogrammed. And they are very resistant to treatment. It's painful.
8:31:
"capture the doxa"--if X-phi ever needed a bumpersticker, you got it.
1:17:
So I see you're toasting Amy too. Good for you.
wv: decli: not quite in decline
How many of the dumb comments here are Michael Fray or Elijah from Theoriekritik?
How many of the dumb comments on here are from Brian Leiter or one of his countless sycophants, like "Bizarre"?
The "stinky shit" explanation is, I think, pretty close to right, but let me try to elaborate a little bit.
It's likely that the people who have problems with the PGR are not just angry because someone came up with a methodologically unsound set of rankings (if indeed they are methodologically unsound)---they're upset because the rankings have become part of the fabric of the profession, very often dictating the decisions of graduate students on which programs to apply to/attend. In every department I've been in, the PGR has been the predominant factor in such decisions. Critics are likely to say that having a single set of rankings, based solely on a faculty's academic qualities, is an impoverished way of making those important decisions. Until the "Pluralist's Guide" has the sort of pervasive and overwhelming impact that the PGR has, critics of the PGR will likely not diagnose its flaws as readily, because it doesn't present the same sorts of problems.
@Anon 1:14 (on the 23rd), I've now fixed the link to the grad guide for aesthetics, and added some links to discussions surrounding the guide. FYI though, in case it wasn't obvious, the SPEP isn't really linking (intentionally) to my page, it's just a function of the fact that both sites are through wordpress and I linked to them, and their page was originally set up to show links to pages that link to them.
Don't confuse two very different kinds of "methodological" objections to PGR. One kind of objection attacks the various procedural, statistic elements of the rankings. Another objection attacks the fact that the rankings will necessarily directly reflect not actual quality (whatever that is), but perceived quality, and what is perceived as having quality will depend on a number of factors having nothing to do with quality: most significantly, (1) name recognition, and (2) how well the department's interests reflect the interests of the people doing the rankings.
So the second challenge isn't, actually, to the methodology as such. It can accept that ranking methodology will always be flawed. The objection is to the fact that the guy putting the rankings together clearly has a huge chip on his shoulder, is possibly the biggest douchebag around, and these two things are evidenced in his constant assurance that the PGR really *does* measure quality. The ad hominems are relevant here: if you obviously have some problem with most continental philosophy, but you mistakenly think that you are an expert on continental philosophy (sorry, bad Nietzsche doesn't make you an expert on anything after Nietzsche) it would be crazy to think that anything you personally say about the quality of continental programs can be taken seriously.
And Leiter has, frequently, used the following move:
(1) People claim the PGR is flawed because it claims continental programs are low quality.
(2) Continental programs *are* low quality.
(3) Therefore, (1) does not identify a flaw in PGR.
The problem is that (2) is crucial here. Either Leiter has to defend it by reference to the PGR--as he sometimes does--which is obviously circular. Or he defends it on his authority, which as I've noted is questionable (and really, he's said plenty of things about 20th Century continental that show he doesn't know much about it).
So look, if you think the flaw isn't in PGR methodology per se, but in the marketing that goes with it--that is, the claim that the PGR really does measure quality--then it makes perfect sense for you to come up with counterrankings. Yes, the methodological flaws will still be there, but what you'll have is a counter to an obviously one-sided view of quality.
July 27 12:03:
Your personal hatred and low opinion of Leiter himself is simply irrelevant here. If you look at the list of rankers for the PGR, you'll see that Leiter's own biases have next to no influence on the rankings. For many years now, the rankings have been produced by surveying hundreds of philosophers, including many continental philosophers. Leiter's opinion counts for no more than that of any of the other evaluators. The rankings reflect what hundreds of philosophers think of the programs. Perhaps they are all biased in exactly the way you claim Leiter to be biased. Looking at the names, available for all to see, that doesn't seem likely. But you can cling to that statistical improbability, if it makes you feel better.
Ok, this is a nicely fallacious way of setting it up: Here's a list of distinguished continental philosophers, that they're all biased is statistically unlikely, so Leiter's opinions are irrelevant. Here's an obvious reason why that's fallacious: Leiter picks the ranking committees. Duh.
Take a look at those committees. They're certainly pretty good. I know the work of most of the philosophers on them, and I respect it. I also notice that 19th and 20th century continental have a lot of committee overlap, which intuitively doesn't make that much sense (knowing Hegel and Nietzsche doesn't give one any special insight into phenomenology). I also note that Leiter is on the committee for 20th Century. One might also notice that the committees are light on anyone doing French philosophy, which is a large chunk of continental, a number of whose figures are still alive or were until recently (this creates problems for Leiter's insistence that "continental philosophy" is just a historical period). We also know that Leiter has expressed some negative views about Derrida. So it might stand to reason that, given his low opinion of a particular kind of continental philosophy, and his correspondingly low opinion of people who work on it, he didn't put them on the committees. Is that statistically improbable?
So it seems like Leiter's opinion counts quite a bit.
As for my "personal hatred and low opinion of Leiter": he's earned it. I really don't know anyone who is that frequently ready to insult people he disagrees with and simply dismiss differing views as coming from bad philosophers. I've read a fair bit of Leiter's work. Have you? It's surely competent philosophy. But is it really more than competent? Does it justify his extremely strong stated views of others' work? Does it justify his status as an "expert"?
"Leiter picks the ranking committees."
False.
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