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 new metric for each Institution. This will enable readers to get a more intuitive sense of how an Institution’s Specializations within an Area stack up against its overall score.

The new visualizations relate two main data points: 1) the overall Mean score determined by the PGR survey for each Institution, and 2) the Area Mean score, which I calculated by taking the average of the Rounded Mean scores throughout the scored specializations at an Institution. (This is because some institutions are recommended for a specialization, but were not rated.) I created two visualizations to illustrate this relationship: a scatter plot, and two adjacent bar charts. The purpose is to give readers a sense of how an Institution’s overall score compares with the scores of its Specializations within an Area.

I then calculated a third value I call the Adjusted Area Mean score, which multiplies the Area Mean score by the overall Mean score divided by 5, the maximum score. This enables us to tie Area Mean scores to Overall mean scores to get a sense of how strong an Institution is within an area in light of its overall score.

Here is a still from the scatter plot for the Philosophy of Science and Mathematics:

With this visualization, the relationship between an Institution’s strength in a particular area versus its overall strength is immediately clear. For example, the University of Pittsburgh stands quite prominently ahead of other departments in terms of its Area Mean in the philosophy of science, but is also quite highly rated according to its Overall Mean score, making it an excellent choice.

The adjacent bar charts are also conducive to such analyses. In the dashboard, which is linked at the bottom of this post, you can sort each institution by Area Mean or by Overall Mean:

These bar charts make the following sort of analysis quite straightforward: Suppose a student is interested in studying the philosophy of science. Pittsburgh, with its combination of Area expertise and overall quality seems like an excellent choice, having four highly-scored specializations to choose from (General Philosophy of Science, Cognitive Science, Philosophy of Biology, and Philosophy of Physics), as well as a recommendation for Philosophy of the Social Sciences.

But what comes next? Likely, the reasoning will involve weighing the Area Mean scores against the Overall Mean scores in order to identify strong programs within the philosophy of science that also have high overall scores, making both the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) and Harvard University solid choices–though with a preference for Michigan by a small margin. The difference between Carnegie Mellon and Oxford, however, is a bit more striking: Both have equivalently rated (and the same number of) specializations in the philosophy of science, but Oxford has a much higher overall rating (4.6) than Carnegie Mellon (2.6).

In making these choices, there are at least two ways of proceeding: First is to have a preference for programs with the highest Area scores but acceptable Overall scores. Second is to prefer programs that have the highest Overall scores but also have strong Area scores. The Adjusted Area Mean chart below offers scores based on the second option by scaling the Area Mean score with the Overall Mean score.

In the still below, we can see that the University of Pittsburgh leads the way in the Philosophy of Science by this metric, but not quite by as much as it might seem to according to the X axis of the scatter plot. Although Oxford University (Orange) and New York University (Blue) are weaker in the Area of the Philosophy of Science, their Overall Mean scores are high enough put them just behind Pittsburgh, which still appears by these metrics to be the strongest place to study the philosophy of science. Carnegie Mellon, to contrast, is much lower down on the list, with an Adjusted Area Mean Score score of 2.028.

Finally, it bears mentioning that these graphics are not supposed to make the decision about which programs to pursue easy by any stretch. There may be perfectly good reasons to pursue a high-scoring Specialization at an Institution with a lower Overall score and vice versa. The goal in presenting the data this way is to make the analysis and comparison process more intuitive.

You can find links to the dashboards below and on the main Visualizing the PGR page at the bottom. Feel free to click around!

• Metaphysics and Epistemology
• Philosophy of Science and Mathematics
• History of Philosophy
• Value Theory

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 top Institutions. Click the link below for the full writeup!

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 found here, and you can find a brief writeup for myself and other, wonderful incoming colleagues here.

I will be updating my photography website in due time to reflect this change of location–from dr_hk_birdnerd to dr_sk_birdnerd–and plan to explore the birds of South Korea and post my photos there regularly (once my camera arrives from Hong Kong).

My introductory paper on Zhuangist primitivism (creatively) titled, “Primitivism in the Zhuangzi: an Introduction”, has been accepted for publication in Philosophy Compass and should appear in the coming months.

An author’s preprint can be downloaded here.

28-8-2020 Update: The final published version can be accessed here: https://doi.org/10.1111/phc3.12700

Here is a preprint of my  book review of Lin Ma and Jaap Van Brakel’s Beyond the Troubled Waters of Shifei at Philosophy East and West.

Review of Ma and Van Brakel

Edit 13 July, 2020: the officially published version can be found here: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/759295

The following essay is forthcoming in International Philosophical Quarterly (June, 2020) entitled “Ethics in the Zhuangzi: Diversity and Sagacity”. Its content is largely based on the penultimate chapter of my PhD dissertation, and has benefited greatly from feedback at various international venues over the past few years. An author’s preprint of the essay can be downloaded here.

An abstract follows:

Philosophers in China during the Warring States period generally saw themselves as investigators into, disputers of, and leaders of others along the Dao 道—the uniquely authoritative Way to live and to flourish. However, certain voices found in the Zhuangzi offer a radical response to these philosophical projects by rejecting the premise that there exists such a uniquely authoritative Dao. Instead, they argue that there exist myriad, diverse dao, none of which has absolute, moral authority. But these very same texts that undermine the idea of an authoritative Dao simultaneously make positive ethical suggestions regarding how to live and flourish, exemplified by various sagely figures. In this paper, I explore texts in the Zhuangzi that discuss both the diversity of dao and sagely flourishing, and argue that these two themes come together to form the basis of a comprehensive ethical view that I call Zhuangist pluralism.

 

I’ll be migrating my wildlife photos—and perhaps all photos—to another wordpress site, www.frankswildlife.photos. Come check it out if you like my photos!

I’ve updated my information to reflect that I have received my PhD from the University of Hong Kong in 2019.

I’ve also added some photos to “Hiking” and “Random.”

The following article entitled “Xunzi and the primitivists on natural spontaneity (xìng 性) and coercion” will appear in Asian Philosophy 27:3 (DOI here). It explores a hypothetical debate between the ru 儒 philosopher Xunzi and the primitivist writers associated with the Daoist tradition concerning the value of natural, human spontaneity (xìng 性). The author’s preprint can be found here, while the Abstract follows:

This article explores two opposing views from Warring States China concerning the value of human natural spontaneity (hereafter xìng 性) and large-scale government coercion. On the one hand, the Ruist (Confucian) philosopher Xunzi championed a  comprehensive and coercive ethical, political, and social system or Way (dào 道) that he believed would lead to social order and moral cultivation while opposing people’s xìng.  On the other hand, the authors of roughly books 8-10 of Zhuangzi, the primitivists, criticized a Way bearing a striking resemblance to Xunzi’s on the grounds that it  seriously harms people by opposing their xìng. I argue that the primitivists offer compelling reasons for Xunzi to modify his own Way regarding its relationship with xìng, though their own proposed alternative Way is not very attractive. I conclude with a brief discussion of one primitivist-inspired alternative view found in the Lü Shi Chun Qiu, which plausibly suggests that one way of respecting people’s xìng is by offering them opportunities to explore their natural abilities.