Frank Saunders Jr 商柏正 – Analyst, Educator, and Philosopher
I'll be giving a talk on April 12th at Stockton University titled "Truth and Chinese Philosophy," which I am currently co-authoring with Jamin Asay (Purdue University). An abstract of the paper follows: A longstanding debate within comparative philosophy concerns what role (if any) the notion of truth plays in ancient Chinese philosophy. In this paper... Continue Reading →
Previously, I calculated the range of overall mean scores of PGR-ranked institutions from 2006-2021. This gave readers a sense of which institutions' scores changed the most over time. However, that analysis was limited in at least two key respects: First, the range is just one measurement of spread of a department's score's spread, and it... Continue Reading →
The other day, I had to calculate the weighted mean, standard deviation, and variance of a dataset using Python and I struggled to find reliable guidance that explained how the calculation worked. Here, I'll explain how I performed the calculations using the math and statistics libraries. Why use weighed values? Many of us assign different... Continue Reading →
I taught two sections of Critical Reasoning per semester at Yonsei University UIC for the past three semesters. Due to the pandemic, the first of the three was fully online. The second was a blended format, with lectures delivered online and discussion held in-person. The third was fully in-person. Each discussion meetings had as its... Continue Reading →
The following is a brief analysis of the Institutions whose mean scores swung the most since the 2006 PGR. Which Institutions saw the largest change in its overall mean score since 2006? Yale University (2021 overall rank 6) had a spread of 1-point over a cumulative increase in its mean score since 2006, which is... Continue Reading →
Upon making some progress with my Visualizing the Philosophical Gourmet Report (PGR) project using Excel and Tableau, I've decided to create a relational database of all the publicly-available PGR data and document the process on a new page: The PGR Database Project. The goal of both projects is to increase accessibility and utility of the... Continue Reading →
One useful comparison the PGR data allows us to make is between an Institution's scores within a certain Area of philosophy and its Overall score. However, the data is a bit cumbersome to navigate in table form, and so help improve the raw data's utility, I've added more visualizations for each major Area and a... Continue Reading →
I decided to try my hand at visualizing the PGR's data about the rankings and specialties of top philosophy programs in the English-speaking world. It was a lot of fun, and hopefully might be useful to somebody. Below is a sample screenshot of the bubble chart showing distributions of potential areas of specialization across the... Continue Reading →
I am pleased to announce that my paper, "Truth and Chinese Philosophy: A Plea for Pluralism" has been accepted for publication in Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy. My first ever published paper was on this very topic back in 2014, also in Dao, and so I'm very excited to be revisiting it in Dao... Continue Reading →
As of March 2021, I have started my new position as an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Yonsei University's Underwood International College in Songdo, South Korea. I am extremely grateful to be here, to be teaching both enthusiastic and talented students, and to be surrounded by enthusiastic, wonderful colleagues. My faculty profile page can be... Continue Reading →
Analysis by Frank Saunders Jr 