I'm going to follow up on my last post by asking people to nominate departments that they believe to be genuinely pluralist in the sense that I roughly defined in my previous post. There are some ground rules for this one that will be enforced with draconian precision.
1. Only positive nominations. If we get a reasonable response here, I may open the list of nominated up for discussion where you will be able to say that the department isn't really pluralist.
2. Only nominations that actually explain and try to justify the claim that the department in question is "reasonably pluralist". I'm interested in informed and supported claims. So if you simply want to say "x is obviously pluralist" don't bother. I don't require a detailed 20 page analysis, but some discussion of the various criteria I lay out below is needed. Ideally, please note strengths and weaknesses.
3. No discussion of other dimensions of pluralism. Yes, I know they are important. I'm eager to help on them. If anyone wants to start similar discussions along other dimensions I'll be glad to help. And yes, I acknowledge that from many reasonable perspectives, this is a trivial matter to be worrying about. No one is required to engage on this issue. But this is not a meta-thread on whether this is a good thread. (If you have a positive and serious suggestion for tweaking the methodology, feel free and I will use my discretion in posting that. But ideally, just note that you are defending a department on slightly different grounds in your defense.)
4. No comments about Brian Leiter, the PGR, the PR, SPEP, etc. I'm interested here in positive suggestions of departments that are doing it well, not denunciations.
1. Historical coverage. There would be people working in all the main areas of "common" history - ancient, medieval, early modern, Kant, etc. - as well as "both" other histories. An idea department would havee people working specifically on figures in early analytic, history of logic, pragmatists, 20th c French philosophers, post-Kantian German idealism, and more.
2. Integration of multiple historical figures, multiple approaches, multiple styles into work in contemporary philosophy. The idea department would be stocked with people who are eager to engage with Foucault and with Carnap in their work on epistemology. And so on for all the various areas. If metaphysics is treated as a uniquely "analytic" (or "continental") field, that is non-ideal. Same for ethics, political philosophy, aesthetics, etc. Ideal is for the production of philosophy to come from a place of pluralism.
3. Social engagement. A department with five ghettos that collectively cover everything but with no serious engagement across them, is not ideal. Not close. Ideal is a department in which the cognitive scientists talk to the Heidegger experts, in which the NYU educated metaphysician talks regularly with the Deleuze expert, in which the epistemologist from Arizona seeks out the New School social epistemologist.
4. This is not primarily an exercise in assessing overall how good a place is. (I know that a department can be good in some ways without being pluralist.) It is fine to mention how wonderful and distinguished x is, but the main point is pluralism.
So this isn't a ranking, and it is a bit of work, but I'm thinking that if folks make a reasonable case here - even with the caveat that any remark is just the advice of one particular person - it will serve as useful input to students interested in genuinely pluralist graduate programs.
Since I see this as advice, and since it matters who is giving it, I'd much prefer that people use real names here, but I won't be draconian about that. And it is also absolutely fine to endorse your own department. But be honest if you are doing so. Others can then take the recommendation with as large a grain of salt as they want. But especially on 3 above, we tend to know about this at our own department better than any outsider.
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